*waves at Faré* Hey, buddy! How are you? When will Tunes R1 come out?:)
Do you have any idea as to how many LispM units were sold by Symbolics or LMI? If any of them are still running and/or for sale? (Particularly on South America...) Technical specs, programming info, etc. would also be nice... I'm looking to increment my retrocomputing collection...
By the way, I've been getting a lot of Internal Server Errors too. It especially amuses me that they haven't even bothered to change the default Apache error page... it still says something to the effect of "admin@yoursite.com". Apparently, the new release of Slashcode is still sub-optimal. So much for "Cathedral and the Bazaar"... (Just kidding!)
In general, I'd agree with you, but there are actually many instances where index() and substr() work much better than regexes. They're faster too. It's very unfortunate that so many Perl programmers don't know how to use them - and at DALNet #perl we usually try to encourage people to use these functions instead of hacking up a regex-based kluge.
An example, just OTTOMH: say you're reading in a pipe-delimited file, where you want to grab only the second field (which, say, holds a "name" field). Compare the two approaches:
Sure, the second one is smaller, but it's slower and takes up more memory - for chrissakes, it has to split the entire line just to grab the second piece!
Here's another ubiquitous use of substr() - the somewhat obligatory quine, in the traditional AqABqB format:
Lars: Mr Lawyer Guy, here are our answers to the Slashdot interview. hands over floppy disk
Mr Lawyer guy:opens floppy disk, looks at file...
This is all a big misunderstanding, dude! Like, we support MP3s and Napster and all that gnarly stuff! We can't get enough of them Britney Spears MP3s! But our label is forcing us to keep quiet about it!
Q: Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
Yeah, man! This is censorship! It sucks! We'd break our contract if we could!
...
Mr Lawyer Guy (types):Ctrl+A Delete
Mr Lawyer Guy (types):
The band Metallica actively opposes MP3s and Napster, which constitute theft of our intellectual property.
Q: Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
No. Everything in this interview is the personal opinion of the band members themselves.
Mr Lawyer Guy (types):Ctrl+A Ctrl+C
Mr Lawyer Guy (clicks):Start > Programs > Outlook Express
Mr Lawyer guy (on phone): Yeah, VALinux/Andover/Slashdot? This is Lars of Metallica. I'm sending you the answers to the interview by email. Uhrm... gnarly, and stuff. Okay, bye.
The only problem I have with it is it is so UN*X centric that it ignores the vast number of Very Very high level development environments that are available on more "traditional" platforms.
As well as newer, research-oriented languages and platforms which are to Unix and Perl as those are to, say, CTSS and assembly.
For low level problems there is nothing better than a low level language. Extremely sophisticated high level languages like C++ plus STL will always disappoint becuase they are centered around coding tecniques rather than problem solving.
I'm sorry, buty I don't consider C++ to be much sophisticated, or even high-level. It's just as low-level as it was in the days when it was merely the preprocessor Cfront. It's still little more than a portable assembly language with some more-or-less-OO features tackled on. (See my recent post on compared "OO" languages for more on that.) As far as I'm concerned, C++ is mid-level at best; traditional-ish and imperative but relatively abstracted languages such as Perl and Python are high-level, and only those which are radically different from the way in which the computer actually operates (pure functional languages such as Haskell, logic languages such as Prolog, rewriting languages such as Maude, pure OO languages such as Self) can truly be called very high-level. (Of course, some languages span much of the spectrum, such as Common Lisp, which allows you to program at any necessary level of abstraction, from C-like programming with unboxed values, hard pointers and - gasp! - even a GOTO form, to something close to VHL - it fully supports functional programming, and I myself once wrote a three-page "PRolog In Common Lisp" embedder.)
Incidently if you are interested in a programing language where you could insert a diagram try XEROXes "MESA". It alowed you to use the normal VP wordprocessor as your editor. Text in "courier new" was considered compileable code, everything else was comments -- a very neat trick which I have never seen emulated in any other language!
Hrrrm. I might note that this isn't really the best way do do things - it's a better idea to use a structured writing tool such as LyX, with output indicative of content semantics, not of content layout, to write literate programs (as described by Knuth), and have in conjunction with a program (maybe even a plug-in for said editor) to "weave" these programs into compileable code and formatable text, as needed.
In blatant self-contradiction, I now present a hastily written Perl filter which, as requested, turns an HTML file into Perl code.
#!/your/path/to/perl -w
undef $/; $file = <>;
print '#!/usr/bin/perl -w'; print "# $1\n" if m!<title>(.*)</title>!i; print "# Preprocessed from $ARGV[0] on ", localtime(time), "\n";
print "# PART $c\n$1\n\n" while m!<font.* face="courier new".*>(.*)</font>!ig && $c++;
... how many outraged flames I would receive by email following the inauguration of my own hypothetical ultra-hyped-up gaming site, MachoGamers.com, featuring a rendition of the planet Jupiter with the male symbol on it as the background picture?
Jokes aside, this whole thing boggles me. I fail to understand how "men are inferior to women" is in any way a better ideology than "women are inferior to men". I fail to understand why men who want men-only institutions are chided and labeled as chauvinistic pigs, while more and more women-specific organisations, web sites and special interest groups show up. (On that last one: I can see why a minority needs a special interest group, but women, making up more than half of the Earth's population, are hardly a minority anywhere.)
