Argh - was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Last Programming Language
On 22/07/11 05:30, daly wrote: On Thu, 2011-07-21 at 23:03 -0400, Jeff Dik wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). Perhaps the last 6 or 7 paragraphs to http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html? Jeff Yes, that's the story. --Tim Ouch. This is an appeal for posters to think of their readers and trim for readability. In this style, even having scrolled several pages and found one insertion, there is no guarantee... OCaml came from ML but the ideas came before either one. Lisp supported functional programming long before either language. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that very few languages have increased our stock of fundamental ideas. OCaml is not one of them. Indeed languages (like Spad) built on lisp STILL support ideas I have not seen anywhere else (e.g. dispatching on the return type as well as the argument types). Robert suggests that we need to develop a standard language. Good luck with that. I participated in the reviews of the X3J13 Common Lisp standard (behind the scenes by passing on my comments and markups to people who had the proposal directly). Trying to define a standard programming language would be the ultimate language war. It has been tried several times before (PL/I included everything and C++0x is trying hard to include everything). At best I believe we will muddle along and I will continue to be rejected during job interviews for working in python 2.7 and not knowing python 3.0. Forty years of lisp programming just makes me too old to hire for any real programming job. Heck, I probably don't know the difference between OCaml and awk-a-mel so I clearly cannot program. :-) ...that I have found them all I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. ...so I have the scan the whole abominable nest of quotes! I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in the same syntax matters. Lisp is the only language I know that allows you to work across the whole spectrum in a single language. It is
Re: Argh - was Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Last Programming Language
On Jul 22, 3:35 am, Nick oinksoc...@letterboxes.org wrote: On 22/07/11 05:30, daly wrote: On Thu, 2011-07-21 at 23:03 -0400, Jeff Dik wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). Perhaps the last 6 or 7 paragraphs to http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html? Jeff Yes, that's the story. --Tim Ouch. This is an appeal for posters to think of their readers and trim for readability. In this style, even having scrolled several pages and found one insertion, there is no guarantee... OCaml came from ML but the ideas came before either one. Lisp supported functional programming long before either language. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that very few languages have increased our stock of fundamental ideas. OCaml is not one of them. Indeed languages (like Spad) built on lisp STILL support ideas I have not seen anywhere else (e.g. dispatching on the return type as well as the argument types). Robert suggests that we need to develop a standard language. Good luck with that. I participated in the reviews of the X3J13 Common Lisp standard (behind the scenes by passing on my comments and markups to people who had the proposal directly). Trying to define a standard programming language would be the ultimate language war. It has been tried several times before (PL/I included everything and C++0x is trying hard to include everything). At best I believe we will muddle along and I will continue to be rejected during job interviews for working in python 2.7 and not knowing python 3.0. Forty years of lisp programming just makes me too old to hire for any real programming job. Heck, I probably don't know the difference between OCaml and awk-a-mel so I clearly cannot program. :-) ...that I have found them all I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. ...so I have the scan the whole abominable nest of quotes! I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). Perhaps the last 6 or 7 paragraphs to http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html? Jeff OCaml came from ML but the ideas came before either one. Lisp supported functional programming long before either language. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that very few languages have increased our stock of fundamental ideas. OCaml is not one of them. Indeed languages (like Spad) built on lisp STILL support ideas I have not seen anywhere else (e.g. dispatching on the return type as well as the argument types). Robert suggests that we need to develop a standard language. Good luck with that. I participated in the reviews of the X3J13 Common Lisp standard (behind the scenes by passing on my comments and markups to people who had the proposal directly). Trying to define a standard programming language would be the ultimate language war. It has been tried several times before (PL/I included everything and C++0x is trying hard to include everything). At best I believe we will muddle along and I will continue to be rejected during job interviews for working in python 2.7 and not knowing python 3.0. Forty years of lisp programming just makes me too old to hire for any real programming job. Heck, I probably don't know the difference between OCaml and awk-a-mel so I clearly cannot program. :-) I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in the same syntax matters. Lisp is the only language I know that allows you to work across the whole spectrum in a single language. It is possible to say (integrate (car x)) which takes the 0 displacement off the x pointer (machine) and then does a mathematical integration routine (problem) and does it all with the same syntax and semantics. I wouldn't worry that we will stop creating new languages. We have yet to explore the space of unicode replacements for the semi-colon (although Fortress is starting). Kanji semi-colons. I can't
