I don't want to be walled in based on what I've looked at before. I like running across off-beat articles on websites that pique my curiosity. It's half the fun of surfing.
This proposal would try to decide what I'm "interested" in, and filter results and pages to that which I've seen before.
Whereas with Erlang lambdas are anonymous inner methods/functions. Much lighter weight invocation, and no issues with trying to invoke something other than the default constructors.
Imagine Java had function pointers added to it. You might be able to do such a thing using introspection, but I'm not sure.
Now define a lambda-accepting method that takes a lambda function as an argument.
The implementation specifies an anonymous method accepting the arguments of the function pointer signature inline with the invocation of the lambda-accepting method. Within the body of that anonymous function you have access to the variables of the enclosing method as well as the members of the method's class.
Because the anonymous method is an inline argument to the invocation of the lambda-accepting method, you can specify more than one lambda as an argument to that method.
With Erlang, everything is based on functions and function pointers, but their syntax and implementation are cleaned up greatly compared to a language like C++ so you have a much harder time hanging yourself.
It's also much lighter weight than a class method override, because you don't instantiate a new instance when the lambda body gets invoked, but pass the existing object instance of it's enclosing method.
For example, it prevents you from reading a binary object larger than 2^32 into memory for subsequent manipulation or serving up from cache. With modern media files, it's quite possible (and even common) to exceed the 2GB file size limit of 32 bits.
With Erlang, any function that matches an argument signature can be passed to a function that can take a lambda. But with Erlang, a given function can take more than one lambda at the same time as an argument. The closest analogy I could think of with the Java approach is to override *multiple* methods with a single lambda specification, not jujst one.
So it's not polymorphic in the sense that I think you're describing. It's just a broader-scoped implementation.
For example, you might define one lambda in Erlang that gets the next value from some abstract container to be defined by the programmer. You might define another lambda to compare elements. The lambda-receiving function sort() accepts both, producing a sorted list based on the arbitrary "key" of the lambdas. I don't see any way of doing that with the Java approach, because there is no way to specify multiple lambda arguments for the implementation of sort().
In "normal" Java you could do it by expecting two interfaces for sort()'s arguments, so perhaps you could then specify lambdas of the interfaces, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure Java would mandate that you use classes, not interfaces, which kind of limits the generic approach that Erlang offers.
I'd hardly call it "difficult" to use, any more than it is to use the wrappers for the native types. Still, it would be *nice* if you could use "+" instead of "add()", but really that's just syntactic sugar.
I think the bigger reason they probably didn't do it is that Erlang only lets you assign a variable once, so there are no concurrency issues with read/write of variables. One of the neat side effects of this is that a service/method which takes a lambda argument can be parallelized behind the scenes without changing the meaning of the code execution.
Another thing that puzzles me is that Java lambdas seem to be based on the idea of overriding a method of a class. That seems to me to be a critically limiting way of implementing them vs. function prototypes/templates, as there is no way to specify multiple lambdas being passed to the evaluator.
How would your Decimal concept be any more powerful than Number?
The one thing I wish they'd have done with Number is added Precision and Scale to it's usage, which would be invaluable for things like financial and scientific calculations.
I'm disappointed. I expected Lambda functions to be closer to Erlang's implementation, where you can access the variables of the enclosing function/method safely. But perhaps the examples in the article are just too simplistic to show such behaviour.
One big difference: The supporters for Linux systems release updates that can be installed automagically on a regular basis. They may not deliver the latest release of the Linux kernel, but they do backport patches and fixes and roll those out on a regular basis. The handset vendors do not.
Warriors go to battle against armed opponents. They're not over-armed thugs who kick in the doors of the innocent or peaceful to shoot them and their pets.
Calling these jackboots "warriors" is an insult to everyone who has ever served in the armed forces.
Facebook isn't being bought off by lobbyists or run by political fanatics with an agenda. They're in it for the money, plain and simple, and that's something the people can understand.
Windows won't die as long as consumer and corporate desktop computers are required and Microsoft doesn't keep trying to force incompatible user metaphors on that customer base.
However, cellphones and tablets are surging past that core base as secondary devices (at least in North America and Europe -- in the third world cell phones are often the primary device for people.)
I'd never want to try to type out a letter or a large document on a cellphone or a tablet, much less try to do any serious programming on them directly. There simply is no good substitute for a keyboard for mass data input.
But Windows will have an ever-shrinking share of the internet access market share as those newer devices take hold for media consumers. The writing is very clearly on the wall in that context, and sooner or later it's going to start affecting the default metaphors used by website programmers as well, at least for those whose core consumers are not on the desktop.
That doesn't mean Windows or the desktop are "failing" or "obsolete" -- it just means that companion products have opened a new market that they can't reach.
The Metro UI isn't actually impossibly horrible from the "regular" user's standpoint. It took my elderly parents all of two weeks to get used to it for running their card games, browsing the web, and so on. But I did install most of the software they would need on the base system; out of the box it really doesn't do much.