I thought the "women's movement" was about equality - to be respected and considered as fellows and worthy competitors to men - and not about a "war against men", moved apparently by little other than vengeance.
To clarify, I myself am not a sexist of any kind; I believe in civil equality. However, that seems to be far from the case whereas the "women's movement" is concerned, and I'd like to understand that. Otherwise, I'd just give up and say the world has gone crazy.
(Nice article, by the way.)
Moderators take note: the above post was not a troll, nor was it flamebait.
but it was slower than the second coming of Christ!
You mean that already happened?!?!? Dammit, they forgot to send me a memo! I specifically left orders to be notified on J-day! Damn that incompetent Peter-- oh wait, you mean he's the boss now? Oh, sorry... I'll just go back to my cave for another couple of millenia now...
(Chalk that up as my piece of pointless anti-Catholic humour for the day...)
Yeah, but it was Osterhout who came up with the idea of a scripting language in the first place. Granted, as an implementation of this idea, I'd argue that Perl was far more successful, as well as more useful in general, than Tcl... but still, it was Osterhout who thought of it first.
Cringely spent an entire article a while ago discussing this very issue (damned if I can find it now, though...). First of all, is Microsoft really making the X-Box? In fact, there are two questions here - what the X-Box means now, and what the X-Box might mean in the future - if or whenever the Great Master of Vapourware at Redmond ever see fit to go ahead and actually build the damned thing; this might happen by 2001, it might happen by 2003 or it might not happen at all, depending on just how important Microsoft believes gaming consoles to be.
However, the first question can be answered right away. At the moment, the X-Box is Microsoft's way of telling the Big Console Makers (Sega and Nintendo also, but especially Sony), "if you don't watch your back, we can easily invade your turf... we can take over your market just like we took over every other market in which we were ever interested". In doing this, they make sure that the BCMs shy away from their current attitude of promoting the next-generation consoles as PC replacements, and focus instead on reinforcing and protecting their own established turf so that Microsoft won't be able to annihilate them with the X-Box. This, in turn, leaves Microsoft's reign over the PC market untouched.
Will the strategy work? Will the X-Box ever be released? Will the gaming console replace the PC in the near future? All these things remain to be seen.
I agree with you in part, but pigeonholing all of OO as obscurantist and overcomplicated is as erroneous as overhyping it as if it were the Second Coming. There is nothing wrong with the motivation behind OO itself; the problem lies mainly in implementation. Specifically, what we now consider to be "OO programming languages" and "OO design practices" goes far beyond the original concept of both, and much of it is indeed obscurantist nonsense, which induces a huge amount of needless overhead, both of the conceptual kind on the designer and of the practical kind on the implementer. This is especially true in the case of small to medium software projects, even more so because often designer and implementer are one and the same.
Case study 1: C++. An extensive critique of C++ as an OO language for production systems, from the point of view of an Eiffel-cheerer, can be found here; in my opinion, it suffices to say that, given its status as just one step up from a C add-on, and given that, when building on such a shoddy conceptual infrastructure as C's, it's hard to conceive how one could do any better, C++ should be considered to be outside the scope of this discussion.
Case study 2: Java. Now, Java is built from head to toe for maximum OO. This is incredibly intrusive to anyone who wants to do some real work using it, as opposed to just drawing nice schemes and writing UML models. Java is built to enforce those styles and concepts of programming which the designer felt to be correct. It's languages like this which give OO a bad name, and they should be shunned.
Case study 3: Perl. Perl was built to be a scripting language - in Osterhout's original conception, a "glue" language. Thus, practicality being the most important goal in it, it's easy to understand why Perl's OO is as it is. Specifically, it doesn't exist per se; no special syntax or semantics is enforced for OO programming, in fact all of it is built upon simpler, pre-existing constructs - specifically, taking advantage of an isomorphy between modules and classes, objects and references (via abuse of the bless() and ref() functions), methods and namespace-local subs. This makes a transition to OO practices easier as a project grows. It also allows one to implement the concept of an object as he sees fit - usually the slot approach is used, using hashrefs, but there other approaches for specialised cases - including objects as indices into class-wide property arrays, an approach described in "Advanced Programming with Perl" and which is useful for when you need many objects and creating a hash table for each would be a waste of space. The discussion of OO in Perl could be extended further, but it suffices to say that, in true Perl form, it restrains from imposing a paradigm on the programmer, trusting instead that he knows better.
Case study 4: Smalltalk. Smalltalk is widely considered to be the godfather of modern OO (yes, Modula had something called "OO" before Smalltalk, but a quick glance at both languages will make it clear right away that most of what we call OO today was fathered by Smalltalk); this, combined with the widespread availability of "OO software design tools" for the environment, could lead to some people blaming it unfairly for their current issues with the paradigm. In reality, when using Squeak, a computing environment integrated with a derivative of Smalltalk, I've found the use of OO in programming the system to be perfectly natural, in contrast to the uncomfortable feeling that you get from using, e.g., Java. Part of this comes from language design itself, which makes the concept ubiquitous in a very straightforward and graspable way, but most of it comes from the environment, which is fully built on objects. In the Morphic system, you can "see" and "touch" - inspect, manipulate, delete - all objects alike. The user- and programmer-levels are intertwined, and so instead of programs, methods are the elementary user-level executable unit; this removes one unnecessary level of encapsulation, leaving all objects free to talk to each other, without being first streamlined into the procedural mold enforced by the "program" concept. All of this, plus the elegance of the Smalltalk language, makes for a system which is very easy to program, and which leaves relatively little to be desired. Thus, I consider Squeak to be a paradigm of well-used OO.
