:) Hey, IBM is not evil anymore. Microsoft is now the target of our distaste.
Ok, I think this boils down to personality types when you think about it. For me, I'm the type of person that would like as much self-documenting information in the code as possible. I would like this enforced within the language, otherwise, our human tendencies to be sloppy and use x as an int one minute and as a date object the next is too strong.
Perhaps you want to code quickly and get the job done with less concern about modifiying or maintaining the code later?
I want to make a program that not only works, but can be easily understood and changed around later on. To me, static typing is one of the only ways to enforce this and it has little to do with letting the computer do the work and more to do with making the code more readable. I know that point is arguable as well, but that's just my view.
I agree to differ with you though; however, I won't fall for your straw man ("you may enjoy simulating a computer")!:)
You don't hear them as much because they don't have to "fight the power" like us Linux/BSD folks do. I would say there are a lot more Microsoft militants (or party-line people) than Linux militants. We're just at home here and in the majority HERE, but world-wide we're a definite vocal minority.
Keep being loud though!!! Windows STILL has a LONG LONG LONG way to go to match the flexibility, grace, and power of *n(i|u)x | *BSD.
THIS is good. I agree with you Liberals should stay and fight. We need balance and, although I lean Libertarian, I believe in everyone fighting for what they believe in. Leaving is NO solution--it's emotionally-charged nonsense.
On the other hand, I don't recall hearing conservatives threatening to leave during Clintons' terms. Yes, they whined and complained profusely, but they dug in and fought.
Please, PLEASE GO! Don't hold back. Liberals LOVE threatening to leave when their horse finishes last, so DO IT and leave us to fail miserably in our "fascism" and "right-wing extremism".
It's not true, but if you believe it you must leave. Good bye and good riddance. I'm SO SICK of hearing people threatening to leave whether jokingly or not. It's damn immature and pig-headed.
Erm...no. Unix and the first C compiler was built using assembler. Then, a new C compiler was written using C. Everything has a foundation. We don't use assembler much anymore--it's *fairly* abandoned when compared to higher level languages. The same might be said for the Java's of the world. That was the whole point!
The point is that the movie needs to make money. If the audience don't like it or gets bored with it, the movie will not be profitable.
There were already tons of whiners with the few fades at the end besides. Jackson had to cut back because people don't care if it's complete, they just don't want to be "bored". It's a shame IMO because I think Jackson would've done a great job on the scouring.
I thought the movies were pretty damn good and got quite a bit of the essence of the the books.
I have used it in real life and will be the first to admit that it's not for everything. I created a paging application that receives SNMP traps and makes decisions on when/who to page. I wrote the paging part and my co-workers worked on other parts. We designed interfaces and used what we had learned in some course we took. It's a BEAUTIFUL application!:) We've modified/added functionality and the oo promise worked much to our surprise. We didn't break anything adding new code and it was minimal effort all around.
However, my younger co-workers think it should be applied to everything and it just doesn't work. For example, a protocol parser we wrote is just more simply written linearly.
It takes a lot of time to understand the benefits. It isn't just "about objects" it's about a completely different design philosophy. Not "objects", but "object orientation" which contains a lot of different facets. I was the same way until I had a class in Object Oriented Design and saw how the structure of a properly designed object oriented program reduced rigidty and fragility in a design. Also, how it made the interfaces clear and made division of responsibilities simpler for multiple programmers working on a big project.
This is one paper (PDF document) that helped me start seeing the light. If you're interested, give that a read for starters.
Well, I probably wasn't clear enough; however, I see these reasons (primarily performance) becoming more and more negligible as computers continue to become more powerful. There has to be an equilibrium point where the simplicity/ease of design (also an arguable point I'll grant) but less performance balances out the less simple, monolithic design with excellent performance.
Maybe this is an overly-asked question, but I still often ponder it. Does object-oriented design negate or diminish the future prospects of Unix's continuing popularity?
I've developed in C (which I still love), but lately, I've been doing a lot of purely object-oriented development in Java. Using things like delegation and reusable classes have made life so much easier in many respects. Since the *nixes are so dependent upon C, I was wondering what future you see in C combined with Unix. Like I said, I love C and still enjoy developing in Unix, but there has to be a point where you build on your progress and the object-oriented languages, in my opinion, seem to be doing that.
