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The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

madhadron.com

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Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#31

Post by LeCompteSftware »

nextaccountic wrote: post #27
armchairhacker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theorem proving and complex types are like extensions on an otherwise ordinary language: - Agda, Idris, etc. are functional languages extended with complex types - Isabelle, Lean, etc. are functional languages extended with complex types and unreadable interactive proofs - Dafny etc. are imperative languages extended with theorems and hints - ACL2 is a LISP with theorems and hints Related, typeclasses are effectively…

> Agda, Idris, etc. are functional languages extended with complex types I think they are not. No amount of type level extensions can turn a regular functional language like Haskell into something suitable for theorem proving. Adding dependent types to Haskell, for example, doesn't suffice. To build a theorem prover you need to take away some capability (namely, the ability to do general recursion - the base language…

This is just wrong, you're being too didactic. Idris specifically lets you implement nontotal functions in the same way that Rust lets you write memory-unsafe code. The idea is you isolate it to the part of the program with effects (including the main loop), which the compiler can't verify anyway, and leave the total formally verified stuff to the business logic. Anything that's marked as total is proven safe, so you only need to worry about a few ugly bits; just like unsafe Rust.

Idris absolutely is a general-purpose functional language in the ML family. It is Haskell, but boosted with dependent types.

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#32

Post by rramadass »

Folks might find the following useful for studying PLs;

1) Advanced Programming Language Design by Raphael Finkel - A classic (late 90s) book comparing a whole smorgasbord of languages.

2) Design Concepts in Programming Languages by Franklyn Turbak et al. - A comprehensive (and big) book on PL design.

3) Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy et al. - Shows how to organically add different programming paradigms to a simple core language.

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#34

Post by nxpnsv »

mellosouls wrote: post #10

(2022) and unfortunately advice to spend significant amounts of time in learning multiple languages is becoming rapidly redundant in the LLM age.

Hmm, here's a thought... If you want to stand out, it doesn't matter that some things now are easier for everybody, what matters is that that you are able to get better results than others. Learning multiple languages gives you more the ability to use them. It improves your thinking, makes you a better coder, and more able to understand different techniques. LLMs are tools, to use them better than the next person you need to understand what to ask, and what a good answer looks like.

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#35

Post by macintux »

nxpnsv wrote: post #34
mellosouls wrote: post #10

(2022) and unfortunately advice to spend significant amounts of time in learning multiple languages is becoming rapidly redundant in the LLM age.

Hmm, here's a thought... If you want to stand out, it doesn't matter that some things now are easier for everybody, what matters is that that you are able to get better results than others. Learning multiple languages gives you more the ability to use them. It improves your thinking, makes you a better coder, and more able to understand different techniques. LLMs are tools, to use them better than the next person you…

Exactly. If nothing else, writing a solver in Python or Java might take dozens or hundreds of lines more code than Prolog, so simply knowing what tools are best for what jobs helps you be a better developer, whether you're using a compiler or an agent.

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#37

Post by tromp »

burakemir wrote: post #18

This article is full of gross mistakes. For example it claims that Caml is "Cambridge ML" which is ridiculously false. Fact check every sentence. Really sad.

Caml was originally an acronym for Categorical Abstract Machine Language [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caml

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#39

Post by mellosouls »

nxpnsv wrote: post #34
mellosouls wrote: post #10

(2022) and unfortunately advice to spend significant amounts of time in learning multiple languages is becoming rapidly redundant in the LLM age.

Hmm, here's a thought... If you want to stand out, it doesn't matter that some things now are easier for everybody, what matters is that that you are able to get better results than others. Learning multiple languages gives you more the ability to use them. It improves your thinking, makes you a better coder, and more able to understand different techniques. LLMs are tools, to use them better than the next person you…

Sure, but that's about thinking and describing in more high-level English, not individual programming languages. That era is over.

Advice to juniors (say) to spend time learning multiple programming languages over good command of a single one, deep expertise in LLM use and basic software engineering principles is going to severely undermine their value in an already tough field for entrants. For seniors there will generally already be a reasonable grounding in multiple paradigms; delving much further into legacy manual coding styles is going to see them leapfrogged by experts in modern (ie AI-assisted) approaches.

Re: The seven programming ur-languages (2022)

#40

Post by mellosouls »

sph wrote: post #24
justincormack wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are tools for thinking with, so not obsolete.

GP is just trying to convince you that thinking is "rapidly redundant in the LLM age".

(GP here) Its true that we need to be cautious about continuing to exercise our thinking muscles, undoubtedly. Ofc you can do that without using legacy techniques, but each to their own.
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