Hell, I think I've said more than I set out to... I hope at least some of it is of any use.
I mean look at Gnome and GTK+, it based on some ugly C struct kludge to enable pseudo-object-orientation!
Isn't that how they implemented C++ in the first place?
Okay, that was my cheap shot at New Jersey for the day.:) Seriously, for one reason or another, C is the language of choice for ugly kluges (note the lack of a "d", BTW). I believe the situation is bad enough that choosing C/++ as the basis for a production system becomes a rather damaging decision, especially when alternatives are available whoch help make sure that the program meets quality standards (e.g. Eiffel).
I don't really have much else to say... just glad to have been able to bash the Bell Labs gang once more:)
Those of us who have barely made through your half-assed English and only kinda understood what you meant didn't find it very funny either. Verbal concordance is the kind of thing you learn in Basic English 101. Sign up for a class in the most nearby kindergarten, ASAP.
Perl allows a programmer to code more or less as he thinks. It's based on the principle that programming is telling the computer what to do, so the computer should try to understand what you mean - that a language should adapt to the programmer, not the way around. This philosophy shows up everywhere in the language.
For example, it allows you to say both if (COND) { dostuff } and dostuff if COND because you (I, at least) can think in either way. The special variable $_ plays the part of the pronoun "it", so that you don't have to explicitly refer to big-named variables all the time.
Perl is inherently imperative because we naturally think in terms of algorithms, but it also allows some declarative features, and it's even got lexical scoping, closures and higher-order functions for us Lispers.
Most importantly, it allows the programmer to be concise, thus expressing what he wants quickly. So it allows for complex instructions to be coded in a very simple form; this is why you're not forced to declare variables if you don't want to. It's also why arrays are both stacks and queues, it's why hashes are also arrays, it's why we've got automatic string interpolation and scalar type conversion, it's why we've got built-in arrays... et cetera et al.
Of course, this still begs the question of whether all this expressiveness damages formalism in its useful form - the form which allows them to be accurate and understandable by humans. I personally think so, but then again, not even I use Perl for everything. (As I said, I'm a diehard Lisper.)
Well, I can't think of much else to say. I hope I've clarified something, at least.
Good God. I was just asking. I just figured that a person who thought that "Unix sucked the least" would use it for the sake of practicality, but not be an Unix fan. After all, as you said, it is just a damned operating system - I don't really understand how people get attached to operating systems anyway... That's all. Maybe you need to lighten up too...
I used Squeak as an example of a system which, despite being extremely featureful, still managed to maintain consistency, which you claimed to be impossible.
And no, Squeak is not just "an operating system with a very nice configurable interface"; it's a very nice configurable operating system, period. See the distinction?
A much older problem is people running around with unique ideas that don't work and refuse to lissen to anyone who tells them they are wrong prefering instead to believe they alone are correct.
It is remarkably unlikely one person knows better than everyone else.
... but our ideas do work, you see. They just aren't widely accepted for other, non-technical reasons. That is the schtick.
No, these are the only good reasons for the Tunes project to adopt C/C++.
if C/C++ are that bad, why didn't everyone switch to lisp or something else?
"If COBOL is that bad, why didn't everyone switch to Ada or something else?" "If WinNT is that bad, why didn't everyone switch to Linux or something else?"
Et cetera et al. Ad populum - as I was explaining to Felinoid, the general consensus is wrong very often. People are using C/C++ for a variety of reasons - very few of which really represent valid technical points, IMAO.
the people at tunes.org are trying to invent a language for use with their OS. Is this a very smart idea? why would anyone want to include some sort of lisp interpreter inside the OS?
You've missed the point of Tunes. It intends to go even beyond - to break the barriers between system and application, environment and program, programmer and user, OS and language. It intends to build a foundation so that your system can be anything you want it to be, so that you have full computing freedom. In short, we want to integrate our language and our OS, and be able to change them both at will, from within themselves. If you read further into the Tunes pages, you'll find a lot more information explaining why this is actually a Good Thing.
isn't it a bit weird to invent a language to suit your OS?
I don't know... the Bell Labs gang seem very fond of it... case in point: Unix and C, Inferno and Limbo... et cetera.
I just don't see your point of trying to abash us Unix fans because it isn't theoretically perfect. We are not impressed nor are we suddenly ashamed and enlightened.
You're not supposed to be - it's just meant to get people off their high horses. "Unix sucks" is first and foremost a direct reaction to "Unix rules". There are just so many people who believe with all their heart that Unix is the Second friggin' Coming that I just can't help but play devil's advocate; indeed, for some people, Unix (or whatever) may suck the least, but there's a huge leap between that and the "non-Unixers are lusers" feeling.
So, in conclusion... Unix sucks!!!!:)
P.S.: I fail to understand how you can be an Unix fan. Please clarify.