The reason why I don't dig responding to ACs is because a) they're usually miserable cretins who are emboldened by their anonymity b) they're usually trolls c) it's not fair for the AC to "know who I am" and I can't see "who they are"--whether past posts have been reasonable or trolls, etc.
After reading some of your reply, I tend to think IHBT since the things you say are so beyond the reason and the experiences I've encountered as well as those of people I know in the computer industry. Either that, or you've truly had a vastly different set of experiences that seem to go against all common sense.
I have written numerous modules in Perl and have found so many stability issues it's ridiculous. I have boiled down the problems to bugs in the Perl interpreter and libraries themselves. I even submitted a couple of bug reports, one in the IO.pm. I didn't wait around for a fix (although it is now). That is why I ported our production servers over to Tomcat instead of a CGI based web server. Years of buggy problems gone. Loading problems gone.
So I don't know if you're jerking my chain or not. If you are, good one--ha ha. If you aren't, what planet have you been working on?:)
I never get this AC replying thing when they have interesting points to discuss, but oh well, I'll try even though I don't usually respond to ACs.
Your whole post characterized the goal of structuring and codifying knowledge in software engineering as some sort of pseudo-political repression! That is so far from the case if you understand what engineering is all about. "Limiting choice is good for design" is your spin on "Following certain principles found to be efficient will improve code quality."
only a small percentage of the perl systems I have dealt with have had them as bad, so discipline, limitations, design patterns, strong typing and "safety" seem to have done exactly jack to acheive the goals of "good design".
I find this anecdotal "evidence" to be HIGHLY suspicious and, frankly, I don't believe you. It's almost laughable to say that maintaining similar code in Perl has less problems. You can write rotting code in Java and you WILL write rotting code in Perl unless you're very clever. Java makes it easier to write flexible code without quite being as clever.
Programming Language Fascism Get over yourself sir/madam. There's a reason the industry is trying to codify knowledge. It's called growth. Every industry does so. If you don't, you won't grow and software systems will remain inherently buggy and flawed.
I have read good things about C# and how they fixed problems found in Java (especially kludges like marker interfaces and generics). Too bad it's a MS proprietary language--even though I hear work is being done to open it--I'll believe it when I see it in extensive use and the same quality as the MS version.
Does Perl encourage sloppy programming or does it allow people who aren't concerned about so-called software-engineering to do productive things?"
You have a good point there and perhaps it's true as far as doing productive things. It breaks when you have to do productive things along with other people and maintain it for future expansion.
I do think, and this is down to opinion I suppose, that it *does* encourage sloppy programming because fundamental typing is nowhere to be seen. Use this variable over here for one thing, clobber it over there to use it for another. I read on that article you referenced and pretty much got confused by the differing opinions and corrections. Wiki is a pain in the butt to read!:) Here's my view, which I stole from the Java Language Overview on Sun's site:
One of the advantages of a strongly typed language (like C++) is that it allows extensive compile-time checking so bugs can be found early. Unfortunately, C++ inherits a number of loopholes in compile-time checking from C, which is relatively lax (particularly method/procedure declarations). In Java, we require declarations and do not support C-style implicit declarations.
Sure, you can write horrible code in Java too--I've done it--but at least it supports a more reasonable structure (interfaces, strong typing). There is no silver bullet language, I realize that, but to me Perl is pretty scary to rely on for nearly any task as I've found going back to maintain old Perl code from various sources.
I think it boils down to opinion, but mine is very strongly opposed to using Perl as a serious language for anything. If they redesigned Perl completely, cut back 50% on the cruft and structured it more reasonably, I'd not have as much of a problem; however, they're adding more operators and it's remaining weakly typed, so I have no hope.
Not really a different approach. There are some fundamentally defined tenants of good programming however and they include strong typing for one. In order to advance Software Engineering, approaches to good design have to be codified. Things like fragility, rigidity, and immobility run rampant in Perl. A good analogy would be you defending the ability to make a house out of mud and sticks instead of brick and aluminum. It's not that you can't make the house out of sticks because you have the philosophy that sticks are an expression of your artistic side, but do you want to live in that house?
If you're at all interested, this is one of the better articles on the subject--it's a really enlightening and interesting read for code writers! It's imperative for the software-writing "industry" to improve its practices, IMO (well, and others) and form a stronger discipline. Touchy-feely-I-have-the-right-to-write-unsafe-slop py-stuff doesn't necessarily make for good design!