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Thu, 2011-07-21 at 23:03 -0400, Jeff Dik wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). Perhaps the last 6 or 7 paragraphs to http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/2008/02/ooh-ooh-my-turn-why-lisp.html? Jeff Yes, that's the story. --Tim OCaml came from ML but the ideas came before either one. Lisp supported functional programming long before either language. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that very few languages have increased our stock of fundamental ideas. OCaml is not one of them. Indeed languages (like Spad) built on lisp STILL support ideas I have not seen anywhere else (e.g. dispatching on the return type as well as the argument types). Robert suggests that we need to develop a standard language. Good luck with that. I participated in the reviews of the X3J13 Common Lisp standard (behind the scenes by passing on my comments and markups to people who had the proposal directly). Trying to define a standard programming language would be the ultimate language war. It has been tried several times before (PL/I included everything and C++0x is trying hard to include everything). At best I believe we will muddle along and I will continue to be rejected during job interviews for working in python 2.7 and not knowing python 3.0. Forty years of lisp programming just makes me too old to hire for any real programming job. Heck, I probably don't know the difference between OCaml and awk-a-mel so I clearly cannot program. :-) I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in the same syntax matters. Lisp is the only language I know that allows you to work across the whole spectrum in a single language. It is possible to say (integrate (car x)) which takes the 0 displacement off the x pointer (machine) and then does a mathematical integration routine (problem) and does it all with the same syntax and semantics. I
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in the same syntax matters. Lisp is the only language I know that allows you to work across the whole spectrum in a single language. It is possible to say (integrate (car x)) which takes the 0 displacement off the x pointer (machine) and then does a mathematical integration routine (problem) and does it all with the same syntax and semantics. +1 to all of this. I wouldn't worry that we will stop creating new languages. We have yet to explore the space of unicode replacements for the semi-colon (although Fortress is starting). Kanji semi-colons. I can't wait! I sure can. I never intend to use any language I can't type without meta keys and/or a special keyboard. :) -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
Maybe the PLOT language is intressting to people here. It has syntax and a very powerful macro system. http://users.rcn.com/david-moon/PLOT/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 22:16 -0700, Sean Corfield wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) Yeah, that was definitely a weak point of his talk. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in there tho' and it was entertaining (which was mostly why I enjoyed it - so many talks, even keynotes, can be pretty dull even if the information is good :) A justification of homoiconicisty is that programs == data. A clever soul named Von Neumann made the observation that machines were controlled by external commands (i.e. programs) to operate on things (i.e. data). His insight was to unify the problem and treat programs as data resulting in the invention of the stored program computer. If you completely separate something like a loader (program) from its data (the binary program) then there is no way to treat the program-you-load as the-program-to-run. Today we teach students to write programs to manipulate data so we have returned to the pre- Von Neumann mindset. It is considered the height of bad form to execute data. In fact, some bright spot added SELinux with the default policy that you could not execute code from the heap! Robert gave an example of self-modifying behavior with the IBM move instruction where he talked about modifying the length field dynamically. In fact, the IBM 370 included an EX instruction that executes another instruction with modifications. Both of these are easy to do since the program and the data have the same binary representation. In your best language (e.g. C++, Python, Ruby, etc) can you write a program that modifies itself in the source language (e.g. C++) while continuing to execute? Would this be considered a bug during code review? (Fortran used to allow me to write over the FORMAT output string which allowed me to change the output format based on the data.) If you do write a self-modifying program, did you have to write a C++ parser first? In lisp, all you have to do is walk the program as a list, rplaca the target sublist, and continue. Fortunately someone at Sun was able to cross this barrier when they decided to write the hotspot JVM. Hotspot self-modifies as it runs to improve performance, similar to the Rubics cube program I mentioned previously. I wish they had been mindful enough to make Hotspot a fundamental part of Java itself. We would be able to write Java programs that self-optimize in ways that Hotspot cannot know by accessing and rewriting our own byte codes. If someone reifies the byte codes in lisp syntax it would be easy to write programs directly on the JVM that look like lisp, compiles to byte codes, and could be self modified. Homoiconicity is Von Neumann's insightful idea that programs == data -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