P.P.S.: Tunes is more than a lot of hot air. The thing is, it's a hugely ambitious project, not to mention very vague. However, even as we speak, there's a lot of effort being put into Slate, a proposed high-level language to be used to bootstrap Tunes. (Well, two people working in their spare time doesn't really qualify as "a lot of effort", but they're two very good computer scientists - Brian Rice and Lee Salzman -, and it's better than nothing, eh?)
>But POSIX isn't an operating system, it's a standard.
True.. Unix systems are free to ignore posix. This isn't without problems and most feel the advanages of a standard are far greater than the disadvantages...
Boy, miss the point yet again, will you?!?
>If you bother to take a look at systems such as Oberon or Squeak, you'll find that they're both very feature-full and completely unrestrictive
If you can change EVERYTHING then I know ONE feature you'll NEVER have.... Consistency.. with out this writing code is a nightmare... This is why Posix was created in the first place..
That's a logical fallacy if I ever saw one. Customisation and flexibility do not necessarily imply lack of consistency. Any programmer can write code for Squeak and be assured that it'll run flawlessly on any Squeak system - yes, even if the user of said system has decided to completely change his environment. This works thanks to clever use of metaobjects. Remember, just because Unix does it the brain-damaged way doesn't mean there's no other way to do it.
"3,000 people cann't be wrong" of course they can... However normally a larg body of people comming up with the same answer are at least close to the truth.
That's an absurd statement. It's only even marginally true when the truth happens to somehow match the mixture of common-sense and popularly diffused ideology that the populace tends to believe at any given time. Even within the IT field, which is supposed to be made up of smart(er) people, at any given time the general consensus about just about anything is just plain wrong.
There are many ways to make a larg body not think for themselfs... I don't believe any of them apply to this situation
Oh, please. The modern IT field is a fucking paradigm of social dynamics gone bad. You've got your clueless masses, your bunch of evil conspiracies, your even larger bunch of not-particularly-evil but still self-interested parties; you've got your ruthless manipulation of the general opinion throughout whatever means necessary, your "keep 'em in the dark" philosophy, your FUD wars... et cetera et al, ad infinitum. Considering this, you mean to tell me that you really expect that the widespread adoption of Unix in this midst is any more driven by reason and straight-headed economics than the widespread adoption of Microsoft software? Bah.
dude, you have no sense of humor (and neither does that kaufmann guy).
Sure I do. I just happen to think that Unix does, in fact, suck - and I did so long before I found the Handbook. I've spoken to at least one of the authors in length, and he also thinks that Unix sucks. So, it seems to be a consensus... after all, why do you think Ritchie and the gang have left Unix for Plan 9?;)
You've missed the point. Gresham's law is a conclusion based on an analysis of market reactions to software. It does not mean that there can be no good software; it means that, for several reasons of many different kinds, products which are technically inferior generally tend to gain marketshare while their superior competitors languish. WinNT is a prime example of Gresham's Law at work.
That does not mean trying to write good software is pointless; I personally am still a believer in the Right Thing (as opposed to New Jersey's "Worse is Better" philosophy). After all, Gresham's Law is more like Murphy's Law than like, say, the Laws of Thermodynamics. I.e., you get to bend them from time to time, if you try really hard.
I find the avrage (insert person class) is a decent person and at worse a human being.
Well, I should hope so!--- or do you know something about the impending invasion of the large-brained giant squid that I don't?;)
Something my sister showed me.. People NEVER slam with out reason. It may not be a good reason but there is a reason.
Of course there is a reason. But it may be that they're wrong. (Yes, despite the best efforts of postmodernists everywhere, there still is such a thing as being just plain wrong.) And that is the case all too often - you can be an entirely decent person and still be wrong. (Story of my life... heh.)
You find me an operating system that dosn't impose a "single world view"...
But POSIX isn't an operating system, it's a standard. And standards are supposed to allow implementation on diverse and heterogeneous platforms, which of course POSIX doesn't. Case in point: QNX. Go look at it and then come talk to me about POSIX's effect on the system engineer's freedom.
No operating system is a utopia...
Yes, so?
The fewer restrictions the fewer features... The more features the more restrictions. To code with no restrictions at all what so ever... break out a rom burnner...
That's just completely untrue. If you bother to take a look at systems such as Oberon or Squeak, you'll find that they're both very feature-full and completely unrestrictive, in that their reflective design allows the programmer to tap into the controls of the environment itself and turn off any restrictions which may be enforced by default. That is freedom. (And it can be even better - we're working on it, anyways.)
OK since when did a programming language actually matter?
Since the dawn of time. Say what you want, a given system's design and architecture always end up reeking of its language of choice. So it was with any of the "ancient" platform-based OSs and their related assembly languages. So it is with Unix and C. (So it is with BeOS and C++ too.) This is not only not a Bad Thing, it's also unavoidable; the language you program with has a definite effect on the way you program and build systems.
In fact, a properly reflective environment will enforce no distinction between the system level and the language level; in systems such as Squeak, Native Oberon, DrScheme and even OpenGenera (the descendant of the Genera OS which ran on Symbolics' Lisp Machines), the language and OS are fully entertwined, therefore giving the programmer total and complete freedom (not to mention increasing performance and architectural simplicity).
