Live data from Hacker News

Mojo is available for local download

modular.com

101–110 of 193 posts

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#101

Why are people so enthused about Python syntax? Some problems off the top of my head: - The lack of new variable declaration keyword makes scopes less explicit. nonlocal is not simpler in the large than `let x = ...` - The lack of multi-line lambdas is very limiting for anyone coming from JS, C#, Rust, Kotlin... heck even Java - The ternary operator (... if ... else ...) is needlessly different for other mainstream l…

" The lack of new variable declaration keyword makes scopes less explicit"

You can declare variables (such as x in the above main() function) with var to create a mutable value, or with let to create an immutable value.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#103

It seems quite exciting and all but I cannot figure out why they choose to impress people with marketing posts like "it is a billion times faster, oh no it is actually a zillion times faster" while their actual potential user base is waiting for license issues to be clarified.

What’s unclear about it? It’s a closed source product by a for profit company

It would be nice if it were open source, but I don’t see anything that’s unclear about the IP.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#104
post #98

I've had high hopes for this project since its announcement, but until it's open-source, I'm not investing any time in it. That's the only announcement I care about

Their FAQ says this: Over time we expect to open-source core parts of Mojo, such as the standard library. However, Mojo is still young, so we will continue to incubate it within Modular until more of its internal architecture is fleshed out. We don’t have an established plan for open-sourcing yet. I read this as: "There are parts of Mojo that we are not planning to open source" Which makes this a non-starter for me a…

I believe that Chris Lattner (Mojo lead) has said that its going to be open-source eventually. He's followed the same process as with Swift, where they did't open it up until major design decisions had been worked out with the core team.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thanks for your interest! You can opt out of telemetry if you like. Please see the FAQ here: https://docs.modular.com/mojo/faq.html#does-the-mojo-sdk-col... For open sourcing, we also have a section in our FAQ: https://docs.modular.com/mojo/faq.html#open-source , and we answered a question about that in the latest livestream! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQh9es5gfpo For the question on pricing, the Mojo SDK is…

0:16 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQh9es5gfpo , says "we'll be open sourcing documentation"... by the end of the year. Documentation? It will have taken a full year to open source documentation. Congrats.

That's disingenuous. They are also open sourcing the standard library by the end of the year.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#106
post #63

A rant. I apologize. I try to avoid on HN and in general. Faster, yes, but at what cost? I'm so impressed by the Python community, but I'll never quite understand why they gravitated to... Python itself. It's unbelievable to me that in Mojo's case some of the brightest, most famous engineers have gathered to do incredible computer science work to improve the compute performance of a language that is fundamentally fla…

People gravitate to python because "good libraries are all you need".

Python is fantastic at lashing things together, and most programming is combining pre-existing functionality.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#107
post #103

It seems quite exciting and all but I cannot figure out why they choose to impress people with marketing posts like "it is a billion times faster, oh no it is actually a zillion times faster" while their actual potential user base is waiting for license issues to be clarified.

What’s unclear about it? It’s a closed source product by a for profit company It would be nice if it were open source, but I don’t see anything that’s unclear about the IP.

How license will evolve is unclear. I personally don't mind it starting closed to figure out a contribution model or whatever they want to sort out as long as they have clear commitment. However, the current statement for open source is so vague that I don't want to invest time on it.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#108
post #76

Who would risk using a closed-source language? I know some academic groups using Matlab, and I know some engineering companies use tools like Simulink, but these are very established products. I don't think I could even get sign-off for using a new closed language for a work project...

Given Lattner's record, I think it would be a bad assumption to think it will stay closed.

Yeah, a lot of folks don't seem to be aware of the people behind this, and their history. Swift was originally closed source too. He's explained that this sort of "incubation period" is helpful for working out the kinks with a small core team.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#109

Why are people so enthused about Python syntax? Some problems off the top of my head: - The lack of new variable declaration keyword makes scopes less explicit. nonlocal is not simpler in the large than `let x = ...` - The lack of multi-line lambdas is very limiting for anyone coming from JS, C#, Rust, Kotlin... heck even Java - The ternary operator (... if ... else ...) is needlessly different for other mainstream l…

I concede about multi line lambdas but far too many languages take a “syntax is bikeshedding and unimportant” approach to language design. New languages are still using “&&” and “||” as if it’s 1975 and syntax highlighting doesn’t exist. Looking at C++, Rust and even Zig code is unnecessarily complicated for someone who isn’t intimately familiar with the syntax meanwhile for the most part anyone can understand Python…

> New languages are still using “&&” and “||” as if it’s 1975

Because it's consistent and people don't want to relearn minor details each time they switch. And Python has a lot of those little differences. Though the "and" and "or" keywords are among the few things I actually like.

> meanwhile for the most part anyone can understand Python syntax

What matters more to me is how the syntax works in the long term. I have no trouble reading and writing a lot of Rust code, but even after years with Python I still can't remember the difference between "[-1:]", "[1:]", "[:1]" etc for slicing lists/strings. Recursive list comprehensions with their lack of parentheses are unreadable to me to this day (e.g.: `[item for sublist in list_of_lists for item in sublist]`). Python is very easy and quick to pick up, really productive for prototyping, but I don't consider its syntax to be its big advantage.

Re: Mojo is available for local download

#110
post #56
post #50

Related. Others? How Mojo gets a speedup over Python – Part 2 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37307260 - Aug 2023 (63 comments) Mojo gets a speedup over Python – Part 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37294001 - Aug 2023 (3 comments) Introduction to Mojo Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37200400 - Aug 2023 (3 comments) Guido van Rossum feedback to Chris Lattner on Mojo programming languag…

Chris Lattner: Future of Programming and AI – Lex Fridman Podcast #381 [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36173382 - June 2023 (1 comment) While it didn't get traction, it's a good interview which talks a lot about the language.

This was a great podcast and well worth a listen. It answers most of the questions I see folks asking here.
Post reply on HN