Leave it to XKCD to figure out the last word on this :-) http://www.xkcd.com On Wed, 2011-07-20 at 10:22 -0400, daly wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 22:16 -0700, Sean Corfield wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) Yeah, that was definitely a weak point of his talk. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in there tho' and it was entertaining (which was mostly why I enjoyed it - so many talks, even keynotes, can be pretty dull even if the information is good :) A justification of homoiconicisty is that programs == data. A clever soul named Von Neumann made the observation that machines were controlled by external commands (i.e. programs) to operate on things (i.e. data). His insight was to unify the problem and treat programs as data resulting in the invention of the stored program computer. If you completely separate something like a loader (program) from its data (the binary program) then there is no way to treat the program-you-load as the-program-to-run. Today we teach students to write programs to manipulate data so we have returned to the pre- Von Neumann mindset. It is considered the height of bad form to execute data. In fact, some bright spot added SELinux with the default policy that you could not execute code from the heap! Robert gave an example of self-modifying behavior with the IBM move instruction where he talked about modifying the length field dynamically. In fact, the IBM 370 included an EX instruction that executes another instruction with modifications. Both of these are easy to do since the program and the data have the same binary representation. In your best language (e.g. C++, Python, Ruby, etc) can you write a program that modifies itself in the source language (e.g. C++) while continuing to execute? Would this be considered a bug during code review? (Fortran used to allow me to write over the FORMAT output string which allowed me to change the output format based on the data.) If you do write a self-modifying program, did you have to write a C++ parser first? In lisp, all you have to do is walk the program as a list, rplaca the target sublist, and continue. Fortunately someone at Sun was able to cross this barrier when they decided to write the hotspot JVM. Hotspot self-modifies as it runs to improve performance, similar to the Rubics cube program I mentioned previously. I wish they had been mindful enough to make Hotspot a fundamental part of Java itself. We would be able to write Java programs that self-optimize in ways that Hotspot cannot know by accessing and rewriting our own byte codes. If someone reifies the byte codes in lisp syntax it would be easy to write programs directly on the JVM that look like lisp, compiles to byte codes, and could be self modified. Homoiconicity is Von Neumann's insightful idea that programs == data -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 7:52 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: snip A justification of homoiconicisty is that programs == data. A clever soul named Von Neumann made the observation that machines were controlled by external commands (i.e. programs) to operate on things (i.e. data). His insight was to unify the problem and treat programs as data resulting in the invention of the stored program computer. If you completely separate something like a loader (program) from its data (the binary program) then there is no way to treat the program-you-load as the-program-to-run. Today we teach students to write programs to manipulate data so we have returned to the pre- Von Neumann mindset. It is considered the height of bad form to execute data. In fact, some bright spot added SELinux with the default policy that you could not execute code from the heap! You are spot on with this. We have built a whole army of programmers who would manipulate data instead of transforming data. Sooner or later this practice results in bloated code. regards Vivek -- The hidden harmony is better than the obvious!! -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
I worked a lot in several assembler implementations in the 80/90s and creating self-rewriting code was still common. I remember creating a program crawling in memory on an IBM 370 compatible computer by copying itself before jumping in its new instance, I wrote this one as an amusement :) I never considered data and code to different things. This was imposed on me when working with other high-level languages except Lisp for with which I always felt more affinities. When you look at code and data as being the same, things are much more simple to understand and easier to deal with. Divide to conquer they say... I think this division created faked walls that slowed down improvements in software in general. Luc P. On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:22:13 -0400 daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 22:16 -0700, Sean Corfield wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) Yeah, that was definitely a weak point of his talk. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in there tho' and it was entertaining (which was mostly why I enjoyed it - so many talks, even keynotes, can be pretty dull even if the information is good :) A justification of homoiconicisty is that programs == data. A clever soul named Von Neumann made the observation that machines were controlled by external commands (i.e. programs) to operate on things (i.e. data). His insight was to unify the problem and treat programs as data resulting in the invention of the stored program computer. If you completely separate something like a loader (program) from its data (the binary program) then there is no way to treat the program-you-load as the-program-to-run. Today we teach students to write programs to manipulate data so we have returned to the pre- Von Neumann mindset. It is considered the height of bad form to execute data. In fact, some bright spot added SELinux with the default policy that you could not execute code from the heap! Robert gave an example of self-modifying behavior with the IBM move instruction where he talked about modifying the length field dynamically. In fact, the IBM 370 included an EX instruction that executes another instruction with modifications. Both of these are easy to do since the program and the data have the same binary representation. In your best language (e.g. C++, Python, Ruby, etc) can you write a program that modifies itself in the source language (e.g. C++) while continuing to execute? Would this be considered a bug during code review? (Fortran used to allow me to write over the FORMAT output string which allowed me to change the output format based on the data.) If you do write a self-modifying program, did you have to write a C++ parser first? In lisp, all you have to do is walk the program as a list, rplaca the target sublist, and continue. Fortunately someone at Sun was able to cross this barrier when they decided to write the hotspot JVM. Hotspot self-modifies as it runs to improve performance, similar to the Rubics cube program I mentioned previously. I wish they had been mindful enough to make Hotspot a fundamental part of Java itself. We would be able to write Java programs that self-optimize in ways that Hotspot cannot know by accessing and rewriting our own byte codes. If someone reifies the byte codes in lisp syntax it would be easy to write programs directly on the JVM that look like lisp, compiles to byte codes, and could be self modified. Homoiconicity is Von Neumann's insightful idea that programs == data -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- Luc P. The rabid Muppet -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 1:36 PM, TimDaly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Robert Martin argues that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/agile-testing/bobs-last-language I don't see how that claim can be drawn from the textual content on that page. He mentions Clojure exactly once, not as a candidate last programming language but merely as an example, among several, of languages that seem to be rediscovering the past (i.e. long-underused language families like the Lisps, MLs, etc.). If he's arguing that Clojure, specifically, could be it, modulo incremental refinements, it's not in the text on the page you linked to. -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:54 AM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Watch the video. What video? The only video I see linked from there is over an hour long. Obviously you can't mean that one, since no one around here has that kind of spare time at this hour on a Tuesday. :) -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
tl;dw spoiler alert: The trailing conclusion of the video is that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. The video reprises Gabriel's paper of the same title. Bob Martin reminds me of James Martin from the 70s, for those of us old enough to remember him. I wonder if they are related. Tim On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 07:50 -0400, Ken Wesson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:54 AM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Watch the video. What video? The only video I see linked from there is over an hour long. Obviously you can't mean that one, since no one around here has that kind of spare time at this hour on a Tuesday. :) -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
Maybe. Or maybe Martin's talk should be entitled The Last Programming Language To Get Any Mind-Share. On Jul 19, 3:42 am, Steven Tomcavage ste...@tomcavage.com wrote: I double we'll ever see The Last Programming Language, because we're all hackers and we all have a notion that things could be done better if we just tweaked this or that a bit, and voila, you have a new programming language. On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 1:36 PM, TimDaly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Robert Martin argues that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/agile-testing/bobs-last-language -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:52 AM, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 1:36 PM, TimDaly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Robert Martin argues that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/agile-testing/bobs-last-language I don't see how that claim can be drawn from the textual content on that page. He mentions Clojure exactly once, not as a candidate last programming language but merely as an example, among several, of languages that seem to be rediscovering the past (i.e. long-underused language families like the Lisps, MLs, etc.). If he's arguing that Clojure, specifically, could be it, modulo incremental refinements, it's not in the text on the page you linked to. Watch the video and you'll see the comment Tim is referencing. Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: Watch the video and you'll see the comment Tim is referencing. Are you aware of the length of that video? -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
