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Ingy döt Net Tells How Acmeism Bridges Gaps in the Software World (Video)
Ingy döt Net (yes, that's his name) likes to bridge gaps in the software world. People get religious about their favorite programming languages, he says, but in the end, no matter the language, the methodology or the underlying OS, all programming is about telling computers what to do -- from "add these numbers" to complex text manipulation. Ingy compares a new app or module in the world of Free and Open Source as a gift that the creator has given to others; if that gift can be simultaneously bestowed on users of Perl, Python, and Ruby at the same time, its worth is amplified. So he proposes (and provides a growing set of tools) to make programming language irrelevant, by the sly means of encouraging people to write software using whatever their favorite tools are, but with a leaning toward using only language features which are broadly available to *other* programming languages as well. He's adopted the term Acmeism to describe this approach; Acmeists who follow his lead strive to create software that is broadly re-useable and adaptable, rather than tied only to a single platform.
That's called "using C"...
He must have a very loving family
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
try{ ...
}
catch(roadrunner)
Always seems to fail for some reason, though.
He's going to overturn decades of experience, hard work, research, and language development because HE'S A REBEL!!!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Let's limit all software features to that which was available in GW BASIC.
You shouldn't.
This is easily the worst piece of non-news/mattering stuff ever.
Other than going back to assembler (or rather its modern equivalent "C"), there is no way to do what he proposes even if we stay in the imperative class of languages. OO is also possible with C, but no compiler support whatsoever and that means most people cannot do it. Then we have functional languages which cannot reasonably be emulated in C. And we have logical languages, with the same problem. With a bit of a broader focus, CA systems like Mathlab also qualify as "programming environments", and again, they cannot reasonably be emulated in C. And don't even get me started on things like garbage collection, weak pointers, coercion, multiple inheritance, static type safety, dynamic type safety, covariant or conform inheritance (Eiffel), etc.
So while this person may have a fancy (or rather stupid) name, he has no clue about programming and this is about the most stupid thing one could propose.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
...because it looks like that's the one he hurt thinking up this stuff.
...or, you know, not.
Christ, what a douchebag.
"Everyone, wait! It's all just 1s and 0s! I'VE SOLVED ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS!"
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I wonder if Ingy stopped for a minute to think why people create different programming languages. They sure did it to make things harder for programmers right? Who would think that non ordinary language features might help anyone do his work better / quicker / use less resources?
Why is this idiot in the front page?
He says people get religious with programming languages. Keeping with the metaphor, this guy is a crazy iconoclast that will dynamite the Budhas in Afghanistan or all art in the Byzantine empire just because "he doesn't get it"
now get off my lawn
From his web site:"Most computer programmers learn one programming language."
Umm...I'm sure I've ever met a programmer who only knew one language. Even in college, I had to navigate six (mainframe and PC assembler, COBOL, C, C++, FORTRAN) in coursework and 3 more (Perl, Java and Javascript) in my campus job, not to mention all the scripting and compiling environments I had to navigate to get things to work.
The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.
The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages.
Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.
But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.
I actually listened to the whole thing (and that's a few minutes of my life I wish to have back) and he seems to be focused on scripting languages -- PERL, Javascript, PHP, etc. I'll save you a few minutes: he wants us all to focus our dev efforts on only those language features that are common across his in-scope languages. Further, once you've written something in your favorite scripting language, you should port that "gift" to the other in-scope languages to give your "gift" the widest possible distribution.
In short, Acmeism consists of a quintupling of your workload by asking you to port everything you write multiple times. The whole language evangelism thing apparently bugs him and he's opting out.
Most computer programmers learn one programming language.
I think the technical term usually referred to those programmers is "unemployed". It could be argued that other acceptable terms are, "lazy", "dinosaurs", "students", and "People who switched to a major like Business or Human Resources after they realized Comp Sci was too tough for them."
I don't know a single good programmer who only knows 1 language... Many I know will try to at least get familiarized with a new language 1 or 2 years.
Comparing knowing a number of computer languages to a number of spoken languages is absurd.
Two computer languages is probably closer to the difference in writing a novel in English vs a screenplay in English. It's mostly format and structure for most languages.
We did this when I started college in 2005. One class was pure flow charts and Warnier/Orr Diagrams(and the professor of the class wrote the book for the class, so, generally, he was right), the next class we had to diagram out all our C programs before writing a line of code. Then we finally got into OO programming and the diagrams kinda went out the window.
For those who don't know, Ingy is a fairly prolific Perl developer [1]. The position he espouses here is quite typical of folks developing modern Perl. The crux of it is that it is better to provide an interface or API for a smaller bit of code that is easily spoken with than one tucked away in the bowels of a massive framework that's tied to a specific language. This position is really a reiteration of Ken Thompson's Rule of Modularity within the Unix Philsophy [2].
To me, this is a noble design goal because it allows developers to use the programming languages they're comfortable with and/or those that best fit the task at hand. I feel that this general principle has been the guiding force behind Google developing Protocol Buffers [3] and Facebook developing Thrift [4]. Software seems easier to build in small pieces that interoperate than if the developers try to build a monolithic and homogenous system all in one go.
It saddens me to see so many folks dismiss this position as a "fad" when it's one of the points to the open source movement.
when doing interviews. Buddy looks he fucked on too many T3's
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the Dutch. - Nigel Powers
Glad to see that contemporary programming is finally taking more influence from early 20th-century Russian poetry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acmeism
Where to start. First of all, let me make a nod to (http://www.swig.org/) a tool that makes binding C and C++ to other languages easier. The technology to provide code to many languages is a largely solved problem. Write what you can in C and bind it to the world.
The notion that you can have an abstract programming language that just maps into a bunch of platforms is quite a ways off. The demand for it just doesn't exist. UML tried this in the late 90s, and it mostly failed (there was some traction in real time systems engineering).
The lack of code reuse is not due to a single language mindset, a unwillingness to share. Writing reusable code is just hard. It requires careful design and a lot of effort.
There no easy way around the lowest common denominator problem. Sure, it's easy to map printing a line to a console to a bunch of platforms. But, when you get past what the basic of the standard C library calls, you pretty much just end up creating yet another platform and language, compounding the problem. We just don't have the design experience or languages yet to express many programming tasks abstractly and effectively.
He is a cool guy with a good heart, who has done some very memorable Perl community presentations. I saw one or two of them some years ago and enjoyed meeting him very much at the time. He has like 150 perl modules to his name.