Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
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Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#2Rob Pike, co-creator of the Go language and UTF-8, tells us why every programmer should know about the array languages.
Host: Conor Hoekstra
Panel: Marshall Lochbaum, Adám Brudzewsky, Stephen Taylor and Bob Therriault.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#3I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp.
The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know about ML style languages. But I would be very interested to hear his take on it and his opinion of FP because I couldn't find anything from google. Anybody know of any links to writings/videos where he elucidates his viewpoints?
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#4I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp. The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know ab…
It's entirely possible for an expert programmer and pl designer to have never heard of ML-based languages or FP as a name for the concept.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#5I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp. The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know ab…
It's entirely possible for an expert programmer and pl designer to have never heard of ML-based languages or FP as a name for the concept.
Possibly. It's wierd he's so enamored with apl which just seems to me like languages focused an algebra designed around arrays.
Algebra based designs can be formed around many data structures and many languages generalize this concept like Haskell. With Haskell you can create your own algebraic DSL around arrays and anything else you can think of. It seems he's enamored with the specific array instance of algebra based designs and unaware of how it's only one specific case of a general concept.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#6> whenever something APL related comes up on Hacker News, it's always in the form of arcana you'll laugh at rather than fascinating work being being done by very smart people. I find that offensive, but I'm not going to push back on that. I don't talk on Hacker News. But I've seen a lot of interesting things being posted about it, and the comments are always almost universally, like: "what the hell is that for?". And not understanding that that language was once the best interactive language out there, and in many ways still is. And there's some phenomenal stuff being done with it. But it's hived off somehow from most of the rest of the computing world in a way that, for instance, Lisp (which is, I think, an almost contemporaneous language; Lisp was a little earlier, but similar) ... Lisp is sort of part of the universe of programming that people understand. They'll laugh at it, but they understand it, and they know what to do with it. And APL is something altogether different. I think that's a shame.
I will admit my interest in learning APL has been piqued. Though I do find it odd that they never once mention the most popular array programming language of all time, MATLAB
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#7I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp. The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know ab…
It's entirely possible for an expert programmer and pl designer to have never heard of ML-based languages or FP as a name for the concept.
Is it? That seems like a very bold claim. MLs have been at the heart of a lot of language development for the last few decades, both as research languages for various concepts, but also practically: OCaml is fairly famous as a language to write programming languages in. FP isn't something wild and niche, it's discussed fairly regularly even amongst users of mainstream programming languages. Even Go has an FP library now, coming out of IBM of all places.
I don't think you can attribute this to ignorance, because it's very clear that Pike is not ignorant of programming language design - even if you disagree with his decisions, he has had tremendous success at implementing his vision. To me it speaks more of disinterest - FP doesn't seem to really register on his radar as a useful mine of PL ideas. That's fine, although I agree with the previous poster that it's ironic to be such a proponent if APL, and yet have such a blind spot to another very fascinating area of his field.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#8I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp. The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know ab…
Well, Lisp is just as functional as ML-family languages like OCaml and F#. Haskell's typed/pure FP is a branch off of this. Surely between Pike, Griesemer, and Thompson someone had some ML experience, but this doesn't matter much for the design of Go. More important is that newcomers can't be expected to have ML experience, and a central goal of Go is to be quickly accessible to new programmers. And there was also a focus on fast compile times, fast execution, and low-level control, which are very hard to achieve with immutable data structures. Overall Go's design is very restrained, which I think shows a lot of wisdom on the part of the authors. ML is not the only language slighted: as Rob says, the only bit of APL that made it in was the name "iota"!
I think it'd be a bit of a shame if everyone were pushed to be a polyglot with a finger in every currently popular paradigm. Connections between different approaches to programming are very useful, but the sort of effort made in Go, to refine and simplify one imperative/OO approach, also helps push our understanding of programming into new territory.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#9I listened to this. He talks about language diversity but I never heard Rob Pike mention anything about Haskell or ML style languages and his opinions on that. He never commented on functional programming languages and the closest he gets to it is mentioning lisp. The design of Go feels almost as if he doesn't even know about those ML languages and it feels as if he doesn't like FP. Of course he probably does know ab…
It's entirely possible for an expert programmer and pl designer to have never heard of ML-based languages or FP as a name for the concept.
Would Haskel or some other functional language be a part of a typical CS curriculum?
I remember having a course about programming paradigms which introduced different languages and we wrote a small project based on functional languages.
Re: Rob Pike explains why every programmer should know about the array languages
#10Rob Pike, co-creator of the Go language and UTF-8, tells us why every programmer should know about the array languages. Host: Conor Hoekstra Panel: Marshall Lochbaum, Adám Brudzewsky, Stephen Taylor and Bob Therriault.
And then Pike begins by saying he doesn't know much about APL.