Yeah, old Lisp Machines were what popped into my head when I read the headline - it would be interesting to see a more modern OS with a lisp core and an advanced CLOS-like interface to everything.
Wow, that sounds pretty advanced. Functional programming, with loops, through people. I've never even heard of that new paradigm.
To be fair, the loops were really tail recursive calls.
Seriously, though, I do believe that SICP is a fantastic way to learn programming; it really is very thorough, and Scheme is a great language for learning - it is small and simple, yet supports every programming paradigm you could want to teach. While I am partial to SICP, another good one is How to Design Programs, which is designed to fit in more generally in a liberal arts curriculum, so its focus is more on problem solving.
I also believe that a, perhaps basic, introduction to logic and discreet math (how to do induction proofs, what graphs are, and things like that) are also important, and should be taught before or concurrently with an intro programming class.
Thanks guys! I will be sticking this on my laptop!
My desktop requires 7.0, though; I am currently running Beta 2, and I will binary upgrade when that is released. 6.3 does not support my SATA controller, and I want to mess around with ZFS as well.
I have used Kopete, and was impressed, though there were some features that I found to be rather annoying, such as how conversations seemed to take up a lot of screen space and it seems to make you want to click a lot... it has been a while, though... perhaps I will go back and give it another whirl.
But we do not yet have the technology to have computers electricute or shoot people who want to use animations in presentations, so the best that the programmers can do is disallow the presentations from being exported to filetypes that allow animations, hence pdf.
Because it is a small language, and one which will teach them the essentials of how to think about programming and structuring programs without the burdens of many heavier languages. And remember that I said "first language", and not "only language". While it may not be "useful" if they go into a programming career, I think that it helps to establish good reasoning and thought processes for when they do pick up other languages later.
While we are on this bit, I would recommend an ML, either SML or OCaml, perhaps even in place of Haskell (Haskell's syntax can be easily argued to be either better than or worse than ML's, and anything you can so in Haskell (including type-classes and lazyness) can be done in ML, so while I do use Haskell, I generally recommend one of the MLs as a well-typed, type-inferring functional language to know (OCaml if they are more systems/applications oriented, and SML if they are more theory oriented or just curious).
Hmmm... you will need libraries and such for that, though some people do use Scheme for all of those things (see http://www.plt-scheme.org/ and http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/). I have personally used it for web applications, though I usually use common lisp and ocaml for that. In fact, if you are looking for an alternative to C++, Java, or Python, I must recommend OCaml. Look at this book. In fact, I wrote an interpreter for R5RS in OCaml...
Actually, I have been carrying around R5RS with me for a while; it will be nice to suck down more print quota on r5r6 (when it is released). Scheme is quite a fun language, though as far as Lisps go, I do prefer Common. Still, for people who want to learn how to program, I generally tell them to start out with Scheme, usually using the PLT stuff, and to look at SICP.
Yeah, I actually run FreeBSD here, and the last thing that they released for Linux (Picasa?) did not run under the linux compatibility layer, which I assumed had something to do with the wine thing. With Google Earth, though, it runs great under FreeBSD and is a lot of fun.
Distributed filesystems, for one thing (see OpenAFS). We use that here (well, it was developed here) and it is used at several universities. I have used AFS over wireless, and it is really really bad, but connecting from our network (Andrew) in Pittsburgh to MIT's (Athena) is fairly snappy. It is also nice for software transfers and such from mirrors at different universities. And there is no p0rn in AFS.
Wow... my network card would barely support those speeds, and no ISPs of which I know offer that (Comcast I think is limited to 3MB/s, others less)... is this some funny goverment or business broadband? What sites are those?
I love those 5MB/s downloads from the open source software mirrors at other universities; even ones which are not too close to here (Pittsburgh) are really fast. I love you, I2.
Can anyone tell me why BSD with it's enhanced security isn't incorporated into most Linux distros?
Because BSD is an Operating System, and GNU/Linux is an operating system... try reading that article again.
How Unix like is it actually?
Well, it traces back to BSD, unlike Linux, which was a kernel written to go with GNU, which in turn is written from scratch. While the free BSDs have changed a bit since they forked in the early nineties, they still are descendants of UNIX, and are much more close than GNU is, for better or for worse. (NetBSD is probably the closest of Free,Net,Open,&c.)
Have you ever read or seen some science fiction? So, they talk about traveling to distant planets and stars and such, but it turns out that there is actually some truth in this; we are all actually on a planet called "Earth", orbiting a star called, "the Sun". It is quite intriguing, actually.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh oh... I just hope that they have not been lying about their steak too!
If it's in infrared, then it's NOT a Hubble replacement, it's a Spitzer replacement.
Isn't that David Paterson?
Yeah, old Lisp Machines were what popped into my head when I read the headline - it would be interesting to see a more modern OS with a lisp core and an advanced CLOS-like interface to everything.
