31–40 of 60 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
`Highly-parallel network code` was the problem erlang was designed for. Haskell would also be a good fit.
"Erlang was designed to program fault-tolerant systems" according to Joe Armstrong [1]. [1] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Systems-that-Never-Stop-J...
Even if you are adept in using a highly efficient and effective language for doing each job, if no one else is using the language it's utility becomes limited. That's because none of us work in vacuum. Computers run by different people in separate locations cannot talk to each other unless those people cooperate. They have to agree on some things. And further, we're all using software and systems designed and built i…
You wonder what would happen if we all wrote C++ on Windows? I hope you can answer that question yourself :). But seriously, i think its great that we can all work in our favorite language, and we can get away with it. I can write a web service in common lisp, and you can use it in your Rails cat picture app, that also uses a brainf*ck script to convert the cat pictures in a suitable format. And your company can also…
I trace the existence of many languages to having no common instruction set in hardware.
Different assembly languages for different hardware. This was very frustrating for people many years ago.
If protocols (rules) are awesome what if we had had a protocol that asked the chip makers to use a common (extendable) instruction set for all hardware? What if there had only been one assembly language?
It seems that all abstractions, from Pascal or Lisp virtual machines to C to higher and higher level languages to the ones popular today, are all descended from the search for a way to deal with that initial lack of protocol (rule) to get hardware makers to use the same instruction set and thereby let programmers use the same assembly language.
I could be very wrong on this.
http://therighttool.hammerprinciple.com/statements/programs-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You wonder what would happen if we all wrote C++ on Windows? I hope you can answer that question yourself :). But seriously, i think its great that we can all work in our favorite language, and we can get away with it. I can write a web service in common lisp, and you can use it in your Rails cat picture app, that also uses a brainf*ck script to convert the cat pictures in a suitable format. And your company can also…
It's just a thought. A "what if". I trace the existence of many languages to having no common instruction set in hardware. Different assembly languages for different hardware. This was very frustrating for people many years ago. If protocols (rules) are awesome what if we had had a protocol that asked the chip makers to use a common (extendable) instruction set for all hardware? What if there had only been one assemb…
Maybe I am misunderstanding this.
But Lisp and C derives from very different views of the underlying machine. It is rather hard to unify a lisp machine (or other lambda calculus machine) instruction set with the instruction set assumed by a language like C. Even assuming extensibility of the instruction set, constructing a machine that can execute both the "usual" instruction set and lambda calculus efficiently is very very hard.
So this may not really be practical.
Really? Go is on there, but ActionScript is not? I realize that the future of the Flash Platform is in doubt, but Flash is still a great choice for a lot of things, like: - This language is good for beginners. - This language is well documented. - I find this language easy to prototype in.
Why would a beginner want to learn a dying technologlash unless you were writing games, Flash was never the right answer.
This isn't the right question to be asking. There are certainly cases where one language at another for a given task, e.g. Ruby is better for string parsing than PHP. But in many (most?) scenarios the technique used for the job matters far more than the language. Sorting is an easy example: bubble sort is a crap solution regardless of the language. Disclaimer: I can't read the actual page due to 503's and the cache i…
In that context, I disagree with your assesment. It often takes me a week, sometimes more, to evaluate and choose the right solutions for a new product. The techniques that I use when coding matter little during that time.
What _does_ matter: third party services and libraries that will make it easier to build a better product.
However, I agree that choice of language is only tangially significant. It's rarely a "pain point" for me. Gui toolkits, cloud services, hosting solutions, payment solutions, libraries for [you name it], etc. _those_ make up the "tool for the job."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just a thought. A "what if". I trace the existence of many languages to having no common instruction set in hardware. Different assembly languages for different hardware. This was very frustrating for people many years ago. If protocols (rules) are awesome what if we had had a protocol that asked the chip makers to use a common (extendable) instruction set for all hardware? What if there had only been one assemb…
> It seems that all abstractions, from Pascal or Lisp virtual machines to C to higher and higher level languages to the ones popular today, are all descended from the search for a way to deal with that initial lack of protocol (rule) to get hardware makers to use the same instruction set and thereby let programmers use the same assembly language. Maybe I am misunderstanding this. But Lisp and C derives from very diff…
How inefficient is Ruby really? This tool surprised me. Can any Ruby-ists chime in? http://therighttool.hammerprinciple.com/statements/programs-...
It's definitely the case that stock Ruby 1.8 is slow for a great many applications, though. Having said that, there's alternatives, and a lot of the time efficiency of execution is not at the forefront of the objectives for systems written in Ruby.