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The Omega programming language

langnostic.blogspot.com

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Re: The Omega programming language

#11

Post by Inaimathi »

endtime wrote: post #3

Omega is undefined when the relative weights of [expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability, flexibility] are undefined. For any given set of weights you could perhaps come up with a reasonable answer (even then you have to try to quantify things like maintainability), since some languages are more terse but less readable, or more readable but less expressive, etc. If all the weights are equal, then I'd…

This is true, and I don't have extensive enough experience to weigh those correctly (and even if I did, I would be heavily biased by the languages I currently use). This is why I opted to wuss out rather than risk getting it horribly wrong.

And yes, from what I've seen/heard, plenty of Rubyists, Lispers, Haskelliens, etc. would certainly disagree with you.

Re: The Omega programming language

#12

Post by lukev »

Inaimathi wrote: post #8
lukev wrote: post #6

He indicates Haskell and Lisp as the two leading candidates for Omega, but I think that just illustrates the wrongness of the premise that there is a singular end-game as far as languages go. The thing is, you couldn't have a convergence of Lisp and Haskell without destroying what makes them good at the same time. The essence of Lisp is that it is endlessly dynamic, the essence of Haskell is its insanely strong type…

Agreed, except with the "they aren't looking back" part. If that were true, Lisk and Liskell wouldn't exist (and people wouldn't be wondering aloud "How can I get pattern matching-definitions or point free style in Lisp?") The conclusion of the article was more or less that you can't get a perfect combination of the two, and that any unification that might emerge will have to make decisions about which features to ch…

Point taken about Lisk and Liskell. But I think that that is, as you say, cherry picking features, not actually merging the philosophies of the two languages.

As for the same starting point, both had their origins in academic programming language research. It's true they don't have a direct common ancestor, but the point I was making was that their creators were aware of the issues, and chose very different directions as solutions to basically the same problem.

Re: The Omega programming language

#13

Post by endtime »

Inaimathi wrote: post #11
endtime wrote: post #3

Omega is undefined when the relative weights of [expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability, flexibility] are undefined. For any given set of weights you could perhaps come up with a reasonable answer (even then you have to try to quantify things like maintainability), since some languages are more terse but less readable, or more readable but less expressive, etc. If all the weights are equal, then I'd…

This is true, and I don't have extensive enough experience to weigh those correctly (and even if I did, I would be heavily biased by the languages I currently use). This is why I opted to wuss out rather than risk getting it horribly wrong. And yes, from what I've seen/heard, plenty of Rubyists, Lispers, Haskelliens, etc. would certainly disagree with you.

I don't think there's one true set of weights - rather, I think it's a matter of personal preference (and, to a certain extent, the task at hand - maintainability is irrelevant for some tasks and vital for others).

Re: The Omega programming language

#14

Post by Inaimathi »

dillon wrote: post #4

The reasons why these languages are created is because they are meant to solve your problem the correct way. Java is a scalable language, for example, and using it correctly makes a good programmer. This goes for every language, whether it's C, Python, Javascript, ect. Good programmers know a wide variety of languages and when it comes to 'Omega' I think it's the combination of the languages used what they are meant…

That's the argument I fundamentally disagree with.

It may be true for things like SQL (or PS or the many, many DSLs out there), but general-purpose programming languages are implicitly (perhaps tautologically) supposed to be good for the general case.

It goes without saying that if your list of requirements includes something like "our deployment environment will have 16 kb of memory and an 8 mhz processor and no network interaction", you don't want to use something like Erlang. But except for such extremes (which I probably should have explicitly stated I'm not thinking about), it is possible (and necessary) to distinguish between two languages on the basis of power.

I probably should have just linked to http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html instead of writing anything, because the "Blub Paradox" section makes the above argument much more eloquently.

Re: The Omega programming language

#15

Post by Inaimathi »

endtime wrote: post #13
Inaimathi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, and I don't have extensive enough experience to weigh those correctly (and even if I did, I would be heavily biased by the languages I currently use). This is why I opted to wuss out rather than risk getting it horribly wrong. And yes, from what I've seen/heard, plenty of Rubyists, Lispers, Haskelliens, etc. would certainly disagree with you.

I don't think there's one true set of weights - rather, I think it's a matter of personal preference (and, to a certain extent, the task at hand - maintainability is irrelevant for some tasks and vital for others).

I could see this in the extremes (a one-of data-munging script has no maintainability requirement, for example), but accepting the weights as completely subjective seems dangerously close to saying "All languages are equally powerful, and it's just a matter of preference", which I disagree with because it would invalidate the Blub Paradox.

It may be the case that the weights are affected by individual tastes and requirements, but the construction of the language (and therefore some inherent property of the language, rather than of the user or of the situation) would almost certainly affect those weights as well.

Re: The Omega programming language

#16

Post by joe_the_user »

"I'm defining 'power' as a non-specific mix of expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability and flexibility"

There might be room for some unspecified mix of these qualities on an argument over the "bestness" of a language.

But I'll quibble here and mention that power is conventionally defined as ONLY expressiveness/terseness with no consideration of maintainability.

In the J programming language:

    quicksort=: (($:@(#[)) ({~ ?@#)) ^: (1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_(programming_language)

Now that's raw power... (and may not fit all requirements!)

Re: The Omega programming language

#17

Post by primodemus »

shasta wrote: post #5

Wow, since the author starts talking about "Omega" without introducing it as a concept of some ultimate language, I assumed he was talking about the Omega Programming Language (In fact, it looks like there are two: http://code.google.com/p/omega/ and http://www.pervasive.jku.at/About_Us/Staff/_Blaschek/Omega/ ) and was thoroughly confused.

your first link points to Tim Sheard's Omega, a dependently typed programming language. Dependent types allow the programmer to codify arbitrary invariants in the types of the expressions. Some notes on depend types: http://axisofeval.blogspot.com/2010/10/notes-on-dependent-ty...

Re: The Omega programming language

#18

Post by Inaimathi »

joe_the_user wrote: post #16

"I'm defining 'power' as a non-specific mix of expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability and flexibility" There might be room for some unspecified mix of these qualities on an argument over the "bestness" of a language. But I'll quibble here and mention that power is conventionally defined as ONLY expressiveness/terseness with no consideration of maintainability. In the J programming language: quicksort…

Heh.

The traditional snippet associated with that argument is the Game of Life in APL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4

And yes, this is specifically why I opted to redefine "power" in my post; the standard definition leaves out some points that I've found to be essential.

Re: The Omega programming language

#19

Post by primodemus »

joe_the_user wrote: post #16

"I'm defining 'power' as a non-specific mix of expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability and flexibility" There might be room for some unspecified mix of these qualities on an argument over the "bestness" of a language. But I'll quibble here and mention that power is conventionally defined as ONLY expressiveness/terseness with no consideration of maintainability. In the J programming language: quicksort…

talk about raw power... here is a ray tracer in the K (a programming language from the apl family): http://www.nsl.com/k/ray/ray.k
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