It's not like having many colors of paint prevents you from making a nice painting, is it? I'm afraid coding and painting are not even CLOSE to being analogous. Having unnecessary operators and sloppy constructs does NOT make you more expressive in a coding sense. If that were the case, why can I do everything Perl can, and most likely more, in Java than in Perl when Perl has over 140 operators and Java has only 48? Expressiveness is in the algorithms and the approach to a problem, not how many or what type of operators I can have.
The problem a LOT of us have with Perl is that it is a very sloppy, unmaintainable language. You've got tons of people whipping up utter crap in Perl and then when they leave, programmers who use better languages are stuck wading through that garbage to re-write or maintain it. It's happened to me numerous times. I'm quite sick of Perl and the 5,000 ways people write the same scripts.
A couple million of us DO and will continue to. Great. More work for me when your code falls apart and you can't add simple functionality because of fragile spaghetti code.;)
Dude, my point is there are over 140 operators (I lost count on that periodic table) in Perl and approximately 48 in Java. And which is the cleaner, more concise, and more powerful language? I didn't think I'd have to count them for you to make my point, but you're too busy being a dick.
C++ is atrociously sloppy as well. Operator overloading is atrocious and easily abusable. Strongly typed languages, no operator overloading is a much more sensible way to go. I'm not overwhelmed by the amount of operators, I'm disappointed in them.
Sure Perl can hack out some good scripts, but so can a bash shell. The tasks I have to perform are either suited to a shell script (rather than Perl because Perl's a mess) or a full on application in Java or C.
A scripting language, IMO, should be able to uphold strong-typing philosophy without making it too difficult to use. More maintainable and readable code should always be a primary goal of a language in my opinion.
they made a good point instead of your backwards whining. If you can't handle my opinions, don't post. If you want to discuss like an adult, refrain from the insults, ok? Frankly, your attitude almost makes me not even bother discussing with you--it detracts from anything sensible you might be saying. This is just friendly advice, not trying to cut you down.
Slashdot Mirror
Gimme you IP adress!!! I'm gonna hock your monitor and make it brake.
You don beleeve me doo yoo??
:) Hey, IBM is not evil anymore. Microsoft is now the target of our distaste.
:)
Ok, I think this boils down to personality types when you think about it. For me, I'm the type of person that would like as much self-documenting information in the code as possible. I would like this enforced within the language, otherwise, our human tendencies to be sloppy and use x as an int one minute and as a date object the next is too strong.
Perhaps you want to code quickly and get the job done with less concern about modifiying or maintaining the code later?
I want to make a program that not only works, but can be easily understood and changed around later on. To me, static typing is one of the only ways to enforce this and it has little to do with letting the computer do the work and more to do with making the code more readable. I know that point is arguable as well, but that's just my view.
I agree to differ with you though; however, I won't fall for your straw man ("you may enjoy simulating a computer")!
It seems that IBM disagrees with you (as do I). I'm a static-type proponent. Dynamically typed languages make me barf. :)
AH HA!!! You're still around. Cool. Was looking for new JEs! :)
Glad to know you're ok.
I'm in school mode and that's pseudo-regex/BNF. That's why. :) My brain is fried!!!!
You don't hear them as much because they don't have to "fight the power" like us Linux/BSD folks do. I would say there are a lot more Microsoft militants (or party-line people) than Linux militants. We're just at home here and in the majority HERE, but world-wide we're a definite vocal minority.
Keep being loud though!!! Windows STILL has a LONG LONG LONG way to go to match the flexibility, grace, and power of *n(i|u)x | *BSD.
THIS is good. I agree with you Liberals should stay and fight. We need balance and, although I lean Libertarian, I believe in everyone fighting for what they believe in. Leaving is NO solution--it's emotionally-charged nonsense.
On the other hand, I don't recall hearing conservatives threatening to leave during Clintons' terms. Yes, they whined and complained profusely, but they dug in and fought.
Um, it's a bit different to whine and say you're leaving a country because you didn't get your way compared with pointing out how stupid that is.
Please, PLEASE GO! Don't hold back. Liberals LOVE threatening to leave when their horse finishes last, so DO IT and leave us to fail miserably in our "fascism" and "right-wing extremism".