Still, they only tolerate the new UI. The still gripe that it's not the same as XP. I'm firmly convinced they'd have been far happier if they'd followed my advice and bought an older Win7 based system that still had the tradition menu-and-window organization.
The best thing Microsoft could do as far as the Win8 debacle goes is to ensure that 8.1 lets you stick with the "traditional" desktop full time. The thing my parents hate the most is this full-screen, one-app-at-a-time mentality from the cellphone and tablet markets. Just because that kind of approach worked for green-screen terminals and iOS doesn't mean that people like it -- just that they used what they had to.
The windowing interfaces used by Gnome 2, KDE, Apple OS/X, Win 95-7, OS/2, and a host of other interfaces were based on years of research at IBM that resulted in the Common User Access style guides. They weren't pulled out of their arse based on some artsy-fartsy desire to just do "something different." They were based on studies and feedback.
Microsoft threw all that work out the window with the Metro menu system in favour of pursuing an iOS experience, forgetting that the only reason the iOS interface is acceptable is because it's designed for small screens. Not necessarily tablets, but small screens.
Metro is an admirable first cut of an interface that would work well on the small screen devices like a phone or tablet, but they didn't go all the way. Every third party application I've used on my parents box drops you back into the desktop when it runs. So in effect, the only thing you get that's "tablet style" when using WIn8 full time is the start menu. Forcing people to shift their entire usage pattern for the sake of a menu system was asininine, and the sales numbers prove that out.
The sales numbers for Win8 are even now grossly exagerrated. Everyone I know who bought a Win8 box save my parents downgraded to Windows 7. Every single one.
Hell, if I were buying a new box I wouldn't buy one without downgrade rights. (Aside from that, my next system upgrade will be for my Linux desktop, not another Windows system. I only need one windows box, and that, happily, runs Windows 7.)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want to be walled in based on what I've looked at before. I like running across off-beat articles on websites that pique my curiosity. It's half the fun of surfing.
This proposal would try to decide what I'm "interested" in, and filter results and pages to that which I've seen before.
That wouldn't be much fun at all!
I'm the whole team for my little pet project and small network of systems. So I guess I'll buy myself a coffee. :P
Whereas with Erlang lambdas are anonymous inner methods/functions. Much lighter weight invocation, and no issues with trying to invoke something other than the default constructors.
Let me try a different tack.
Imagine Java had function pointers added to it. You might be able to do such a thing using introspection, but I'm not sure.
Now define a lambda-accepting method that takes a lambda function as an argument.
The implementation specifies an anonymous method accepting the arguments of the function pointer signature inline with the invocation of the lambda-accepting method. Within the body of that anonymous function you have access to the variables of the enclosing method as well as the members of the method's class.
Because the anonymous method is an inline argument to the invocation of the lambda-accepting method, you can specify more than one lambda as an argument to that method.
With Erlang, everything is based on functions and function pointers, but their syntax and implementation are cleaned up greatly compared to a language like C++ so you have a much harder time hanging yourself.
It's also much lighter weight than a class method override, because you don't instantiate a new instance when the lambda body gets invoked, but pass the existing object instance of it's enclosing method.
For example, it prevents you from reading a binary object larger than 2^32 into memory for subsequent manipulation or serving up from cache. With modern media files, it's quite possible (and even common) to exceed the 2GB file size limit of 32 bits.
No, I think we're talking about different things.
With Erlang, any function that matches an argument signature can be passed to a function that can take a lambda. But with Erlang, a given function can take more than one lambda at the same time as an argument. The closest analogy I could think of with the Java approach is to override *multiple* methods with a single lambda specification, not jujst one.
So it's not polymorphic in the sense that I think you're describing. It's just a broader-scoped implementation.
For example, you might define one lambda in Erlang that gets the next value from some abstract container to be defined by the programmer. You might define another lambda to compare elements. The lambda-receiving function sort() accepts both, producing a sorted list based on the arbitrary "key" of the lambdas. I don't see any way of doing that with the Java approach, because there is no way to specify multiple lambda arguments for the implementation of sort().
In "normal" Java you could do it by expecting two interfaces for sort()'s arguments, so perhaps you could then specify lambdas of the interfaces, but I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure Java would mandate that you use classes, not interfaces, which kind of limits the generic approach that Erlang offers.
I'd hardly call it "difficult" to use, any more than it is to use the wrappers for the native types. Still, it would be *nice* if you could use "+" instead of "add()", but really that's just syntactic sugar.
I think the bigger reason they probably didn't do it is that Erlang only lets you assign a variable once, so there are no concurrency issues with read/write of variables. One of the neat side effects of this is that a service/method which takes a lambda argument can be parallelized behind the scenes without changing the meaning of the code execution.
Another thing that puzzles me is that Java lambdas seem to be based on the idea of overriding a method of a class. That seems to me to be a critically limiting way of implementing them vs. function prototypes/templates, as there is no way to specify multiple lambdas being passed to the evaluator.
