Building a Programmer's Rosetta Stone

Did you ever run into the problem where you knew how to do something in one programming language, but really needed to do it in another? That's what Rosetta Code is all about. A variety of programming tasks are solved using as many languages as possible. You can examine existing tasks, or create your own.

Comments

No Fair!

[Watson Ladd]

A lot of the tasks assume imperative programing, e.x. assigning values to an array. This should be about algorithms that we can all implement, not code fragments that assume a particular style of programing.

Usage

[mgiuca]

I'm not sure the right idea is to "know how to do something" in a particular language. If programmers are encouraged to learn algorithms specific to a particular language, how will they ever adapt once their pet language sinks? (By using an algorithm repository to re-learn rote code?)

At any rate, I think this site has already encountered a problem which is only going to escalate as it grows: code isn't cross-indexed properly at all. For example, there are many "programming tasks" with solutions in C, but there is nothing on the C page. I think this problem stems from the fact they used MediaWiki.

MediaWiki's great for something like... well, Wikipedia. But it doesn't support a cross-referenced database like this. The wiki concept is good for this site, but the server needs to be running some software designed better to the task.

Re:Usage

[cp.tar]

I'm not sure the right idea is to "know how to do something" in a particular language. If programmers are encouraged to learn algorithms specific to a particular language, how will they ever adapt once their pet language sinks? (By using an algorithm repository to re-learn rote code?)

But this kind of thing should be very good for someone learning a new language - you know how to do it in one language, now you're looking it up in another one... like learning the most common phrases first when learning a natural language.

I hope this project will amount to something; it can be really useful.

Should I be impressed?

[Fulkkari]

The site has absolutely no real content. There are only a couple of pages on the whole site. The most advanced thing found there is something along the lines of how to open a file with mIRC scripting (no C/C++/Java) and that bash scripts (usually) start with #!/bin/bash. Oh, please. Should I be impressed?

Re:Should I be impressed?

[LiquidCoooled]

It got to the frontpage because its an interesting idea.
The firehose will help with things like this.

I agree it was empty and its implimentation feels flawed, but it gives a baseline for thoughts other people may be having.
I know *I* have been thinking about this since I saw it and how it should/could be once filled.

It gets a thumbs up from me.

Re:It may prove useful.

[arevos]

But as a seasoned programmer I also know that some tasks can't be ported. A more efficient method is to actually resolve the problems at link time since most object files doesn't really care about which language you use. If you look at the programming tasks the website attempts to translate, you'll notice that they are extremely basic and generic. I don't think the aim of the website is to translate some complex library into another language; rather to provide a learning resource where programmers can see how to map simple tasks from one language to another, which presumably will help them better understand a new language. Remember that the original Rosetta stone was used for a similar purpose.

This site could be useful, but MediaWiki doesn't seem the best tool to use, and the content so far is rather sparse. I'm uncertain whether this will prove a success; it's an interesting concept, but many interesting concepts have fallen by the wayside.

Re:Pointless, don't bother!

[JoshJ]

Right now it may be "pointless" for someone looking at it. It is certainly not "pointless" for contributing to it. Posting it to /. , technocrat, and similar means that it will get exposed to a lot of potential contributors.

Re:Pointless, don't bother!

[Zadaz]

Then add something.

Whoops, my fault. Being a hater is easier.

But...

[Brandybuck]

But all Real Programmers know all languages! At least that's what Slashdot keeps telling me...

AC: Stupid article, the guy could have used Haskell and solved his problems
BB: But maybe he didn't know Haskell?
AC: Then he deserves get fired!

Re:But...

[arevos]

An old saying: "Jack of all trades, master of none."

This is true for programming as well. You can aquire a deep understanding of a few languages, or basic survival skills in dozens. Aquiring a deep understanding in dozens of languages is a truly exceptional feat. I agree that it's difficult to acquire a deep understanding of most languages. One can study Java and all its related libraries and frameworks for years and still not learn it all. Indeed, my last job was as a Java programmer, and whilst I'm pretty familiar with several web frameworks, libraries and GUI toolkits, I have little knowledge about, say, the SecurityManager class, or J2ME, or JMS.

But on the other hand, I disagree that a deep understanding of a single language is more useful than a working knowledge of a dozen (as you seem to imply). A good programmer needs to know the limitations of the environment that he or she is working in, and the only way to do this is via comparison. Furthermore, learning different languages exposes you to different ways of thinking about a problem; if you don't learn a good spread of languages, your perspective is severely limited, and this naturally affects your ability to solve problems efficiently. To use a metaphor, I believe stepping back and seeing the whole wood is more important than gaining detailed information about a single tree.

Finally, I'm not sure I'd say that the only alternative to a deep understanding is "basic survival skills". Perhaps instead:

You can aquire a deep understanding of a few languages, or a good working knowledge in dozens.

Re:It may prove useful.

[arevos]

Just out of curiosity, why not? And what would you suggest instead? A Wiki is essentially just an editable website. It must be manually ordered; tables of contents put in, pages linked to other pages, and so forth. This is find for data that has a very general structure, such as an encyclopaedia or a manual of some kind. But the Rosetta Stone concept is highly structured, cross-referencing programming languages with programming problems, and it seems to me as if this cross-referencing would be better done automatically, rather than making several Wiki pages and maintaining them manually. The site concept would be better suited to some sort of customised CMS, or perhaps something designed from scratch.

Re:It may prove useful.

[Raffaello]

Only if you're allowed to write an interpreter or compiler for the more powerful language in the less powerful one.

This is what has been called the "Turing Tarpit." In a formal logical sense, all turing complete languages are equivalently powerful. But that means that punching holes in a paper tape by hand is technically as powerful as a high level language. We have high level languages so that we don't have to twiddle ones and zeroes.

High level languages themselves differer in expressiveness. They can all accomplish the same tasks, but some languages make certain tasks a whole lot easier. For some language pairs, the only way to easily accomplish certain tasks in the less powerful language is to write what amounts to "an ad-hoc, informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of " the more powerful language.

As a consequence, there is no "basic" or "generic" list of programming tasks. Tasks that one has become accustomed to do in many languages are a non-issue in some other languages. "Design Patterns" in some languages don't exist in certain others because the language itself makes them unnecessary (see Google's director of search quality, and AI expert Peter Norvig's treatment of the subject especially this slide)

A site like Rosetta Code could only be useful for languages that are so similar that they essentially differ mostly in surface syntax. For languages much different than this their whole paradigms are different, and many of the tasks themselves are no longer the same.

Re:Pointless, don't bother!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It must have hit the front page.

The whole idea of a wiki is for the community to build the content. The Rosetta Code is rather new, of course it's not complete. But it's a damned good idea, and deserves wider advertising so that the wiki will be filled!

However, having said that, I agree, which is why I wasn't sure about firehosing this journal entry just yet. Better to let the professional FOSS experts at Technocrat have a crack at it first.