Wow, that sounds pretty advanced. Functional programming, with loops, through people. I've never even heard of that new paradigm.
To be fair, the loops were really tail recursive calls.
Seriously, though, I do believe that SICP is a fantastic way to learn programming; it really is very thorough, and Scheme is a great language for learning - it is small and simple, yet supports every programming paradigm you could want to teach. While I am partial to SICP, another good one is How to Design Programs, which is designed to fit in more generally in a liberal arts curriculum, so its focus is more on problem solving.
I also believe that a, perhaps basic, introduction to logic and discreet math (how to do induction proofs, what graphs are, and things like that) are also important, and should be taught before or concurrently with an intro programming class.
Thanks guys! I will be sticking this on my laptop!
My desktop requires 7.0, though; I am currently running Beta 2, and I will binary upgrade when that is released. 6.3 does not support my SATA controller, and I want to mess around with ZFS as well.
Keep up the good work!
Maybe I will go... I can bring magic cookies!
I have used Kopete, and was impressed, though there were some features that I found to be rather annoying, such as how conversations seemed to take up a lot of screen space and it seems to make you want to click a lot... it has been a while, though... perhaps I will go back and give it another whirl.
But we do not yet have the technology to have computers electricute or shoot people who want to use animations in presentations, so the best that the programmers can do is disallow the presentations from being exported to filetypes that allow animations, hence pdf.
You can get null pointer exceptions. So it is not that good.
Because it is a small language, and one which will teach them the essentials of how to think about programming and structuring programs without the burdens of many heavier languages. And remember that I said "first language", and not "only language". While it may not be "useful" if they go into a programming career, I think that it helps to establish good reasoning and thought processes for when they do pick up other languages later.
(lambda (parent) (display (list parent 'is 'this 'a 'joke?)))
While we are on this bit, I would recommend an ML, either SML or OCaml, perhaps even in place of Haskell (Haskell's syntax can be easily argued to be either better than or worse than ML's, and anything you can so in Haskell (including type-classes and lazyness) can be done in ML, so while I do use Haskell, I generally recommend one of the MLs as a well-typed, type-inferring functional language to know (OCaml if they are more systems/applications oriented, and SML if they are more theory oriented or just curious).
Well, I have the old on on me right now; it is about 50 pages... I really hope that they do not turn it into ... something that is not Scheme...
Hmmm... you will need libraries and such for that, though some people do use Scheme for all of those things (see http://www.plt-scheme.org/ and http://www-sop.inria.fr/mimosa/fp/Bigloo/). I have personally used it for web applications, though I usually use common lisp and ocaml for that. In fact, if you are looking for an alternative to C++, Java, or Python, I must recommend OCaml. Look at this book. In fact, I wrote an interpreter for R5RS in OCaml...
Actually, I have been carrying around R5RS with me for a while; it will be nice to suck down more print quota on r5r6 (when it is released). Scheme is quite a fun language, though as far as Lisps go, I do prefer Common. Still, for people who want to learn how to program, I generally tell them to start out with Scheme, usually using the PLT stuff, and to look at SICP.
Yeah, I actually run FreeBSD here, and the last thing that they released for Linux (Picasa?) did not run under the linux compatibility layer, which I assumed had something to do with the wine thing. With Google Earth, though, it runs great under FreeBSD and is a lot of fun.
Distributed filesystems, for one thing (see OpenAFS). We use that here (well, it was developed here) and it is used at several universities. I have used AFS over wireless, and it is really really bad, but connecting from our network (Andrew) in Pittsburgh to MIT's (Athena) is fairly snappy. It is also nice for software transfers and such from mirrors at different universities. And there is no p0rn in AFS.
Wow... my network card would barely support those speeds, and no ISPs of which I know offer that (Comcast I think is limited to 3MB/s, others less) ... is this some funny goverment or business broadband? What sites are those?
I love those 5MB/s downloads from the open source software mirrors at other universities; even ones which are not too close to here (Pittsburgh) are really fast. I love you, I2.
How do you say, "Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" in Swedish?
Well, according to readme, CMU ended up on top anyway... (pdf warning, blah blah blah))
Because BSD is an Operating System, and GNU/Linux is an operating system... try reading that article again.
How Unix like is it actually?
Well, it traces back to BSD, unlike Linux, which was a kernel written to go with GNU, which in turn is written from scratch. While the free BSDs have changed a bit since they forked in the early nineties, they still are descendants of UNIX, and are much more close than GNU is, for better or for worse. (NetBSD is probably the closest of Free,Net,Open,&c.)
Like, say, all of the people who work for the New York Times...
Have you ever read or seen some science fiction? So, they talk about traveling to distant planets and stars and such, but it turns out that there is actually some truth in this; we are all actually on a planet called "Earth", orbiting a star called, "the Sun". It is quite intriguing, actually.
Do you mean like them?