Slashdot Mirror
*waves at Faré* Hey, buddy! How are you? When will Tunes R1 come out? :)
Do you have any idea as to how many LispM units were sold by Symbolics or LMI? If any of them are still running and/or for sale? (Particularly on South America...) Technical specs, programming info, etc. would also be nice... I'm looking to increment my retrocomputing collection...
By the way, I've been getting a lot of Internal Server Errors too. It especially amuses me that they haven't even bothered to change the default Apache error page... it still says something to the effect of "admin@yoursite.com". Apparently, the new release of Slashcode is still sub-optimal. So much for "Cathedral and the Bazaar"... (Just kidding!)
It should be:
$_ = '$_ = ; print substr($_, 0, 5), chr(39), $_, chr(39), substr($_, 6, 66);'; print substr($_, 0, 5), chr(39), $_, chr(39), substr($_, 5, 66);
Uh... maybe I'm missing something here... but isn't that exactly what I posted? (Except that mine was pretty-printed, of course...)
In general, I'd agree with you, but there are actually many instances where index() and substr() work much better than regexes. They're faster too. It's very unfortunate that so many Perl programmers don't know how to use them - and at DALNet #perl we usually try to encourage people to use these functions instead of hacking up a regex-based kluge.
An example, just OTTOMH: say you're reading in a pipe-delimited file, where you want to grab only the second field (which, say, holds a "name" field). Compare the two approaches:
push(@names, substr($_, ($a = index($_, '|')), index($_, '|', $a + 1))) while <>;
push(@names, split('|')[1]) while <>;
Sure, the second one is smaller, but it's slower and takes up more memory - for chrissakes, it has to split the entire line just to grab the second piece!
Here's another ubiquitous use of substr() - the somewhat obligatory quine, in the traditional AqABqB format:
$_ = '$_ = ; print substr($_, 0, 5), chr(39), $_, chr(39), substr($_, 6, 66);'; print substr($_, 0, 5), chr(39), $_, chr(39), substr($_, 6, 66);
Lars: Mr Lawyer Guy, here are our answers to the Slashdot interview. hands over floppy disk
Mr Lawyer guy: opens floppy disk, looks at file...
This is all a big misunderstanding, dude! Like, we support MP3s and Napster and all that gnarly stuff! We can't get enough of them Britney Spears MP3s! But our label is forcing us to keep quiet about it!
Q: Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
Yeah, man! This is censorship! It sucks! We'd break our contract if we could!
...
Mr Lawyer Guy (types): Ctrl+A Delete
Mr Lawyer Guy (types):
The band Metallica actively opposes MP3s and Napster, which constitute theft of our intellectual property.
Q: Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
No. Everything in this interview is the personal opinion of the band members themselves.
Mr Lawyer Guy (types): Ctrl+A Ctrl+C
Mr Lawyer Guy (clicks): Start > Programs > Outlook Express
Mr Lawyer guy (on phone): Yeah, VALinux/Andover/Slashdot? This is Lars of Metallica. I'm sending you the answers to the interview by email. Uhrm... gnarly, and stuff. Okay, bye.
The only problem I have with it is it is so UN*X centric that it ignores the vast number of Very Very high level development environments that are available on more "traditional" platforms.
.* face="courier new" .*>(.*)</font>!ig
As well as newer, research-oriented languages and platforms which are to Unix and Perl as those are to, say, CTSS and assembly.
For low level problems there is nothing better than a low level language. Extremely sophisticated high level languages like C++ plus STL will always disappoint becuase they are centered around coding tecniques rather than problem solving.
I'm sorry, buty I don't consider C++ to be much sophisticated, or even high-level. It's just as low-level as it was in the days when it was merely the preprocessor Cfront. It's still little more than a portable assembly language with some more-or-less-OO features tackled on. (See my recent post on compared "OO" languages for more on that.) As far as I'm concerned, C++ is mid-level at best; traditional-ish and imperative but relatively abstracted languages such as Perl and Python are high-level, and only those which are radically different from the way in which the computer actually operates (pure functional languages such as Haskell, logic languages such as Prolog, rewriting languages such as Maude, pure OO languages such as Self) can truly be called very high-level. (Of course, some languages span much of the spectrum, such as Common Lisp, which allows you to program at any necessary level of abstraction, from C-like programming with unboxed values, hard pointers and - gasp! - even a GOTO form, to something close to VHL - it fully supports functional programming, and I myself once wrote a three-page "PRolog In Common Lisp" embedder.)
Incidently if you are interested in a programing language where you could insert a diagram try XEROXes "MESA". It alowed you to use the normal VP wordprocessor as your editor. Text in "courier new" was considered compileable code, everything else was comments -- a very neat trick which I have never seen emulated in any other language!
Hrrrm. I might note that this isn't really the best way do do things - it's a better idea to use a structured writing tool such as LyX, with output indicative of content semantics, not of content layout, to write literate programs (as described by Knuth), and have in conjunction with a program (maybe even a plug-in for said editor) to "weave" these programs into compileable code and formatable text, as needed.
In blatant self-contradiction, I now present a hastily written Perl filter which, as requested, turns an HTML file into Perl code.