It's not true, but if you believe it you must leave. Good bye and good riddance. I'm SO SICK of hearing people threatening to leave whether jokingly or not. It's damn immature and pig-headed.
Erm...no. Unix and the first C compiler was built using assembler. Then, a new C compiler was written using C. Everything has a foundation. We don't use assembler much anymore--it's *fairly* abandoned when compared to higher level languages. The same might be said for the Java's of the world. That was the whole point!
The point is that the movie needs to make money. If the audience don't like it or gets bored with it, the movie will not be profitable.
There were already tons of whiners with the few fades at the end besides. Jackson had to cut back because people don't care if it's complete, they just don't want to be "bored". It's a shame IMO because I think Jackson would've done a great job on the scouring.
I thought the movies were pretty damn good and got quite a bit of the essence of the the books.
I was particularly fond of the Truth class!
I have used it in real life and will be the first to admit that it's not for everything. I created a paging application that receives SNMP traps and makes decisions on when/who to page. I wrote the paging part and my co-workers worked on other parts. We designed interfaces and used what we had learned in some course we took. It's a BEAUTIFUL application! :) We've modified/added functionality and the oo promise worked much to our surprise. We didn't break anything adding new code and it was minimal effort all around.
However, my younger co-workers think it should be applied to everything and it just doesn't work. For example, a protocol parser we wrote is just more simply written linearly.
It takes a lot of time to understand the benefits. It isn't just "about objects" it's about a completely different design philosophy. Not "objects", but "object orientation" which contains a lot of different facets. I was the same way until I had a class in Object Oriented Design and saw how the structure of a properly designed object oriented program reduced rigidty and fragility in a design. Also, how it made the interfaces clear and made division of responsibilities simpler for multiple programmers working on a big project.
This is one paper (PDF document) that helped me start seeing the light. If you're interested, give that a read for starters.
Well, I probably wasn't clear enough; however, I see these reasons (primarily performance) becoming more and more negligible as computers continue to become more powerful. There has to be an equilibrium point where the simplicity/ease of design (also an arguable point I'll grant) but less performance balances out the less simple, monolithic design with excellent performance.
Hello!
Maybe this is an overly-asked question, but I still often ponder it. Does object-oriented design negate or diminish the future prospects of Unix's continuing popularity?
I've developed in C (which I still love), but lately, I've been doing a lot of purely object-oriented development in Java. Using things like delegation and reusable classes have made life so much easier in many respects. Since the *nixes are so dependent upon C, I was wondering what future you see in C combined with Unix. Like I said, I love C and still enjoy developing in Unix, but there has to be a point where you build on your progress and the object-oriented languages, in my opinion, seem to be doing that.
Thank you for all your contributions!!!
Because you are a sucker, man. A sucker! If I ever had mod points, I'd mod ya up though dude. It's WEIRD seeing you here. ;)
The reason why I don't dig responding to ACs is because a) they're usually miserable cretins who are emboldened by their anonymity b) they're usually trolls c) it's not fair for the AC to "know who I am" and I can't see "who they are"--whether past posts have been reasonable or trolls, etc.
:)
After reading some of your reply, I tend to think IHBT since the things you say are so beyond the reason and the experiences I've encountered as well as those of people I know in the computer industry. Either that, or you've truly had a vastly different set of experiences that seem to go against all common sense.
I have written numerous modules in Perl and have found so many stability issues it's ridiculous. I have boiled down the problems to bugs in the Perl interpreter and libraries themselves. I even submitted a couple of bug reports, one in the IO.pm. I didn't wait around for a fix (although it is now). That is why I ported our production servers over to Tomcat instead of a CGI based web server. Years of buggy problems gone. Loading problems gone.
So I don't know if you're jerking my chain or not. If you are, good one--ha ha. If you aren't, what planet have you been working on?
I never get this AC replying thing when they have interesting points to discuss, but oh well, I'll try even though I don't usually respond to ACs.
Your whole post characterized the goal of structuring and codifying knowledge in software engineering as some sort of pseudo-political repression! That is so far from the case if you understand what engineering is all about. "Limiting choice is good for design" is your spin on "Following certain principles found to be efficient will improve code quality."
only a small percentage of the perl systems I have dealt with have had them as bad, so discipline, limitations, design patterns, strong typing and "safety" seem to have done exactly jack to acheive the goals of "good design".
