Why programming languages matter [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#31

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 1:46 AM UTC

epgui wrote: post #26

wredue wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is “wanting evidence for constant silver bullet claims that never actually pan out” really “obviously biased”? It’s not just you. Functional Programming really does not adequately solve any of the problems that its advocates claim while refusing to provide any evidence. And it’s not “biased” to write these claims off.

I don't know what "silver bullet" claims you've heard, but I'm not sure how that is relevant to this thread. I don't think I've made any outlandish claims, or any claims that aren't substantiated by a preponderance of academic literature.

I find this whole thread fascinating because nobody seems to have identified what functional programming is defined as (programmers can just use functions to code and end up with functional programming, it isn't an obscure style), who the advocates are or what they claim.

And yet, without any substance, the debate rages.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#32

Post by epgui » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 1:49 AM UTC

nh2 wrote: post #30

epgui wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for all the research around functional programming? This is like when I hear people claim that physics has not advanced in the last 50-70 years.

Futhark ( https://futhark-lang.org ) is an example of a functional language specifically designed for writing "normal" high-level functional code that compiles to parallel execution.

Genuine question-- is there something about Futhark that makes it particularly well-suited for parallel execution compared to any other functional programming language (especially of the purely functional kind)? FP in general is inherently well suited for this application.

As I understand it, Futhark aims to leverage GPUs in particular, and that approach seems to be what makes it unique within the category of FP languages?

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#33

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 1:50 AM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #3

oddly, there are very few job positions to work in things related to programming languages.

The hot thing is AI now, but you can sneak PL into a wide variety of SWE jobs.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#34

Post by epgui » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 1:51 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #31

epgui wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "silver bullet" claims you've heard, but I'm not sure how that is relevant to this thread. I don't think I've made any outlandish claims, or any claims that aren't substantiated by a preponderance of academic literature.

I find this whole thread fascinating because nobody seems to have identified what functional programming is defined as (programmers can just use functions to code and end up with functional programming, it isn't an obscure style), who the advocates are or what they claim. And yet, without any substance, the debate rages.

> nobody seems to have identified what functional programming is defined as

Nobody asked (until now, so thank you for asking!), and this is a fairly well discussed topic for anyone who cares to search!

You will probably get a lot of slightly different answers depending on who you ask or where you look, but I think a very strong common thread is "referential transparency". Functional programming gives you that, and that is the property that makes FP particularly well suited for parallel computation. Referential transparency is related to the concept of "function purity" (in the sense that either one usually guarantees the other), which you will often hear people talk about as well. The two concepts are so intimately tied that sometimes I wonder if they're two different perspectives on the same thing.

This, along with the fact that FP has been an active area of research (an important part of innovation) for a long time, is why I brought it up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_function

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referential_transparency

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2938...

---

> programmers can just use functions to code and end up with functional programming, it isn't an obscure style

That's not how it works. Note that functional programming has nothing to do with merely "writing functions".

---

> without any substance, the debate rages

The substance is there and there is plenty of it, but learning requires work.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 2:11 AM UTC

eslaught wrote: post #16

nomel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have any good counterpoints to this? From my, naive, perspective, this seems to be relatively true. I've always assumed that, by now, I would be able to write code, in a semi mainstream language, and it would be made somewhat parallel, by the compiler. No need for threads, or me thinking of it. There's projects like https://polly.llvm.org , but I guess I assumed there would be more progress through the de…

It's not totally clear what you're looking for. As you noted, polyhedral compilers work on a pretty restricted subset of programs, but are fairly impressive in what they do. There has been research on distributed code generation [1] as well as GPUs [2]. While there has been work on generalizing the model [3], I think the amount of parallelization that a compiler can do is still very limited by its ability to analyze…

[deleted]

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#36

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 2:17 AM UTC

eslaught wrote: post #16

nomel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone have any good counterpoints to this? From my, naive, perspective, this seems to be relatively true. I've always assumed that, by now, I would be able to write code, in a semi mainstream language, and it would be made somewhat parallel, by the compiler. No need for threads, or me thinking of it. There's projects like https://polly.llvm.org , but I guess I assumed there would be more progress through the de…

It's not totally clear what you're looking for. As you noted, polyhedral compilers work on a pretty restricted subset of programs, but are fairly impressive in what they do. There has been research on distributed code generation [1] as well as GPUs [2]. While there has been work on generalizing the model [3], I think the amount of parallelization that a compiler can do is still very limited by its ability to analyze…

[deleted]

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#37

Post by superdude264 » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 3:31 AM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #4

Very little innovation in programming languages has happened regarding new realities at the hardware level especially transition from serial to parallel execution.

I feel this comment is pequant and jejuon. Of the distributed nature of computing has made it's way into programming language research.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#38

Post by kesava » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 3:48 AM UTC

superdude264 wrote: post #37

mjfl wrote: post #4

Very little innovation in programming languages has happened regarding new realities at the hardware level especially transition from serial to parallel execution.

I feel this comment is pequant and jejuon. Of the distributed nature of computing has made it's way into programming language research.

Piquant and jejune?

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#39

Post by sidlls » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 4:02 AM UTC

epgui wrote: post #28

sidlls wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"FP" camps tend to come in two flavors: "I'm a mathematician writing a computer program, and all problems will be made to look like math problems even if it means the program becomes an inscrutable mess of types and dense syntax" and "functional-ish idioms are included". The latter is useful, sometimes, for cloud computing and parallel computation; the former tends to have too many problems (slow build, slow executio…

> all problems will be made to look like math problems All problems that can be solved with code are math problems. Proofs and programs are isomorphic (see the Curry-Howard correspondence). --- Edit: this is a factually accurate comment, delivered dispassionately. It's not controversial or new-- it's something we've known for longer than the C language has existed. Why the downvote? Like I said, see this: https://en.…

This is like saying all physical engineering problems are quantum mechanics (or insert other physics theory) problems. It’s technically correct (the best kind of correct), but misleading and useless as a matter of practice.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#40

Post by krick » Sat, Oct 28, 2023, 4:52 AM UTC

synergy20 wrote: post #13

anon291 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like every major company is hiring for AI compiler engineers right now (based on my inbox at least). May not be directly related to general 'programming languages', but my take, as someone in the industry, is that all the PL people are working on this right now.

same here, some companies are hiring a compiler team for AI in fact. I was told Rice and UIUC provide the best compiler program, though not necessarily AI related, should be similar though.

What does it mean, specifically, "compiler team for AI"? I get it that it's some hot new trend from the last 2 posts, but I'm struggling to imagine what exactly the perfect product should look like and why everyone wants it so bad, allegedly.