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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.

3 of 164 comments (clear)

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

    try{ ...
    }
    catch(roadrunner)

    Always seems to fail for some reason, though.

  2. 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
  3. 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?