Slashdot Mirror
Programming Languages For Coding the Physical World
snydeq writes: Stuffing bits in databases is boring, InfoWorld's Peter Wayner writes, so why not program everything around you? "The barrier between bits and atoms is disappearing, with programmers no longer confined to the virtual realm, in part thanks to the Internet of things becoming more real. Now we can do more than write ones and zeros to a disk: We can actually write code that tells a machine how to extrude, cut, bend, or morph atoms," Wayner writes in a survey of programming languages. "Rapidly developing domains such as autonomous cars, smart homes, intelligent office spaces, and mass customization require programmers to be savvy about how changes in data structures can lead to changes in objects. If the term "object-oriented programming" weren't already taken, it would be perfect."
You've lost the plot.
That was horrible. Who is the audience for that crap?
since most programmers couldn't program their way out of an open paper bag.
Nuff said.
I've been a software engineer for 10 years now, and I also do machining as a hobby. I have no idea what I just read. What the Hell was the point of that article? Here are some languages bundled into an article because....reasons?
https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en
"Stuffing bits into a database is boring"? Maybe to some people, but as a database engenner (yes I have a CS degree), who deals with huge databases with thousends (or more) complex relationships, I've always found database theory fastinating. In any case, I'm not sure what "boring" relationship this has to writing code the "tells a machine how to extrude, cut, bend, or morph atoms". I smell many buzz words purcolating out of this guy...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
>> Now we can do more than write ones and zeros to a disk: We can actually write code that tells a machine how to extrude, cut, bend
Keep it up. You'll invent programmable robots and automated control systems within a week at that pace.
. . . warns you to stop before you rip a hole in the fabric of reality.
Either it is alluding to nuclear reactor control software or this article is utter technobabble.
The significance of this article is unclear. I suppose the OP is pointing out the fact that programming languages are becoming more specific and 'tangible' to real-world applications.
Today, many of the new markets and opportunities for developers live in the real world. Rapidly developing domains such as autonomous cars, smart homes, intelligent office spaces, and mass customization require programmers to be savvy about how changes in data structures can lead to changes in objects.
I think this quote is sort of the thesis of the article. Even still it's really ambiguous. What opportunities don't live in the 'real world'? Does he mean that information transfer isn't 'physical'? Or is he specifically talking about robotics? User-interfaces? This person needs to work on clarity, and this article should not have been posted on Slashdot.
Wow - that takes me back to the 70s.... Age of Aquaruis type stuff...
So is there ANYTHING that cannot seem profound under the correct combination of drugs/food/music/etc... ?
Thank you everyone who braved that tripe so later ./ers could avoid losing brain cells.
What a bunch of garbage fluff. One of the worst stories on /. ever.
Physically Object Oriented Programming
I've always maintained definitions of the 'enthusiast' and the 'professional' when it comes to sufficiently technical fields. The enthusiast reads some media briefs, becomes enamored with some tech, wanders into his imagination in order to describe what the tech is actually capable of, then writes articles like this talking about how awesome their tech is and what it can do, while sitting in a coffeehouse waiting for their freelancer's paycheck to clear. These articles spawn another generation of 'enthusiasts', and the enthusiasts swirl around each other in a whirlpool of 'factoids' and buzzwords while other people try to extract money from them with silly books and scam kickstarters
The professional in the field has an actual job and deliverables and has no time for any of the aforementioned nonsense. New professionals are created when intelligent people read those articles and goes 'the fuck is this shit', then does actual technical research.
I used to blame Kurzweil for a lot of this but it goes back much further in history.
Programming in bits is boring, why not program in bits but make it sound like something totally different!
Epic. Mention postscript; mention X10 (Not a language), don't mention Forth.
The article is aimed at getting more people interested in programing as a career. Big companies are not happy about how much time and effort (and money) they spend woo-ing programmers, and the also don't like all the H1-B heat they're taking.
Solution: make everyone a programmer.. EVERYONE. Goal will be reached when kernel hacking is a minimum wage job.
If you think this is far-fetched, you're not paying attention.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
wow, we could call things created by such machines as Cyber Numary Created or CNC. I think CNC machining could actually be viable simply by using D/A converters and stepper motors on traditional mills, lathes, breakers, etc. or maybe it's just crazy talk.
You'll always need low-level and high-level skills. C and C# are my choices. Assembler and knowledge of computer architecture is great too. Computing is always being pushed to the limit, so established computer engineering techniques (e.g., algorithms) will need to be implemented in a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... no matter what the "platform."
Is it too much to ask that the posts actually, I don't know, have a thesis? What is the topic of discussion here?