Sorry. I meant "BigDecimal".
How would your Decimal concept be any more powerful than Number?
The one thing I wish they'd have done with Number is added Precision and Scale to it's usage, which would be invaluable for things like financial and scientific calculations.
I'm disappointed. I expected Lambda functions to be closer to Erlang's implementation, where you can access the variables of the enclosing function/method safely. But perhaps the examples in the article are just too simplistic to show such behaviour.
The Congress and Senate and President of the US are traitors to the United States Constitution that they swore to uphold, not Snowden.
I'm tired of hearing that cop out.
Where are the protests?
The calls for the resignations or impeachment?
The demands for accountability?
You are responsible for the actions of your government. YOU.
Well, when you think the run the world, you tend to overestimate your power.
Personally I hope Snowden stays in Russia. Their nuclear arsenal would make the US think twice about trying to pull a "Bin Laden" on Snowden.
I wish Canada didn't have an extradition treaty with the US, or I'd be writing and emailing the PM encouraging him to take in Snowden.
Obviously I meant to say "I'm not an American citizen."
As per usual the narcissistic US government thinks it runs the world. Fuck you all.
As a Canadian I don't enjoy any protection from the spying because I'm not a Canadian citizen.
So let me be amongst the many who say "Fuck the United States."
This is precisely the kind of behaviour that leads to hatred of and terrorism against the US.
Most people assume GTK+ is a dead end seeing as it's tied so closely to that abortion of a desktop known as Gnome 3.
Amen to that. Spend some of that FX budget on the script, FFS.
One big difference: The supporters for Linux systems release updates that can be installed automagically on a regular basis. They may not deliver the latest release of the Linux kernel, but they do backport patches and fixes and roll those out on a regular basis. The handset vendors do not.
Warriors go to battle against armed opponents. They're not over-armed thugs who kick in the doors of the innocent or peaceful to shoot them and their pets.
Calling these jackboots "warriors" is an insult to everyone who has ever served in the armed forces.
Facebook isn't being bought off by lobbyists or run by political fanatics with an agenda. They're in it for the money, plain and simple, and that's something the people can understand.
Windows won't die as long as consumer and corporate desktop computers are required and Microsoft doesn't keep trying to force incompatible user metaphors on that customer base.
However, cellphones and tablets are surging past that core base as secondary devices (at least in North America and Europe -- in the third world cell phones are often the primary device for people.)
I'd never want to try to type out a letter or a large document on a cellphone or a tablet, much less try to do any serious programming on them directly. There simply is no good substitute for a keyboard for mass data input.
But Windows will have an ever-shrinking share of the internet access market share as those newer devices take hold for media consumers. The writing is very clearly on the wall in that context, and sooner or later it's going to start affecting the default metaphors used by website programmers as well, at least for those whose core consumers are not on the desktop.
That doesn't mean Windows or the desktop are "failing" or "obsolete" -- it just means that companion products have opened a new market that they can't reach.
The Metro UI isn't actually impossibly horrible from the "regular" user's standpoint. It took my elderly parents all of two weeks to get used to it for running their card games, browsing the web, and so on. But I did install most of the software they would need on the base system; out of the box it really doesn't do much.
Still, they only tolerate the new UI. The still gripe that it's not the same as XP. I'm firmly convinced they'd have been far happier if they'd followed my advice and bought an older Win7 based system that still had the tradition menu-and-window organization.
The best thing Microsoft could do as far as the Win8 debacle goes is to ensure that 8.1 lets you stick with the "traditional" desktop full time. The thing my parents hate the most is this full-screen, one-app-at-a-time mentality from the cellphone and tablet markets. Just because that kind of approach worked for green-screen terminals and iOS doesn't mean that people like it -- just that they used what they had to.
The windowing interfaces used by Gnome 2, KDE, Apple OS/X, Win 95-7, OS/2, and a host of other interfaces were based on years of research at IBM that resulted in the Common User Access style guides. They weren't pulled out of their arse based on some artsy-fartsy desire to just do "something different." They were based on studies and feedback.
Microsoft threw all that work out the window with the Metro menu system in favour of pursuing an iOS experience, forgetting that the only reason the iOS interface is acceptable is because it's designed for small screens. Not necessarily tablets, but small screens.
Metro is an admirable first cut of an interface that would work well on the small screen devices like a phone or tablet, but they didn't go all the way. Every third party application I've used on my parents box drops you back into the desktop when it runs. So in effect, the only thing you get that's "tablet style" when using WIn8 full time is the start menu. Forcing people to shift their entire usage pattern for the sake of a menu system was asininine, and the sales numbers prove that out.
The sales numbers for Win8 are even now grossly exagerrated. Everyone I know who bought a Win8 box save my parents downgraded to Windows 7. Every single one.
Hell, if I were buying a new box I wouldn't buy one without downgrade rights. (Aside from that, my next system upgrade will be for my Linux desktop, not another Windows system. I only need one windows box, and that, happily, runs Windows 7.)