#!/your/path/to/perl -w
undef $/;
$file = <>;
print '#!/usr/bin/perl -w';
print "# $1\n" if m!<title>(.*)</title>!i;
print "# Preprocessed from $ARGV[0] on ", localtime(time), "\n";
print "# PART $c\n$1\n\n"
while m!<font
&& $c++;
exit;
... how many outraged flames I would receive by email following the inauguration of my own hypothetical ultra-hyped-up gaming site, MachoGamers.com, featuring a rendition of the planet Jupiter with the male symbol on it as the background picture?
Jokes aside, this whole thing boggles me. I fail to understand how "men are inferior to women" is in any way a better ideology than "women are inferior to men". I fail to understand why men who want men-only institutions are chided and labeled as chauvinistic pigs, while more and more women-specific organisations, web sites and special interest groups show up. (On that last one: I can see why a minority needs a special interest group, but women, making up more than half of the Earth's population, are hardly a minority anywhere.)
I thought the "women's movement" was about equality - to be respected and considered as fellows and worthy competitors to men - and not about a "war against men", moved apparently by little other than vengeance.
To clarify, I myself am not a sexist of any kind; I believe in civil equality. However, that seems to be far from the case whereas the "women's movement" is concerned, and I'd like to understand that. Otherwise, I'd just give up and say the world has gone crazy.
(Nice article, by the way.)
Moderators take note: the above post was not a troll, nor was it flamebait.
The first question has been answered in a prolog someplace.
:- jRandomHacker(x) ^ cool(y) ^ funny(y) ^ unusual(y)
> fan(x, y)
> jRandomHacker(usAll)
> cool(DouglasAdams)
> funny(DouglasAdams)
> unusual(DouglasAdams)
(Note: I haven't programmed in Prolog for quite some time, so there's probably something seriously wrong with the above.)
but it was slower than the second coming of Christ!
You mean that already happened?!?!? Dammit, they forgot to send me a memo! I specifically left orders to be notified on J-day! Damn that incompetent Peter-- oh wait, you mean he's the boss now? Oh, sorry... I'll just go back to my cave for another couple of millenia now...
(Chalk that up as my piece of pointless anti-Catholic humour for the day...)
Wow, sorry! That was a hell of a typo! Thanks for pointing it out, dude.
See if you find something useful here. And you're welcome.
Yeah, but it was Osterhout who came up with the idea of a scripting language in the first place. Granted, as an implementation of this idea, I'd argue that Perl was far more successful, as well as more useful in general, than Tcl... but still, it was Osterhout who thought of it first.
Why do you think microsoft is making the x-box?
Cringely spent an entire article a while ago discussing this very issue (damned if I can find it now, though...). First of all, is Microsoft really making the X-Box? In fact, there are two questions here - what the X-Box means now, and what the X-Box might mean in the future - if or whenever the Great Master of Vapourware at Redmond ever see fit to go ahead and actually build the damned thing; this might happen by 2001, it might happen by 2003 or it might not happen at all, depending on just how important Microsoft believes gaming consoles to be.
However, the first question can be answered right away. At the moment, the X-Box is Microsoft's way of telling the Big Console Makers (Sega and Nintendo also, but especially Sony), "if you don't watch your back, we can easily invade your turf... we can take over your market just like we took over every other market in which we were ever interested". In doing this, they make sure that the BCMs shy away from their current attitude of promoting the next-generation consoles as PC replacements, and focus instead on reinforcing and protecting their own established turf so that Microsoft won't be able to annihilate them with the X-Box. This, in turn, leaves Microsoft's reign over the PC market untouched.
Will the strategy work? Will the X-Box ever be released? Will the gaming console replace the PC in the near future? All these things remain to be seen.
I agree with you in part, but pigeonholing all of OO as obscurantist and overcomplicated is as erroneous as overhyping it as if it were the Second Coming. There is nothing wrong with the motivation behind OO itself; the problem lies mainly in implementation. Specifically, what we now consider to be "OO programming languages" and "OO design practices" goes far beyond the original concept of both, and much of it is indeed obscurantist nonsense, which induces a huge amount of needless overhead, both of the conceptual kind on the designer and of the practical kind on the implementer. This is especially true in the case of small to medium software projects, even more so because often designer and implementer are one and the same.
Case study 1: C++. An extensive critique of C++ as an OO language for production systems, from the point of view of an Eiffel-cheerer, can be found here; in my opinion, it suffices to say that, given its status as just one step up from a C add-on, and given that, when building on such a shoddy conceptual infrastructure as C's, it's hard to conceive how one could do any better, C++ should be considered to be outside the scope of this discussion.
Case study 2: Java. Now, Java is built from head to toe for maximum OO. This is incredibly intrusive to anyone who wants to do some real work using it, as opposed to just drawing nice schemes and writing UML models. Java is built to enforce those styles and concepts of programming which the designer felt to be correct. It's languages like this which give OO a bad name, and they should be shunned.
Case study 3: Perl. Perl was built to be a scripting language - in Osterhout's original conception, a "glue" language. Thus, practicality being the most important goal in it, it's easy to understand why Perl's OO is as it is. Specifically, it doesn't exist per se; no special syntax or semantics is enforced for OO programming, in fact all of it is built upon simpler, pre-existing constructs - specifically, taking advantage of an isomorphy between modules and classes, objects and references (via abuse of the bless() and ref() functions), methods and namespace-local subs. This makes a transition to OO practices easier as a project grows. It also allows one to implement the concept of an object as he sees fit - usually the slot approach is used, using hashrefs, but there other approaches for specialised cases - including objects as indices into class-wide property arrays, an approach described in "Advanced Programming with Perl" and which is useful for when you need many objects and creating a hash table for each would be a waste of space. The discussion of OO in Perl could be extended further, but it suffices to say that, in true Perl form, it restrains from imposing a paradigm on the programmer, trusting instead that he knows better.
