-- 3j5/LnRB/WyfJQmgsQ+ Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=-RVEz/q7Xg4Ye2aIyzDmi" -- VEz/q7Xg4Ye2aIyzDmi Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 20:32 +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote: > On 10 May 2008, at 07:31, Michael T. Richter wrote: > > Church's model of calculation is far more appealing to me and the > > languages based on it -- Lisp (arguably: there's some evidence that > > McCarthy stumbled over this rather than deliberately trying to model > > Church), Haskell, etc. -- are increasingly the way I like to work. > > But it's all smoke and mirrors. Underneath it all is a von Neumann > > machine masquerading as a Church lambda expression engine. > Which of course drives home the point that all languages are about > useful abstraction, allowing those who use them to discuss problem > spaces without drowning in detail. Oh, definitely. I'm not saying that said abstractions and layers are a BAD thing at all! It's why I've made sure I'm at least passingly familiar with ~50 programming languages (not proficient: passingly familiar). I want to keep my brain flexible with different ways of thinking about the abstractions. > In my experience Ruby is very good > at this even though it lacks some of the abstraction mechanisms I like > in other languages (such as Icon's goal direction), but another > developer's view may differ completely. I miss some of the stupid Haskell tricks I can do like trivial function composition. I am also beginning to really enjoy Erlang's approach to parallelism and wishing I could do cool stuff like that in Ruby as easily. But overall, yes, I agree with you. Ruby gives me lots of very helpful tools for communicating abstractions succinctly and quickly. > The same logic explains why some people love Lisp above all other > languages, and others would happily consign it to the bin of > 'academic' languages ;) Going back to point number ... 4 was it? In my list? The Lisp community is why I'm not a Lisper. I admire the language intensely and would be a Lisp fanatic myself but for the fact that I despise its community. I have never seen such a newbie-hostile, arrogant, unhelpful set of people in my life. Whenever I hear a Lisper ask why Lisp is so unpopular, I always have to suppress the urge to hold up a mirror. (There are notable exceptions of course. Richard Gabriel, for example, is one of the nicest people in any language community. Sadly the Erik Naggums of the Lisp community outnumber the Richard Gabriels by about two orders of magnitude.) -- Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter / gmail.com> (GoogleTalk: ttmrichter / gmail.com) It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it. (Steve McConnell) -- VEz/q7Xg4Ye2aIyzDmi Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8"> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.16.1"> </HEAD> <BODY> On Sat, 2008-05-10 at 20:32 +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> <FONT COLOR="#000000">On 10 May 2008, at 07:31, Michael T. Richter wrote:</FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> Church's model of calculation is far more appealing to me and the </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> languages based on it -- Lisp (arguably: there's some evidence that </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> McCarthy stumbled over this rather than deliberately trying to model </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> Church), Haskell, etc. -- are increasingly theay I like to work. </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> But it's all smoke and mirrors. Underneath itll is a von Neumann </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">> machine masquerading as a Church lambda expression engine.</FONT> </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <PRE> </PRE> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> <FONT COLOR="#000000">Which of course drives home the point that all languages are about </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">useful abstraction, allowing those who use them to discuss problem </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">spaces without drowning in detail. </FONT> </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> Oh, definitely. I'm not saying that said abstractions and layers are a BAD thing at all! It's why I've made sure I'm at least passingly familiar with ~50 programming languages (not proficient: passingly familiar). I want to keep my brain flexible with different ways of thinking about the abstractions.<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> <FONT COLOR="#000000">In my experience Ruby is very good </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">at this even though it lacks some of the abstraction mechanisms I like </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">in other languages (such as Icon's goal direction),ut another </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">developer's view may differ completely.</FONT> </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> I miss some of the stupid Haskell tricks I can do like trivial function composition. I am also beginning to really enjoy Erlang's approach to parallelism and wishing I could do cool stuff like that in Ruby as easily. But overall, yes, I agree with you. Ruby gives me lots of very helpful tools for communicating abstractions succinctly and quickly.<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE> <PRE> <FONT COLOR="#000000">The same logic explains why some people love Lisp above all other </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">languages, and others would happily consign it to the bin of </FONT> <FONT COLOR="#000000">'academic' languages ;)</FONT> </PRE> </BLOCKQUOTE> <BR> Going back to point number ... 4 was it? In my list? The Lisp <B>community</B> is why I'm not a Lisper. I admire the language intensely and would be a Lisp fanatic myself but for the fact that I despise its community. I have <B>never</B> seen such a newbie-hostile, arrogant, unhelpful set of people in my life. Whenever I hear a Lisper ask why Lisp is so unpopular, I always have to suppress the urge to hold up a mirror. (There are notable exceptions of course. Richard Gabriel, for example, is one of the nicest people in <B>any</B> language community. Sadly the Erik Naggums of the Lisp community outnumber the Richard Gabriels by about two orders of magnitude.)<BR> <BR> <TABLE CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="0" WIDTH="100%"> <TR> <TD> -- <BR> <B>Michael T. Richter</B> <ttmrichter / gmail.com> (<B>GoogleTalk:</B> ttmrichter / gmail.com)<BR> <I>It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figureut code. You should be able to read it. (Steve McConnell)</I> </TD> </TR> </TABLE> </BODY> </HTML> -- VEz/q7Xg4Ye2aIyzDmi-- -- 3j5/LnRB/WyfJQmgsQ+ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBIJY01LqyWkKVQ54QRAuLQAJ90zRmmJYIiaE42AbCLWzySLOTkcACfREYd Xkb/PN+qto/elY6sOxeTCdo 5H -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- 3j5/LnRB/WyfJQmgsQ+--