Why don't we just go to the bus station downtown and transcribe the ravings and mumblings of the first street person we meet? That might actually be more informative that these posts.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Wow! What a pointless article - and lousy languages for "programming the world" - My take (being doing this for 15+ years in heavy industry) is:
IEC61131-3
Cheers
heh — i thought he was referring to some sort of real-time OS that was able to handle interrupts with really low-latency, or something devised in LISP which dealt with high-level feature-abstraction about real-world objects.
meh — he's just talking about languages with which you programme controllers — and the current languages which are already adequate to that.
"Object-Centric Programming"
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Since you present a refreshing change by actually listening to Slashdot users, please make some effort to stop content-free articles like this. Thank you!
Enterprise Architects believe in this stuff you know.
Delphi Object Pascal (or on Linux, FreePascal & Lazarus IDE, an almost EXACT clone of ->) http://www.embarcadero.com/pro...
* FASTEST RISER IN THE TIOBE INDEX 2014-present -> http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_ind...
(TOP 10, again, & up from WHO KNOWS WHERE... not too shabby!)
Delphi "got ahold of me" back in 1997 (though I used it from version 1.0 in 16-bit as far back as 1995 professionally for Goulds Pumps, a then Fortune 500) where in, of ALL places, a competing language's trade journals (Visual Basic Programmer's Journal Sept./Oct. 1997 issue titled "INSIDE THE VB5 COMPILER") it took 4/6 tests (losing only 1, which C++ did also, in a dead tech now of ActiveX forms loads which VB actually won, & tying 1 w/ MSVC++) & SWEEPING THE FLOOR with MSVC++ & VB5 - actually LITERALLY more than DOUBLING even C++ in Math & Strings work (which, face it, EVERY program works with)).
APK
P.S.=> Why change? Especially when I've created a "best of breed" program in it that gives users more speed, security, reliability & even anonymity than ANY other SINGLE "so-called 'solution'" out there, for FAR LESS resource consummation:
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit http://www.start64.com/index.p...
Highly RECOMMENDED & HOSTED by none other than Malwarebytes' hpHosts admin no less proven safe by him & 60++ antivirus tests... apk
learn perl or die;
When I read the description, I thought "Ah, someone's trying to re-invent G-code". Then I read the article and realized, "No, someone's just _discovered_ g-code".
Well done. Only took them about 20 years. Not sure why the achievement merits an article. ("News Flash: BASIC exists!")
Doubly not sure why the article even rated a mention in /.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
Yeah, I'm thinking that's too complicated for today's technology. Though, I am kind of curious as to how they're gonna go about bending an atom. That's gonna be a minute. I'm no physicscologist or nuffin' but that sounds pretty hard.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
can't be any harder than spoon bending
My mother did this, way back. I still don't understand why there needs to be a mirror facing out the house back door.. but it must work because no evil has entered that way since she put it up.
While everyone seems to agree the 12 selected programing languagnes are bad, I haven't seen too many suggestions of improvements.
I found the omission of AutoLISP odd since it certainly seems to have been the main language of 3D printing a while back.
Agreed, PostScript is essentially an implementation of Forth and naming the parent language would have been smarter.
SVG is supported by most browsers these days, but doesn't seem to have taken off in a big way for some reason. I still see it as an important technology one day.
What are the suggestions for what the list should have contained?
If it works, it's obsolete
I realize that all these other comments hate the article, but I could relate to a couple points. I'm programming a 3D scanner right now with Python and STL files, and they work great.
More nonsense.
and they asked about how microcontrollers are doing.
So, cars have had computers for the last 30 years, washing machines have had computers for 30 years and we have more tiny computers in our computers (such as a battery charge controller?)
Washing machine have gained a useful feature : two-digit display that tells an estimate of the time remaining.
What more do we really need? Why does an oven need more than some tiny mechanical bell and turning the heat off when time is elapsed?
Why does an "environment control" system needs to snitch on you whereas one-way data (from the environment TO the object) would suffice? e.g. time of day, luminosity etc. for a window that opens and closes or curtains that slide themselves etc.
There may not have been "IoT" and voice recognition to toggle the lights, but when I grew up there was already an industry infrastructure that had put CPUs in a lot of things. The VCR, Game Boy, microwave, toys, CD player, TV, ad nauseam. So most "things" that would benefit from having a CPU already have one.
Now about maker skills. So, I'm informed I can spend $300 on a printer to make small one-piece plastic objects. But how to do basic sewing? How much does a sewing "starter kit" cost? No one under 35 does that anymore lol.