I find his videos very easy to watch - I think it was around a hour, but the time flies by. On 19 July 2011 14:16, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: Watch the video and you'll see the comment Tim is referencing. Are you aware of the length of that video? -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Colin Yates colin.ya...@gmail.com wrote: I find his videos very easy to watch - I think it was around a hour, but the time flies by. An hour of Will Smith blasting aliens flies by. An hour of a talking head is better presented as text. An hour of talking head + slides is better presented as text + inline images. Particularly since text is searchable and video, for the foreseeable future, is not. :) -- Protege: What is this seething mass of parentheses?! Master: Your father's Lisp REPL. This is the language of a true hacker. Not as clumsy or random as C++; a language for a more civilized age. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 16:11, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Colin Yates colin.ya...@gmail.com wrote: I find his videos very easy to watch - I think it was around a hour, but the time flies by. An hour of Will Smith blasting aliens flies by. An hour of a talking head is better presented as text. An hour of talking head + slides is better presented as text + inline images. Particularly since text is searchable and video, for the foreseeable future, is not. :) True enough, though I should hasten to point out that Uncle Bob is an unusually entertaining talking head. // ben -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
Quite - you don't get the ants in your pants vibe from plain text :) On 19 July 2011 15:18, Ben Smith-Mannschott bsmith.o...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 16:11, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 10:05 AM, Colin Yates colin.ya...@gmail.com wrote: I find his videos very easy to watch - I think it was around a hour, but the time flies by. An hour of Will Smith blasting aliens flies by. An hour of a talking head is better presented as text. An hour of talking head + slides is better presented as text + inline images. Particularly since text is searchable and video, for the foreseeable future, is not. :) True enough, though I should hasten to point out that Uncle Bob is an unusually entertaining talking head. // ben -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
this made me lol :D a big will smith fan??? not that i know you at all other than reading your posts here, but i really didnt see that coming... On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:11 AM, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: An hour of Will Smith blasting aliens flies by. An hour of a talking head is better presented as text. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:50 AM, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: What video? The only video I see linked from there is over an hour long. Obviously you can't mean that one, since no one around here has that kind of spare time at this hour on a Tuesday. :) Yes, an hour. It's an excellent talk. There's a higher quality video of his NDC talk on this topic (same conclusion, different anecdotes) but that needs to be downloaded and then skip the first five minutes as they had the camera running before the talk started: http://ndc2011.no/agenda.aspx?cat=1071id=-1day=3726 Ken, you might be surprised what an hour's investment will bring :) -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Jul 19, 1:23 pm, Sean Corfield seancorfi...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:50 AM, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: What video? The only video I see linked from there is over an hour long. Obviously you can't mean that one, since no one around here has that kind of spare time at this hour on a Tuesday. :) Yes, an hour. It's an excellent talk. There's a higher quality video of his NDC talk on this topic (same conclusion, different anecdotes) but that needs to be downloaded and then skip the first five minutes as they had the camera running before the talk started: http://ndc2011.no/agenda.aspx?cat=1071id=-1day=3726 Ken, you might be surprised what an hour's investment will bring :) I confess that I turned this on for an hour this morning, and don't really think it was worth the time. I would sum it up for Ken as: Wouldn't interoperation be great if we all used the same language, like mathematicians do? Such a language would have to be really good, with features XYZ [no particular motivation for why all these features are good]. I can't think of any other features we could possibly want, either, because we seem to have already had all the interesting ideas in language design. Look, Clojure has all of these features! It might be a good start towards language standardization. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:23 PM, Sean Corfield seancorfi...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 4:50 AM, Ken Wesson kwess...@gmail.com wrote: What video? The only video I see linked from there is over an hour long. Obviously you can't mean that one, since no one around here has that kind of spare time at this hour on a Tuesday. :) Yes, an hour. It's an excellent talk. There's a higher quality video of his NDC talk on this topic (same conclusion, different anecdotes) but that needs to be downloaded and then skip the first five minutes as they had the camera running before the talk started: http://ndc2011.no/agenda.aspx?cat=1071id=-1day=3726 Ken, you might be surprised what an hour's investment will bring :) -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Jul 19, 3:23 pm, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. Well, that's good to know. I noticed he mispronounced a lot of stuff, and I *thought* his pronunciation of ocaml was wrong, but I was left with some uncertainty since I wasn't that confident to begin with. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. You'd think the camel icon on the official website would give it away :) Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
