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Optimizing Development For Fun
chromatic writes "Geoff Broadwell has written an analysis of optimizing an open source project for fun, specifically the Pugs project. Broadwell argues that making development fun and easy leads to higher quality code and a faster velocity of development, even when implementing a frivolous project (a toy Perl 6 interpreter) in an uncommon language (Haskell). The Pugs leader, Autrijus Tang, will speak about both Pugs and Haskell at EuroOSCON."
Mainly, Python is powerful but has a deliberately shallow learning-curve. The most often-cited reasons are the following Python mantras:
- Everything is an object
- Syntax is simple and predictable (but feels a little odd if you're coming from C, C++, Perl, Java, etc)
- There's one obvious way to do it. (Contrast with Perl's, "There's more than one way to do it.")
- Batteries included (comes with a large library of modules)
Pretty sure there are more, but these are the biggies that I can recall. These are the same reasons that many quote for using Ruby as well, but I got around to trying it yet.
I used to be a big fan of Tcl for it's insanely shallow learning curve. (Even more so than Python.) I wrote a usuable Tk (GUI) app within the first hour of even hearing about it. Too bad it didn't really catch on and mature as well as Python and Perl did over the same time-frame because it really is a nifty language.
The release tarball will be available from CPAN shortly:
With two months of development, this release features more tightly integrated JavaScript and Perl5 code generator backends, a library interface to the Pugs system via support for the Haskell Cabal frameworks, as well as many new tests.
After the release, the push toward 6.28.0 will begin in earnest, with the newly specified container model and object model integrated back to the main runtime, fleshing out support for the remaining OO features.
Again, thanks to all the lambdacamels for building this new ship with me. :)
Enjoy!
/Autrijus/
Changes for 6.2.10 (r7520) - Oct 10, 2005
Feature Changes
Shared components
JavaScript backend
Perl 5 backend
That shouldn't be called "Avoid Recusion," because you're not really avoiding recursion. What you're doing (as the wiki itself explains) is abstracting it into a higher-order function. Still a pretty damn important technique that one should master in functional languages--recognizing the "shape" of a loop (is it a map? a left or right fold? an unfold?), and implementing the looping logic as a higher-order function separately from its specific uses.
Are you adequate?
I meant that Pugs started as a frivolous project in the same sense that the Linux kernel started as a frivolous project and as much as any learning experience refactorable into useful, non-frivolous code is frivolous.
I'm not sure when Autrijus realized what he had, but I'm sure he didn't intend to write a full-fledged Perl 6 implementation with pluggable backends targeting Perl 5, Parrot, the JVM, and JavaScript, at least not at first.
how to invest, a novice's guide
I think that that's where the unit tests come in. If something doesn't compile, or it doesn't pass the unit tests, then it cannot be checked in. There could also be known-good checkpoints, which enable users and possibly even developers to work on something that should work.
Ewige Blumenkraft.
All good. But don't get confused between static and strong typing. Python is dynamically and strongly typed, not weakly typed.
EXAMPLE:
./test.py
def test(arr = []):
return arr
t = test()
t.extend(["hello", "world"])
u = test()
print u
RESULT:
$
hello
hello hello
REASON:
the default value expression is evaluated once, when the function
object is created, and the resulting object is bound to the argument.
FIX / WORKAROUND:
if you want to create a new object on every call, you have to do
that yourself:
def __init__( self, myList=None):
if myList is None:
myList = [] # create a new list
self.myList = myList
*darn*, i totally bogged up the result:
./test.py
RESULT:
$
> ["hello", "world"]