I find this anecdotal "evidence" to be HIGHLY suspicious and, frankly, I don't believe you. It's almost laughable to say that maintaining similar code in Perl has less problems. You can write rotting code in Java and you WILL write rotting code in Perl unless you're very clever. Java makes it easier to write flexible code without quite being as clever.
Programming Language Fascism
Get over yourself sir/madam. There's a reason the industry is trying to codify knowledge. It's called growth. Every industry does so. If you don't, you won't grow and software systems will remain inherently buggy and flawed.
I have read good things about C# and how they fixed problems found in Java (especially kludges like marker interfaces and generics). Too bad it's a MS proprietary language--even though I hear work is being done to open it--I'll believe it when I see it in extensive use and the same quality as the MS version.
You have a good point there and perhaps it's true as far as doing productive things. It breaks when you have to do productive things along with other people and maintain it for future expansion.
I do think, and this is down to opinion I suppose, that it *does* encourage sloppy programming because fundamental typing is nowhere to be seen. Use this variable over here for one thing, clobber it over there to use it for another. I read on that article you referenced and pretty much got confused by the differing opinions and corrections. Wiki is a pain in the butt to read!
I think it boils down to opinion, but mine is very strongly opposed to using Perl as a serious language for anything. If they redesigned Perl completely, cut back 50% on the cruft and structured it more reasonably, I'd not have as much of a problem; however, they're adding more operators and it's remaining weakly typed, so I have no hope.
Sorry, I thought we were having a good discussion. I just thought this was interesting.
Not really a different approach. There are some fundamentally defined tenants of good programming however and they include strong typing for one. In order to advance Software Engineering, approaches to good design have to be codified. Things like fragility, rigidity, and immobility run rampant in Perl. A good analogy would be you defending the ability to make a house out of mud and sticks instead of brick and aluminum. It's not that you can't make the house out of sticks because you have the philosophy that sticks are an expression of your artistic side, but do you want to live in that house?
p py-stuff doesn't necessarily make for good design!
If you're at all interested, this is one of the better articles on the subject--it's a really enlightening and interesting read for code writers! It's imperative for the software-writing "industry" to improve its practices, IMO (well, and others) and form a stronger discipline. Touchy-feely-I-have-the-right-to-write-unsafe-slo
It's not like having many colors of paint prevents you from making a nice painting, is it?
;)
I'm afraid coding and painting are not even CLOSE to being analogous. Having unnecessary operators and sloppy constructs does NOT make you more expressive in a coding sense. If that were the case, why can I do everything Perl can, and most likely more, in Java than in Perl when Perl has over 140 operators and Java has only 48? Expressiveness is in the algorithms and the approach to a problem, not how many or what type of operators I can have.
The problem a LOT of us have with Perl is that it is a very sloppy, unmaintainable language. You've got tons of people whipping up utter crap in Perl and then when they leave, programmers who use better languages are stuck wading through that garbage to re-write or maintain it. It's happened to me numerous times. I'm quite sick of Perl and the 5,000 ways people write the same scripts.
A couple million of us DO and will continue to.
Great. More work for me when your code falls apart and you can't add simple functionality because of fragile spaghetti code.
Dude, my point is there are over 140 operators (I lost count on that periodic table) in Perl and approximately 48 in Java. And which is the cleaner, more concise, and more powerful language? I didn't think I'd have to count them for you to make my point, but you're too busy being a dick.
Have a nice day.
C++ is atrociously sloppy as well. Operator overloading is atrocious and easily abusable. Strongly typed languages, no operator overloading is a much more sensible way to go. I'm not overwhelmed by the amount of operators, I'm disappointed in them.
Sure Perl can hack out some good scripts, but so can a bash shell. The tasks I have to perform are either suited to a shell script (rather than Perl because Perl's a mess) or a full on application in Java or C.
A scripting language, IMO, should be able to uphold strong-typing philosophy without making it too difficult to use. More maintainable and readable code should always be a primary goal of a language in my opinion.
they made a good point instead of your backwards whining.
If you can't handle my opinions, don't post. If you want to discuss like an adult, refrain from the insults, ok? Frankly, your attitude almost makes me not even bother discussing with you--it detracts from anything sensible you might be saying. This is just friendly advice, not trying to cut you down.