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The next wave of programming languages

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Re: The next wave of programming languages

#21

Post by euroclydon »

timwiseman wrote: post #17
euroclydon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion that "screen time" whether it be TV, videos or games, has a detrimental affect on: attention span, tranquility and susceptibility to advertisements and psychological mass-manipulation in general.

I suspect it matters very much what is on that screen. Music videos and action movies are practically designed for people with ADHD. Many video games are the same way. On the other hand, there are some high quality documentaries and prerecorded college lecturers will not hav ethe issues you describe and as an avid (though very bad) GO player I personally feel that there is very little difference between playing on a…

Designed for, or designed to induce?

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#23

Post by bobbin »

euroclydon wrote: post #11
vollmond wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why would having an XBox in your home be a problem? I was homeschooled (though only in high school) with several consoles in our house, and it doesn't seem to have been a problem. I wasn't allowed to goof off school time on video games any more than I could have played my Game Boy in a public school classroom. edit: I suppose a more clear question would be: What is it specific to homeschooling that…

I have a suspicion that "screen time" whether it be TV, videos or games, has a detrimental affect on: attention span, tranquility and susceptibility to advertisements and psychological mass-manipulation in general.

why would a medium that requires concentration like video games have a detrimental affect on attention span?

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#24

Post by mquander »

bobbin wrote: post #23
euroclydon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a suspicion that "screen time" whether it be TV, videos or games, has a detrimental affect on: attention span, tranquility and susceptibility to advertisements and psychological mass-manipulation in general.

why would a medium that requires concentration like video games have a detrimental affect on attention span?

I don't know how you're using the word "concentration" here, but playing an FPS (for example) usually demands that you pay attention to something new every few seconds, and definitely does not encourage lengthy focus or sustained thought. I think tends to be even more true for console games than games in general.

In any case, I doubt it's so much that video games are detrimental and more that you ought to have a hobby which actively cultivates concentration.

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#25

Post by technomancy »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #22

I'm genuinely curious: what advantage accrues to a programming language designed for concurrency that you can't get with a good concurrency library for an existing language?

Immutable data structures are several times more useful if they're built-in to the language because all libraries assume you're using them.

There's no technical reason they couldn't be added on with a 3rd-party library, but it's really a cultural thing.

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#26

Post by technomancy »

zupatol wrote: post #10
zephyrfalcon wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvote me all you want, but if I go to a web page and the first thing I see is dead chicken plastered onto a wall, I close that page.

You just made me look at that page. I was about to email it to a friend when I realized that newspeak's real home page doesn't have any dead chicken pictures: http://newspeaklanguage.org/

Better, (ok, so _much_ better) but it's still a barely-modified default wordpress template.

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#27

Post by lukev »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #22

I'm genuinely curious: what advantage accrues to a programming language designed for concurrency that you can't get with a good concurrency library for an existing language?

Syntactic support, immutability semantics, and compile-time limitations on side-effects.

Of course, it's POSSIBLE to do everything with a library + discipline. For example, I can import the Clojure jar and use Clojure's data structures and STM in a Java program. But it is _very_ verbose, and you have to know that certain variables are immutable, or that certain operations are illegal in certain places, etc, rather than having that information encoded into the language.

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#28

Post by colonelxc »

acangiano wrote: post #7

In that list, Clojure is the language that excites me the most. It's a modern, pragmatic Lisp ready for the multiprocessor world. You can do a lot worse than trying it out if you haven't already.

I was playing with Clojure this last weekend, and so far have enjoyed it. I ran through a dozen or so project euler problems, but am now looking for something that takes longer than 10 lines of code to complete.

HN, what other projects do you do to familiarize yourself with a new language?

Re: The next wave of programming languages

#30

Post by Calamitous »

j_baker wrote: post #13

Programming language authors really need to learn how to make a website. Look at Ruby's: http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ No long explanations about what it means for Ruby to be a dynamic, object-oriented language. I don't have to read its author's paper or book to get it. Just a short code snippet to show me what it looks like and several links so I can learn more.

Very much so. I don't get the (apparent) belief that code samples must be hidden at all costs.

If I'm looking at a language, I want to see what it looks like...

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