The Janet Programming Language • Hacker News Board

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#81

Post by Y_Y » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #32

What is with new programming languages with women's names? It seems a bit cringey to me, like the guy in my first-year cs classes who would name variables after his girlfriend.

Some historical language names that are also first names:

    * JOSS    - male   - 1966
    * Pascal  - male   - 1970
    * Ada     - female - 1983
    * Perl    - both   - 1988
    * Haskell - male   - 1990
    * Lua     - female - 1993
    * Ruby    - female - 1995
    * Delphi  - female - 1995
    * Julia   - female - 2011

Honorable mention: Erlang is a (male) god in Chinese Buddhism.

Some caveats apply. Many language names are also surnames, I leave that to future work.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#82

Post by andi999 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #79

jdmoreira wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the most voted submission on HN right now. We gather here because we like this stuff. And here you are wasting your time accusing us of being everything that’s wrong with tech. The thing you fail to understand is that we aren’t in this for the money or the validation or the status. We simply like fiddling with computers, languages, etc. Computers were my hobby way before they were my job.

It's great that you like playing with computers, languages, etc. Nobody is minimizing that. But, many people who see a new computer language want to know what is unique about it. It is completely valid to ask, "why should I use Janet (the language)?" Many people are familiar with or expert with many programming paradigms and have written their own DSLs or general purpose languages. Others are expert in fields that in…

That is exactly what I had in mind. Thank you for putting it so clearly.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#83

Post by IncRnd » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #82

IncRnd wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's great that you like playing with computers, languages, etc. Nobody is minimizing that. But, many people who see a new computer language want to know what is unique about it. It is completely valid to ask, "why should I use Janet (the language)?" Many people are familiar with or expert with many programming paradigms and have written their own DSLs or general purpose languages. Others are expert in fields that in…

That is exactly what I had in mind. Thank you for putting it so clearly.

I'm glad it helped convey what you also had in mind.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#84

Post by detaro » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #79

jdmoreira wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the most voted submission on HN right now. We gather here because we like this stuff. And here you are wasting your time accusing us of being everything that’s wrong with tech. The thing you fail to understand is that we aren’t in this for the money or the validation or the status. We simply like fiddling with computers, languages, etc. Computers were my hobby way before they were my job.

It's great that you like playing with computers, languages, etc. Nobody is minimizing that. But, many people who see a new computer language want to know what is unique about it. It is completely valid to ask, "why should I use Janet (the language)?" Many people are familiar with or expert with many programming paradigms and have written their own DSLs or general purpose languages. Others are expert in fields that in…

> It is completely valid to ask, "why should I use Janet (the language)?

Note that that isn't the question they started with (and would likely have provoked a different response). Perceived tone matters very much with a one-sentence question.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#85

Post by andi999 » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

elondaits wrote: post #67

mrkramer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot about that sorry. I know only of COBOL that is made by women all other programming languages are pretty much made by men.

Ada is named after a (the first) programmer… not somebody’s wife, daughter or sister.

There seems to be a slight controversy https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/technology/visionaries/ada-l...

(don't ask me how reliable that source is)

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#86

Post by tyingq » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #53

Banana699 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Embedded is a fuzzy category, specs range from Lua is extremely lightweight and portable. The interpreter doesn't exceed 500 kb in the fattest build, and the used dialect is a strict subset of ANSI C that is equally comfortable running on mainframes as on Nintendo consoles. In short : If it has a C compiler and can spare 300 kb ram, it can run Lua. So people sometimes use it there.

Indeed (see also "embedded Linux" being a thing), people insisting if something doesn't run on a tiny PIC it can't be useful for "embedded" is a pet peeve of mine. Depending on the context , "embedded systems" go even larger, although usually people stop calling it "embedded programming" at some point. Obviously many problems in large embedded systems are different from small ones, but others remain similar.

I imagine they are annoyed because it used to be more clear, easier to google, etc. The discussion and search space was polluted for them as the meaning of the term changed, and no new term filled the void.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#87

Post by mrkramer » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #69

mrkramer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot about that sorry. I know only of COBOL that is made by women all other programming languages are pretty much made by men.

Some of the earliest languages were made by women, as women were the original (human) computers and then the first programmers.

Yea true, I know they worked in Telephone Exchanges[1] but both women and men mathematicians were first "computers" for example Alan Turing[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_exchange

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#88

Post by detaro » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #86

detaro wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed (see also "embedded Linux" being a thing), people insisting if something doesn't run on a tiny PIC it can't be useful for "embedded" is a pet peeve of mine. Depending on the context , "embedded systems" go even larger, although usually people stop calling it "embedded programming" at some point. Obviously many problems in large embedded systems are different from small ones, but others remain similar.

I imagine they are annoyed because it used to be more clear, easier to google, etc. The discussion and search space was polluted for them as the meaning of the term changed, and no new term filled the void.

When was that? The range wasn't as large because the top end was way more limited, but the same thing applied at least since the 90s.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#89

Post by tyingq » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #88

tyingq wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine they are annoyed because it used to be more clear, easier to google, etc. The discussion and search space was polluted for them as the meaning of the term changed, and no new term filled the void.

When was that? The range wasn't as large because the top end was way more limited, but the same thing applied at least since the 90s.

My impression in the 90s is that most people talking about embedded were talking about microcontrollers or very limited microprocessors.

Re: The Janet Programming Language

#90

Post by ojeda » Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 3:04 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #5

So what is it good for? Edit:maybe my comment was too short, but for me it is important to know what problem a new language solves (better). And I seriously think the landing page does not explain it well/at all. I mean like: D is C++ done right with garbage collection (and of course expand from there). Zig and Rust are safe languages and aim to replace C (with different strategies). And of course more than one sente…

> Zig and Rust are safe languages

Zig is a nice improvement over C, but it is not safe.

There is work in progress (https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/2301), but from what I can tell, key details are still to be decided, including the classes of errors that will be covered, whether they will require runtime tracking, etc.

In my opinion, Zig should look into becoming UB-less -- listing undefined behavior instances like the C standard does or enabling safety only in some build modes is not enough.