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Why programming languages matter [video]

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Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#51
post #46
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see what you’re trying to do with the comparison, but it’s not really the same. In your example, the two things are separated by at a minimum one layer of emergence: your example is more like saying biology is just chemistry. In maths and programming, they are both at the same level, no emergence. I also haven’t found what you say to be true at all— As I’ve been learning more maths and more programming, and learnin…

I was an academic physicist for the first several years of my post-graduate school career--I, too, see much value in having multiple perspectives to a problem.

But that's quite different from your other claim. Maths and programming are not at the same level. When one writes a "hello world" program, math does not figure into the final text of the code at all. Similarly, when one writes code to implement a system interacting with multiple dependencies, one is not doing mathematics, except in the trivial sense of your original comment. That is to say, at such a remote distance that it's meaningless to describe the activity as a mathematical one.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some relevant PL research STM: https://cs.brown.edu/~mph/HerlihyM93/herlihy93transactional.... Region based memory management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region-based_memory_management Rust lifetimes, originally from Cyclone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_%28programming_languag... Mutable value semantics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.12678.pdf

Rust compiler enables trivial parallelism by enforcing multiple readers ^ writer; and it’s beautiful. See Rayon.

I wouldn't say it's trivial but yes it's there and it's very helpful.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#53
post #39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Your analogy is interesting to me.

I definitely see the parallel, but I'm not actually sure this is true.

A lot of the deep functional stuff I'm learning right now are more about finding connections and shortcuts between things that we used think were different.

For me, comparing functional programming to older languages is more like comparing "tally marks" or "roman numerals " to a modern "place value system".

Now back to the physics analogy. The gap between quantum physics and chemistry is both a theoretical and computation limit.

There are also seen to be very distinct layers where the lower level don't seem to correlate with higher levels.

But I can also see this might apply to the Curry-Howard correspondence.

Hmmm. I have to think about it more...

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#54
post #26
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.

Functional programmers regularly claim:

-Haskell is faster than C (lol)

-FP gives you free concurrency

-FP makes code more testable

-FP is easier to read

-FP is easier to consume for people

-FP results in no bugs

-FP is easier to change

-FP will literally suck your peepee

-Actually FP is the second coming for Christ

It’s really funny how you also pretend you’ve never heard of all the silver bullet claims that are incessantly plaguing every programming forum.

What’s also really funny is your multiple alt accounts manipulating your votes. You must be real secure in those those claims.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#55

Programming languages do matter but not as much as many people think f.ex. the HN crowd has a soft spot for LISP, and most of the don't even have proper parallel execution (and no I am not talking OS threads, having direct access to those should honestly be removed at one point). And sure, Racket and a few others are "Working on having an actor model". Wake me up when they achieve it. I am betting on somewhere in the…

Just FYI: Swift has actor model. Pony is built around actor model.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#56
post #55

Programming languages do matter but not as much as many people think f.ex. the HN crowd has a soft spot for LISP, and most of the don't even have proper parallel execution (and no I am not talking OS threads, having direct access to those should honestly be removed at one point). And sure, Racket and a few others are "Working on having an actor model". Wake me up when they achieve it. I am betting on somewhere in the…

Just FYI: Swift has actor model. Pony is built around actor model.

Sure. But now we get to the really hairy problem: library coverage and community support. That's why I think most languages should start converging together already.

IMO we the programmers scatter ourselves too much.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#57
post #4

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

Some relevant PL research STM: https://cs.brown.edu/~mph/HerlihyM93/herlihy93transactional.... Region based memory management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region-based_memory_management Rust lifetimes, originally from Cyclone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_%28programming_languag... Mutable value semantics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.12678.pdf

STM is about hardware, not programming languages, but is decently recent so maybe someone will actually try it in hardware and see if it provides a good benefit for the increased complexity of the chip.

Region based memory management was first conceived in 1967 and is achievable by any programming language that lets you manage memory yourself.

Mutable value semantics in native code have been available since at least 1980 with Ada.

Lifetimes in Cyclone seem the best example of PL research in the last 50 years you have there, as it’s only 20 years old.

Overall, I’m still unsure if this list proves the point that there is active useful research in the PL space or if it proves that there’s very little in the PL space to research. More research is probably required.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#58
post #51
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you’re trying to do with the comparison, but it’s not really the same. In your example, the two things are separated by at a minimum one layer of emergence: your example is more like saying biology is just chemistry. In maths and programming, they are both at the same level, no emergence. I also haven’t found what you say to be true at all— As I’ve been learning more maths and more programming, and learnin…

I was an academic physicist for the first several years of my post-graduate school career--I, too, see much value in having multiple perspectives to a problem. But that's quite different from your other claim. Maths and programming are not at the same level. When one writes a "hello world" program, math does not figure into the final text of the code at all . Similarly, when one writes code to implement a system inte…

You’re doing theorem proving in all cases where you handle errors or exceptions in non-trivial fashion. Same when you’re implementing any kind of authz. When dealing with async code or threads, you’d better be good at your invariants. This is all discrete maths. Yes I don’t differentiate continuous functions at work but let me tell you juggling multiple condition scenarios when integrating multiple inputs with multiple systems is damn close to working with logic proofs.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#59
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some relevant PL research STM: https://cs.brown.edu/~mph/HerlihyM93/herlihy93transactional.... Region based memory management: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region-based_memory_management Rust lifetimes, originally from Cyclone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_%28programming_languag... Mutable value semantics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.12678.pdf

STM is about hardware, not programming languages, but is decently recent so maybe someone will actually try it in hardware and see if it provides a good benefit for the increased complexity of the chip. Region based memory management was first conceived in 1967 and is achievable by any programming language that lets you manage memory yourself. Mutable value semantics in native code have been available since at least…

> STM is about hardware, not programming languages

STM is not about hardware, it's literally "software transactional memory" and is meant to be implemented in software without hardware support (beyond a CAS instruction or a similar set of instructions, perhaps). As a software component it could be part of libraries or part of a programming language as part of that language's general concurrency model.

Re: Why programming languages matter [video]

#60

Programming languages do matter but not as much as many people think f.ex. the HN crowd has a soft spot for LISP, and most of the don't even have proper parallel execution (and no I am not talking OS threads, having direct access to those should honestly be removed at one point). And sure, Racket and a few others are "Working on having an actor model". Wake me up when they achieve it. I am betting on somewhere in the…

what would "proper parallel execution" look like in a Lisp? A library or a more fundamental form? Something with the GC?
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