It is an object extension to the AWK programming language :-) On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 19:31 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. You'd think the camel icon on the official website would give it away :) Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I know very well, but I've never heard of this awk-a-mel. :-) Seriously, his pronunciation of ocaml highlights, I think, the core problem of his talk. There has been significant development in languages, just not in the popular languages. It's been over there in the fringe languages. I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). OCaml came from ML but the ideas came before either one. Lisp supported functional programming long before either language. I believe the point Robert was trying to make was that very few languages have increased our stock of fundamental ideas. OCaml is not one of them. Indeed languages (like Spad) built on lisp STILL support ideas I have not seen anywhere else (e.g. dispatching on the return type as well as the argument types). Robert suggests that we need to develop a standard language. Good luck with that. I participated in the reviews of the X3J13 Common Lisp standard (behind the scenes by passing on my comments and markups to people who had the proposal directly). Trying to define a standard programming language would be the ultimate language war. It has been tried several times before (PL/I included everything and C++0x is trying hard to include everything). At best I believe we will muddle along and I will continue to be rejected during job interviews for working in python 2.7 and not knowing python 3.0. Forty years of lisp programming just makes me too old to hire for any real programming job. Heck, I probably don't know the difference between OCaml and awk-a-mel so I clearly cannot program. :-) I don't need to know how many digits somebody can recite Pi to, but I would like to know how his experience with awk-a-mel lead him to believe that functional programming comes down to protecting variable assignment :) That all said, if Clojure is the seed for the last language, I'd be a happy man. I believe that Robert missed the fundamental point though. It is NOT just the space of ideas that makes lisp the right language. Another key reason is impedance matching. (An impedance mismatch is when you hook a soda straw to a firehose). Programs exist to bridge the gap between the idea domain and the machine domain. Some languages are close to the machine, like assembler, so you have to carry your idea all the way to the machine. Some languages are close to the problem (e.g. Mathematica) but the compiler has to cross the gap to the machine. This is where the ability to create domain-specific languages in the same syntax matters. Lisp is the only language I know that allows you to work across the whole spectrum in a single language. It is possible to say (integrate (car x)) which takes the 0 displacement off the x pointer (machine) and then does a mathematical integration routine (problem) and does it all with the same syntax and semantics. I wouldn't worry that we will stop creating new languages. We have yet to explore the space of unicode replacements for the semi-colon (although Fortress is starting). Kanji semi-colons. I can't wait! Tim Daly -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I ... I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). I tend to take the position that Micheal L. Scott does in his book Programming Language Pragmatics, when he states that: Metaprogramming requires, at the least, that we have true first-class functions in the strict sense of the term, that is, that we be able to generate new functions whose behavior is determined dynamically. A homoiconic language can simplify metaprogramming [emphasis added] by eliminating the need to translate between internal (data structure) and external (syntactic) representations of programs or program extensions. (p. 563) Homoiconic does simplify the process, but I'm not sold it's a requirement for productive metaprogramming. For instance, Template Haskell is a very powerful, usable tool for integrating metaprogramming into programs written in Haskell, a language that is not considered homoiconic: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Template_Haskell That said, I appreciate the syntax of Clojure and CL very much, but there are also times I appreciate the syntax of non-Lisp languages, too :) Interesting points. Adam -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 22:27 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, daly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: On Tue, 2011-07-19 at 20:14 -0400, Adam Richardson wrote: On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 6:23 PM, Brian Hurt bhur...