Case study 4: Smalltalk. Smalltalk is widely considered to be the godfather of modern OO (yes, Modula had something called "OO" before Smalltalk, but a quick glance at both languages will make it clear right away that most of what we call OO today was fathered by Smalltalk); this, combined with the widespread availability of "OO software design tools" for the environment, could lead to some people blaming it unfairly for their current issues with the paradigm. In reality, when using Squeak, a computing environment integrated with a derivative of Smalltalk, I've found the use of OO in programming the system to be perfectly natural, in contrast to the uncomfortable feeling that you get from using, e.g., Java. Part of this comes from language design itself, which makes the concept ubiquitous in a very straightforward and graspable way, but most of it comes from the environment, which is fully built on objects. In the Morphic system, you can "see" and "touch" - inspect, manipulate, delete - all objects alike. The user- and programmer-levels are intertwined, and so instead of programs, methods are the elementary user-level executable unit; this removes one unnecessary level of encapsulation, leaving all objects free to talk to each other, without being first streamlined into the procedural mold enforced by the "program" concept. All of this, plus the elegance of the Smalltalk language, makes for a system which is very easy to program, and which leaves relatively little to be desired. Thus, I consider Squeak to be a paradigm of well-used OO.
Hell, I think I've said more than I set out to... I hope at least some of it is of any use.
I mean look at Gnome and GTK+, it based on some ugly C struct kludge to enable pseudo-object-orientation!
:) Seriously, for one reason or another, C is the language of choice for ugly kluges (note the lack of a "d", BTW). I believe the situation is bad enough that choosing C/++ as the basis for a production system becomes a rather damaging decision, especially when alternatives are available whoch help make sure that the program meets quality standards (e.g. Eiffel).
:)
Isn't that how they implemented C++ in the first place?
Okay, that was my cheap shot at New Jersey for the day.
I don't really have much else to say... just glad to have been able to bash the Bell Labs gang once more
Those of us who have barely made through your half-assed English and only kinda understood what you meant didn't find it very funny either. Verbal concordance is the kind of thing you learn in Basic English 101. Sign up for a class in the most nearby kindergarten, ASAP.
")
Good God. I was just asking. I just figured that a person who thought that "Unix sucked the least" would use it for the sake of practicality, but not be an Unix fan. After all, as you said, it is just a damned operating system - I don't really understand how people get attached to operating systems anyway... That's all. Maybe you need to lighten up too...
I used Squeak as an example of a system which, despite being extremely featureful, still managed to maintain consistency, which you claimed to be impossible.
And no, Squeak is not just "an operating system with a very nice configurable interface"; it's a very nice configurable operating system, period. See the distinction?
A much older problem is people running around with unique ideas that don't work and refuse to lissen to anyone who tells them they are wrong prefering instead to believe they alone are correct.
It is remarkably unlikely one person knows better than everyone else.
... but our ideas do work, you see. They just aren't widely accepted for other, non-technical reasons. That is the schtick.
are these the only good reasons to use C?
No, these are the only good reasons for the Tunes project to adopt C/C++.
if C/C++ are that bad, why didn't everyone switch to lisp or something else?
"If COBOL is that bad, why didn't everyone switch to Ada or something else?"
"If WinNT is that bad, why didn't everyone switch to Linux or something else?"
Et cetera et al. Ad populum - as I was explaining to Felinoid, the general consensus is wrong very often. People are using C/C++ for a variety of reasons - very few of which really represent valid technical points, IMAO.
the people at tunes.org are trying to invent a language for use with their OS. Is this a very smart idea? why would anyone want to include some sort of lisp interpreter inside the OS?
You've missed the point of Tunes. It intends to go even beyond - to break the barriers between system and application, environment and program, programmer and user, OS and language. It intends to build a foundation so that your system can be anything you want it to be, so that you have full computing freedom. In short, we want to integrate our language and our OS, and be able to change them both at will, from within themselves. If you read further into the Tunes pages, you'll find a lot more information explaining why this is actually a Good Thing.
isn't it a bit weird to invent a language to suit your OS?
I don't know... the Bell Labs gang seem very fond of it... case in point: Unix and C, Inferno and Limbo... et cetera.
I just don't see your point of trying to abash us Unix fans because it isn't theoretically perfect. We are not impressed nor are we suddenly ashamed and enlightened.
:)
You're not supposed to be - it's just meant to get people off their high horses. "Unix sucks" is first and foremost a direct reaction to "Unix rules". There are just so many people who believe with all their heart that Unix is the Second friggin' Coming that I just can't help but play devil's advocate; indeed, for some people, Unix (or whatever) may suck the least, but there's a huge leap between that and the "non-Unixers are lusers" feeling.
So, in conclusion... Unix sucks!!!!
P.S.: I fail to understand how you can be an Unix fan. Please clarify.
