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Bloom distributed programming language released

bloom-lang.net

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Re: Bloom distributed programming language released

#12

Post by jacques_chester »

jerf wrote: post #7
nathanmarz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What these guys are doing with Bloom/Bud are searching for dramatically better abstractions for building distributed systems. Getting the performance right should and will come later. I'm a big believer in the mantra "First make it possible. Then make it beautiful. Then make it fast." In the distributed systems community, there's a lot of experience with "making it possible": Hadoop, Dynamo, etc. Bloom/Bud is attempt…

I get where you are coming from, and it's a good plan, as long as the plan is to eventually fully detach from Ruby. Being even two or three times as fast as Ruby, which seems to be an optimistic interpretation of JRuby's performance, is still starting from a terrible position in so many ways. I don't get the idea that some people seem to have that performance doesn't matter for distributed systems, when the truth is…

> I don't get the idea that some people seem to have that performance doesn't matter for distributed systems, when the truth is the exact opposite.

I think that investment in performance follows a curve.

A bowl, actually. And that this interest is based on the cost of optimisation vs the payoff.

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Assume that an optimisation costs $X of programmer time and pays back $Y dollars.

When your cost of production is very large, $Y > $X. That's what you see for embedded systems with millions of units shipped and for data-centre computing with tens of thousands of units installed. The cost of one programmer optimising is well worth it.

But for the sunny plain of mediocrity in the middle, the cost of extra hardware ($Y) will be less than the cost of the programmer time $X.

Here endeth the extemporising.

Re: Bloom distributed programming language released

#14

Post by JulianMorrison »

neilc wrote: post #9
jerf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean in general or with this project? This project appears to be a Ruby DSL with aspirations to be its own language someday, but while it's a Ruby DSL it's not going to be a great language for performance exploration. Ruby is slow . Writing in a faster language(/implementation) and running it on a single computer is like running a Ruby cluster of ~30 machines, for raw performance work. (Ruby being slow isn't a cr…

This project appears to be a Ruby DSL with aspirations to be its own language someday Well, we actually started with our own language a few years ago (a Datalog variant), and have been exploring embeddings into traditional languages as a way to make our ideas more appealing to mainstream programmers. while it's a Ruby DSL it's not going to be a great language for performance exploration Absolutely: we've been focusin…

Have you looked at Lua/LuaJIT?

Re: Bloom distributed programming language released

#15

Post by mx2323 »

i feel like this is an interesting step in the right direction

but... what happens if i want to read, process and write a log message....? thats three different bloom blocks that require 2 partial orderings.

instead of totally unordering everything, id rather have the ability to declaratively order functions for a request, where a function is a typical sequenced set of operations.

their examples arent particularly helpful, looks like most of these bloom blocks are single lines...

Re: Bloom distributed programming language released

#16

Post by neilc »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #14
neilc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project appears to be a Ruby DSL with aspirations to be its own language someday Well, we actually started with our own language a few years ago (a Datalog variant), and have been exploring embeddings into traditional languages as a way to make our ideas more appealing to mainstream programmers. while it's a Ruby DSL it's not going to be a great language for performance exploration Absolutely: we've been focusin…

Have you looked at Lua/LuaJIT?

I'm aware of the language, but we haven't looked at it in any depth. If you think it would make for a good host language for Bloom, I'd be curious to hear your reasoning.

Re: Bloom distributed programming language released

#17

Post by joe_hellerstein »

mx2323 wrote: post #15

i feel like this is an interesting step in the right direction but... what happens if i want to read, process and write a log message....? thats three different bloom blocks that require 2 partial orderings. instead of totally unordering everything, id rather have the ability to declaratively order functions for a request, where a function is a typical sequenced set of operations. their examples arent particularly he…

See the sandbox at https://github.com/bloom-lang/bud-sandbox/ Some involved examples there (including a GFS clone).
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