@gmail.com wrote: What's this awk-a-mel he speaks of? Ocaml, pronounced oh-camel, I ... I will confess that as I listened to the presentation (when I got the email with Tim's link, I just started the video while I was working on some drudgery), I felt like he missed some of the language features promoted in functional languages. He worded functional programming contributions in terms of advancing the idea of limiting/protecting variable assignment (immutability), and to me, that's missing the points of first class functions (which, in light of what he says OOP languages brought to the table, actually provided protected function pointers through purely functional languages without any need for OOP) and an emphasis on function purity and limiting the scope of unpure functions (to me, this goes beyond merely protecting assignment.) These omissions, coupled with the mispronunciations of functional programming language names, and the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) had me wondering how much he actually has used languages such as OCaml or Haskell. Homoiconic representation is fundamentally important and lacking in other languages. The programs == data idea is what makes the macro facility work, allows dynamic program construction, compile to core, etc. There is a story going around that McCarthy attended a python talk where they made the claim that python IS a lisp-like language. John pointed out that if it lacks homoiconicity it cannot be a lisp. (I probably have the details wrong). I tend to take the position that Micheal L. Scott does in his book Programming Language Pragmatics, when he states that: Metaprogramming requires, at the least, that we have true first-class functions in the strict sense of the term, that is, that we be able to generate new functions whose behavior is determined dynamically. A homoiconic language can simplify metaprogramming [emphasis added] by eliminating the need to translate between internal (data structure) and external (syntactic) representations of programs or program extensions. (p. 563) Homoiconic does simplify the process, but I'm not sold it's a requirement for productive metaprogramming. For instance, Template Haskell is a very powerful, usable tool for integrating metaprogramming into programs written in Haskell, a language that is not considered homoiconic: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Template_Haskell That said, I appreciate the syntax of Clojure and CL very much, but there are also times I appreciate the syntax of non-Lisp languages, too :) Indeed it is ALMOST possible to do some things by referencing the abstract syntax tree version of Haskell. If the AST version were the actual language of Haskell you could build the syntactic-sugar version on top of it. Unfortunately, they started the other way around. And, you'll note, the Template Haskell language has various restrictions (e.g. non-recursive, separate files, etc) that make it not-quite-first-class Haskell. This is more than a matter of syntactic elegance. There are things you simply cannot do by machine that you can do by hand (well, technically you can but only with a lot of special case programming). Eventually you need a Haskell parser you can invoke at compile time. One of my AI programs learned by doing self modification at run time. It rewrote itself to optimize the cases and saved the changes. During execution, the program gradually shifted until the code I originally wrote no longer existed. I can't imagine doing that in Haskell or C++ or any other language except maybe assembler. A standard example is to write a dumb Rubics cube program that rewrites itself when it discovers a shorter solution. You can do this by interpreting a data structure but in lisp, the program IS the data structure. It is fun to watch the program learn. It is a shame we don't teach students to do this. Imagine what Google COULD be if they bothered to unify programs and data, letting Google learn by itself. But that is probably too much science for an engineering company.
Re: The Last Programming Language
On Tue, Jul 19, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Adam Richardson simples...@gmail.com wrote: the value placed on the last language being homoiconic (without much justification) Yeah, that was definitely a weak point of his talk. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in there tho' and it was entertaining (which was mostly why I enjoyed it - so many talks, even keynotes, can be pretty dull even if the information is good :) -- Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/ World Singles, LLC. -- http://worldsingles.com/ Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://www.getrailo.com/ Perfection is the enemy of the good. -- Gustave Flaubert, French realist novelist (1821-1880) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
The Last Programming Language
Robert Martin argues that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/agile-testing/bobs-last-language -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
Re: The Last Programming Language
I double we'll ever see The Last Programming Language, because we're all hackers and we all have a notion that things could be done better if we just tweaked this or that a bit, and voila, you have a new programming language. On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 1:36 PM, TimDaly d...@axiom-developer.org wrote: Robert Martin argues that Clojure could be the seed of the last programming language. http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/agile-testing/bobs-last-language -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Clojure group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
