Esoteric programming paradigms • Hacker News Board

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#51

Post by mighty_atomic_c » Mon, May 01, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #8

ANI reminds me of HDLs [1] - I'm assuming that's the inspiration with terminology like "latch"? Hardware is also concurrent by default. Coding some hardware logic will also change the way you approach coding. Anyone who's interested get an FPGA demo board and write some verilog or VHDL - I highly recommend it. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_description_language

I was thinking this while reading, too. Concurrency is everywhere in hardware by default, and explicitly statesd with fork...join!

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#52

Post by tannhaeuser » Mon, May 01, 2017, 5:43 PM UTC

I don't know if Prolog should be called esoteric. Prolog is an ISO-standardized language after all, and its syntax has been used for 4+ decades now in most papers on conceptual database system and query language design I've read. Which isn't surprising since Prolog syntax, being based on operator-precedence grammar concepts, is arguably as minimalistic as it gets. There's definitely also a lot of interest lately in Datalog, not just as a decidable logic fragment (which has been used for decades as well), but also as a practical non-SQL database query language and proper Prolog syntax subset.

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#53

Post by kornish » Mon, May 01, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

combatentropy wrote: post #49

> Dependent types > > Example languages: Idris, Agda, Coq > > You’re probably used to type systems in languages like C and Java, > where the compiler can check that a variable is an integer, list, or string. > But what if your compiler could check that a variable is “a positive integer”, > “a list of length 2”, or “a string that is a palindrome”? This is what I love about SQL. You can even define your own types, like…

Out of interest, how is common ORM support for custom Postgres types?

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#54

Post by runT1ME » Mon, May 01, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

sixo wrote: post #31

'Concurrency-by-default' is similar to a notation I've been using to map out async service calls. It's just this: lines are terminated with "," or ";". A comma doesn't block and all comma-separated lines are executed in any order, while a semicolon blocks. Names are only usable when a semicolon is reached, and a semicolon unblocks flow when all preceding names are bound. Probably code is scoped into { } blocks. So a…

You're close to inventing monads! I did this once too for async reasons also, and it's how I wandered into the world of Monads and functional programming. I would definitely take a look at Scala's futures and what it means to be a monad. This is probably the best way to internalize them. :)

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#55

Post by DeltaWhy » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

robmccoll wrote: post #8

ANI reminds me of HDLs [1] - I'm assuming that's the inspiration with terminology like "latch"? Hardware is also concurrent by default. Coding some hardware logic will also change the way you approach coding. Anyone who's interested get an FPGA demo board and write some verilog or VHDL - I highly recommend it. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_description_language

Can anyone recommend a good course/book/tutorial for learning Verilog/VHDL? I have a demo board from a course I took in college and would love to try doing some projects with it, but I've had a hard time finding any good learning material.

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#56

Post by rmbeard » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

ibdknox wrote: post #28

Chris2048 wrote: post #21

Aurora looks interesting, but it seems to be .Net/windows only?

That must be a different Aurora. The one mentioned here was never really released, only demo'd at Strange Loop. We subsequently went on to turn that into Eve[1]. [1]: http://witheve.com

Thanks for confirming that. This looks very interesting. How active is development of the mathematical side of things? Also have graphics capabilities been developed yet or are they far away? The HN article indicated Aurora now Eve would have these capabilities. I'm interested because of the similarities I see between Eve and other literate programming approaches such as the Jupyter project, Mathematica, Sage notebooks, R motebooks. Eve looks like it will soon be joining that group.

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#57

Post by dasmoth » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:24 PM UTC

sctb wrote: post #12

pitaj wrote: post #11

I believe HN title convention is to remove the number of list items ex. this title should be just "Programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding".

You're right, and “... that will change how you think about coding” is clickbait. Luckily the article contains an adjective for that, which we've used in the title. Thanks!

I realise moderation is tough an never pleases everyone, but have to say I'm disappointed here: in some circles, "esoteric" carries some quite strong negative connotations, which I think are unwarranted here.

Some of these languages are definitely suitable for "serious" usage. And I'm not sure I'd count SQL (or Prolog, for that matter) as esoteric at all!

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#58

Post by romaniv » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #42

Agent oriented-programming http://robotics.stanford.edu/~shoham/www%20papers/AgentOrien... [PDF]

Alan Kay talking about agent-oriented computing in 1990:

https://youtu.be/275FQ9koAw8?t=7647

Very interesting view, especially considering how long ago that was and how relevant they still are.

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#59

Post by sctb » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

dasmoth wrote: post #57

sctb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, and “... that will change how you think about coding” is clickbait. Luckily the article contains an adjective for that, which we've used in the title. Thanks!

I realise moderation is tough an never pleases everyone, but have to say I'm disappointed here: in some circles, "esoteric" carries some quite strong negative connotations, which I think are unwarranted here. Some of these languages are definitely suitable for "serious" usage. And I'm not sure I'd count SQL (or Prolog, for that matter) as esoteric at all!

That's a good point. We'll happily update the title again if someone can suggest a better one still using the author's language.

Re: Esoteric programming paradigms

#60

Post by charlieflowers » Mon, May 01, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

tannhaeuser wrote: post #52

I don't know if Prolog should be called esoteric. Prolog is an ISO-standardized language after all, and its syntax has been used for 4+ decades now in most papers on conceptual database system and query language design I've read. Which isn't surprising since Prolog syntax, being based on operator-precedence grammar concepts, is arguably as minimalistic as it gets. There's definitely also a lot of interest lately in D…

I think the point is, most people being paid to program don't know it, or don't know it very well. (EDIT: Granted, this may be more of a statement about the "mainstream" than it is about prolog).