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SICP translated to JavaScript

comp.nus.edu.sg

41–50 of 116 posts

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web developers have taken over, it seems. Edit: I say this as a web developer. I feel like it's often forgotten that Ruby and Javascript aren't the only languages worth using.

Well, I never used Ruby, besides to see what this Ruby on Rails was all about and I already knew Python since the version 1 days. For me the only place for JavaScript is on the browser. For anything else, there are endless languages to choose from.

@seiji

Average programmers aren't working on shell scripts, client side code, and server side code at the same time.

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#42
post #39
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I never used Ruby, besides to see what this Ruby on Rails was all about and I already knew Python since the version 1 days. For me the only place for JavaScript is on the browser. For anything else, there are endless languages to choose from.

For anything else, there are endless languages to choose from. The Americans have taken over and the Americans have, based on their own linguistic experience, decided most people can only handle one spoken language and one programming language. For some of us, we can handle six programming languages and be fine. For "average" people, they're lucky to get one programming language, so it was decided to fad-hype-hipster…

>> lucky to get one programming language

to get? I'm not sure what that means.

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#43
post #28

What's next? "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment: Now with Javascript!" ? Or "Linux Device Drivers: Javascript edition" ? Can we just accept that JS is not for everything?

Maybe not everything, but to explain the concepts behind SICP, why not.

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#44
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anything else, there are endless languages to choose from. The Americans have taken over and the Americans have, based on their own linguistic experience, decided most people can only handle one spoken language and one programming language. For some of us, we can handle six programming languages and be fine. For "average" people, they're lucky to get one programming language, so it was decided to fad-hype-hipster…

>> lucky to get one programming language to get? I'm not sure what that means.

get, grock, understand, comprehend, become one with

"I don't get why people live on geologically mapped flood plains."

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#45
post #28

What's next? "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment: Now with Javascript!" ? Or "Linux Device Drivers: Javascript edition" ? Can we just accept that JS is not for everything?

But I'm an intellectually lazy techno-hipster who doesn't want to learn new programming languages!!

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#46
post #38
post #16

Obvious objections - JS has no tail call elimination, no macros, and state-changing is managed with entirely different conventions in Scheme. Also the conceit of SICP (not really justified) is that they don't have to teach you syntax, because homoiconicity. Still, I think it's a worthy pursuit to try to bring the insights of this book to a wider audience. Side note: the navigation is really irritating. The back butto…

I know HOP. It depresses me how much of HOP is irrelevant in Python because they have proper iterators. And how few Perl programmers realize that these days the lack is a major omission in the language.

I'm a longtime perl user, and I don't know where my blind spots are.

Are there any particular resources you would recommend for someone like me to get going quickly with python? In particular ones that specifically address the type of blind spot you mention?

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#47
post #41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I never used Ruby, besides to see what this Ruby on Rails was all about and I already knew Python since the version 1 days. For me the only place for JavaScript is on the browser. For anything else, there are endless languages to choose from.

@seiji Average programmers aren't working on shell scripts, client side code, and server side code at the same time.

Are you sure about that? Everyone on my team does. I can't really imagine not being able to build the full stack.

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#48
post #29

Really sad to see that such amazing book that uses such nice language is now transformed to monster with JS. Why would you do that? Painful to see all that...

This will only serve to perpetuate the stupid meme that "Javascript is basically Scheme with curly braces and semicolons"

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#49
post #28

What's next? "Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment: Now with Javascript!" ? Or "Linux Device Drivers: Javascript edition" ? Can we just accept that JS is not for everything?

Drivers maybe not, but after reading coreutils/ls source code, I think most of the userland part of my OS would probably benefit from a rewrite in js/v8.

Re: SICP translated to JavaScript

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> lucky to get one programming language to get? I'm not sure what that means.

get, grock, understand, comprehend, become one with "I don't get why people live on geologically mapped flood plains."

Ah damn. My bad. Seeing this in Javascript has sort of disoriented me.
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