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Ingy döt Net Tells How Acmeism Bridges Gaps in the Software World (Video)

Posted by timothy on from the one-for-all-and-all-for-one dept.

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.

14 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Been doing that since ages... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's called "using C"...

    1. Re:Been doing that since ages... by Desler · · Score: 4, Funny

      Hipsters don't learn C. It's too hard for them.

    2. Re:Been doing that since ages... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's called "using C"...

      Kind of. What you actually end up with is "the lowest common denominator"... a language that does everything, but with none of the advantages other languages are known for.

      That's why you never see survivalists and electricians both using Swiss Army Knives as their primary tools.

  2. Acmeism? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    try{ ...
    }
    catch(roadrunner)

    Always seems to fail for some reason, though.

    1. Re:Acmeism? by suutar · · Score: 3, Funny

      that's the problem. Roadrunners don't get thrown, so they can't get caught this way. He should be catching Anvil, Fire, MeWhenSteppingOffCliff, and some other stuff. But for the roadrunner issue he needs to be using roadrunner.halt(). The problem, of course, is getting a handle to the roadrunner instance.

    2. Re:Acmeism? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 3, Funny

      You need a finally { fallOffCliff(); } block.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  3. Yay, another hipster programming messiah!!! by TWiTfan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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."
    1. Re:Yay, another hipster programming messiah!!! by losfromla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm approaching that too and thinking about becoming a hipster.
      The thing is, why not?
      I mean, who really cares?
      Do I care what younger people think? No
      Do I care what older stodgy people or people my age think? No
      Am I going to die and no one will care anyway? Yes
      Do I care that some AC thinks it is a ridiculous way to be? No
      Is there a non-zero chance that some hot chick will find me interesting enough? Yes
      decision made.

      I haven't done it but I think that people have the right to be as ridiculous as we want to be. It is our life after all and we only get one and why should we be repressed during its short span?

      --
      Only I can judge you.
  4. Further proof that Igny has no clue by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Further proof that Igny has no clue by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      I just met this guy the other day at Starbucks, he's a comp sci major. Knows 2 whole languages. C# and Java.

      Seriously. CS major, managed languages. I really hope he's using "unsafe" and pointers but I doubt it.

      The important question is, did he get your order right?

  5. From The Tao of Programming by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  6. A Perl/Unix Way of Thinking by srollyson · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. https://metacpan.org/author/INGY
    2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy
    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_Buffers
    4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Thrift
  7. Reuse not a matter of will... by ndykman · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:Ingy döt Net by losfromla · · Score: 3, Funny

    you must have felt like a total douchebag

    --
    Only I can judge you.