P.P.S.: Tunes is more than a lot of hot air. The thing is, it's a hugely ambitious project, not to mention very vague. However, even as we speak, there's a lot of effort being put into Slate, a proposed high-level language to be used to bootstrap Tunes. (Well, two people working in their spare time doesn't really qualify as "a lot of effort", but they're two very good computer scientists - Brian Rice and Lee Salzman -, and it's better than nothing, eh?)
>But POSIX isn't an operating system, it's a standard.
True.. Unix systems are free to ignore posix.
This isn't without problems and most feel the advanages of a standard are far greater than the disadvantages...
Boy, miss the point yet again, will you?!?
>If you bother to take a look at systems such as Oberon or Squeak, you'll find that they're both very feature-full and completely unrestrictive
If you can change EVERYTHING then I know ONE feature you'll NEVER have....
Consistency.. with out this writing code is a nightmare...
This is why Posix was created in the first place..
That's a logical fallacy if I ever saw one. Customisation and flexibility do not necessarily imply lack of consistency. Any programmer can write code for Squeak and be assured that it'll run flawlessly on any Squeak system - yes, even if the user of said system has decided to completely change his environment. This works thanks to clever use of metaobjects. Remember, just because Unix does it the brain-damaged way doesn't mean there's no other way to do it.
"3,000 people cann't be wrong" of course they can...
However normally a larg body of people comming up with the same answer are at least close to the truth.
That's an absurd statement. It's only even marginally true when the truth happens to somehow match the mixture of common-sense and popularly diffused ideology that the populace tends to believe at any given time. Even within the IT field, which is supposed to be made up of smart(er) people, at any given time the general consensus about just about anything is just plain wrong.
There are many ways to make a larg body not think for themselfs...
I don't believe any of them apply to this situation
Oh, please. The modern IT field is a fucking paradigm of social dynamics gone bad. You've got your clueless masses, your bunch of evil conspiracies, your even larger bunch of not-particularly-evil but still self-interested parties; you've got your ruthless manipulation of the general opinion throughout whatever means necessary, your "keep 'em in the dark" philosophy, your FUD wars... et cetera et al, ad infinitum. Considering this, you mean to tell me that you really expect that the widespread adoption of Unix in this midst is any more driven by reason and straight-headed economics than the widespread adoption of Microsoft software? Bah.
dude, you have no sense of humor (and neither does that kaufmann guy).
;)
Sure I do. I just happen to think that Unix does, in fact, suck - and I did so long before I found the Handbook. I've spoken to at least one of the authors in length, and he also thinks that Unix sucks. So, it seems to be a consensus... after all, why do you think Ritchie and the gang have left Unix for Plan 9?
You've missed the point. Gresham's law is a conclusion based on an analysis of market reactions to software. It does not mean that there can be no good software; it means that, for several reasons of many different kinds, products which are technically inferior generally tend to gain marketshare while their superior competitors languish. WinNT is a prime example of Gresham's Law at work.
That does not mean trying to write good software is pointless; I personally am still a believer in the Right Thing (as opposed to New Jersey's "Worse is Better" philosophy). After all, Gresham's Law is more like Murphy's Law than like, say, the Laws of Thermodynamics. I.e., you get to bend them from time to time, if you try really hard.
I find the avrage (insert person class) is a decent person and at worse a human being.
;)
Well, I should hope so!--- or do you know something about the impending invasion of the large-brained giant squid that I don't?
Something my sister showed me.. People NEVER slam with out reason. It may not be a good reason but there is a reason.
Of course there is a reason. But it may be that they're wrong. (Yes, despite the best efforts of postmodernists everywhere, there still is such a thing as being just plain wrong.) And that is the case all too often - you can be an entirely decent person and still be wrong. (Story of my life... heh.)
You find me an operating system that dosn't impose a "single world view"...
But POSIX isn't an operating system, it's a standard. And standards are supposed to allow implementation on diverse and heterogeneous platforms, which of course POSIX doesn't. Case in point: QNX. Go look at it and then come talk to me about POSIX's effect on the system engineer's freedom.
No operating system is a utopia...
Yes, so?
The fewer restrictions the fewer features... The more features the more restrictions. To code with no restrictions at all what so ever... break out a rom burnner...
That's just completely untrue. If you bother to take a look at systems such as Oberon or Squeak, you'll find that they're both very feature-full and completely unrestrictive, in that their reflective design allows the programmer to tap into the controls of the environment itself and turn off any restrictions which may be enforced by default. That is freedom. (And it can be even better - we're working on it, anyways.)
OK since when did a programming language actually matter?
Since the dawn of time. Say what you want, a given system's design and architecture always end up reeking of its language of choice. So it was with any of the "ancient" platform-based OSs and their related assembly languages. So it is with Unix and C. (So it is with BeOS and C++ too.) This is not only not a Bad Thing, it's also unavoidable; the language you program with has a definite effect on the way you program and build systems.
In fact, a properly reflective environment will enforce no distinction between the system level and the language level; in systems such as Squeak, Native Oberon, DrScheme and even OpenGenera (the descendant of the Genera OS which ran on Symbolics' Lisp Machines), the language and OS are fully entertwined, therefore giving the programmer total and complete freedom (not to mention increasing performance and architectural simplicity).