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Advanced programming languages (2009)

matt.might.net

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Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#111

Post by ManuelKiessling »

dsacco wrote: post #12

This post is very fortuitous for me. I've been looking to learn a functional language and I had more or less narrowed my options to Haskell, OCaml and Scala. I liked the breakdown between these languages and the resources. Can anyone who programs in Haskell or OCaml regularly tell me the current state of standard and third party library support? I'm very attracted to Scala because it has JVM support, which sounds fan…

I had zero background in Java, and I'm a very happy Scala developer for about two years now (still at the beginner level, though).

I'd say not knowing Java the language isn't a big deal. Also not a big deal, but certainly a point to consider, is Java the ecosystem. I can imagine Java pros bringing their knowledge regarding the JVM, threads, and other stuff, that's certainly a plus.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#112

Post by vram22 »

feiss wrote: post #72

What's up with functional languages nowadays? The exists since the dawn of humanity, but they are getting very trendy lately. Is it just my perception? Is it a HN thing? (I've been a reader for just some months)

> since the dawn of humanity

Since near the dawn of computing is more like it :), but I get what you mean. There was this early language by John Backus (yes, of BNF fame) called FP (sic), though Lisp may have been the first one.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#113

Post by kensai »

tonyjstark wrote: post #9

For a real world project pick a suitable language that will not only help you to implement whatever you have to implement but also to maintain the project. Also you should be able to find other programmers knowing that language if you need to. Maybe even use the language you already know even if it is not the newest and hottest stuff. But for private or side projects use whatever enlightens you. Those projects should…

Has anyone experience with "Curry" (functional logic programming)? If it has all the advantages of Haskell plus some possibilities of logical languages, it should be really interesting for experimental approaches.

http://www-ps.informatik.uni-kiel.de/currywiki/

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#114

Post by vram22 »

feiss wrote: post #72

What's up with functional languages nowadays? The exists since the dawn of humanity, but they are getting very trendy lately. Is it just my perception? Is it a HN thing? (I've been a reader for just some months)

It's been a trend for some years now (not just recently), due to reasons others here have said, such as multi-core, immutability, easier to reason about, etc. E.g. a friend of mine was in a startup that was using Clojure in production over 5-6 years ago.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#115

Post by sgeisenh »

agumonkey wrote: post #96
sgeisenh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you explored languages with dependent type systems such as Agda, Idris, Coq, or Twelf? You could also explore languages from an academic perspective. Benjamin Pierce has written several high quality texts about topics in programming languages.

Not yet (watching some youtube talks and introductory classes in college not couting). But even then I'm not sure they're more 'advanced' than Haskell. Do they implement the full lambda cube ? Even then it feels like constructive proofs are a 'normal' step after recursive functions. I'm curious about complete new way of thinking and modeling, something that would allow full graph exploration and multistaged/layered p…

You might enjoy attending programming language events such as OPLSS (all of the old lectures are online and free to watch) or ICFP. You get to learn about lots of new research in programming languages, and often, you'll have an opportunity to explore programming languages from different perspectives, including logic and category theory.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#116

Post by idobai »

kmiroslav wrote: post #105
shrugger wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so freaking excited about Scala Native. I haven't been so genuinely excited and enthusiastic about something for such a long time, but Scala Native is so awesome. I feel like turning Scala into a cross-platform language is the best idea possible. I'd love to see Scala someday be able to just dump out WebAssembly, or JVM bytecode, or LLVM IR, or whatever the next "hip" format is, while keeping the language the sa…

The size of the Javascript generated by Scala.js alone makes it a non starter for serious projects.

Look at here: https://www.scala-js.org/

"The generated JavaScript is both fast and small, starting from 45kB gzipped for a full application." - 45kB... jQuery is ~80kB.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#117

Post by mightybyte »

dsacco wrote: post #12

This post is very fortuitous for me. I've been looking to learn a functional language and I had more or less narrowed my options to Haskell, OCaml and Scala. I liked the breakdown between these languages and the resources. Can anyone who programs in Haskell or OCaml regularly tell me the current state of standard and third party library support? I'm very attracted to Scala because it has JVM support, which sounds fan…

I've been writing Haskell professionally full-time since 2010. Before I started pursuing Haskell I looked into Scala, but it seems to be trying to embrace too many paradigms, which has resulted in a gigantic unwieldy language. In the 6 years that I've been using it professionally the Haskell ecosystem has matured tremendously. Obviously the third party library support can't be as good as popular languages like Ruby, Python, etc simply because of manpower, but I find that these days there is an open source package for just about everything I need. Furthermore, due to Haskell's purity and strong type system it is MUCH more likely that these libraries will work. It is also usually quite easy to make improvements when needed.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#118

Post by idobai »

spawarotti wrote: post #41
johan_larson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent some time with both Haskell and Scala. Haskell's big pluses are purity and rigor. Most functions can't affect external state; they can only return results. Haskell also has strict typing, which is great for catching mistakes up front, and takes most of the pain out of using it through really great type inference. Unfortunately the community around Haskell is very small, so if you use it for a project large…

I'd prefer something simpler. Consider Kotlin: https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to-scala.ht...

Kotlin isn't an "advanced programming language" - it's a remastered java.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#119

Post by gaius »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #25
dsacco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jane Street Capital's Yaron Minsky once said that contrary to popular belief hiring for OCaml developers was easier because the signal to noise ratio in the OCaml community is so much better than other, more approachable languages. He would send a job post to the OCaml mailing list, get 15 responses, interview 10 people, bring five onsite and ultimately hire three new people. I don't have direct experience with this,…

I've got managerial experience hiring (on both ends of the spectrum of talent) and engineering experience in computational finance at a prop firm similar to Jane Street. He has a fast-hire ability and high-signal to noise for sure but he works at a prop firm . His hiring practices are a market anomaly simply because he can pay effectively whatever a competent developer wants. Jane Street can basically throw money at…

he can pay effectively whatever a competent developer wants

I think any niche language person would be delighted to be paid equivalent to Java or C# rates for their city or industry, to hack Haskell or OCaml or Lisp or whatever.

Re: Advanced programming languages (2009)

#120

Post by continuational »

dsacco wrote: post #12

This post is very fortuitous for me. I've been looking to learn a functional language and I had more or less narrowed my options to Haskell, OCaml and Scala. I liked the breakdown between these languages and the resources. Can anyone who programs in Haskell or OCaml regularly tell me the current state of standard and third party library support? I'm very attracted to Scala because it has JVM support, which sounds fan…

Knowing Java won't help you much in learning Scala. It's the functional programming parts that will trip you up if you haven't done that before, and this is the most valuable part to learn. I use Scala every day, and it was easy to learn; but I suspect that was because I did a lot of functional programming before that.
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