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Building a Programmer's Rosetta Stone

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the still-waiting-for-programmer's-tower-of-babel dept.

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.

8 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. No Fair! by Watson+Ladd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
  2. Usage by mgiuca · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Usage by cp.tar · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

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  3. Should I be impressed? by Fulkkari · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

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    1. Re:Should I be impressed? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

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      liqbase :: faster than paper
  4. Re:It may prove useful. by arevos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  5. Re:Pointless, don't bother! by JoshJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  6. Re:It may prove useful. by arevos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.