swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,830
school assignment, believe it or not. quite a bear too. teacher invented this programming language for the hell of it. it represents diagrams (in latex markup). and I have to write a type checker for it. and a converter from this language to latex markup. it's fun though, despite all the work. and worthwhile, cause I'm doing my thesis on type checking so I need to know this.

the language represents t-diagrams:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...sGVoJNHU64BPYCr_Q&sig2=DZNAdF6zZxzAeu7TFyGoJw
As I read through Ruby manuals to try to learn it myself, I've become convinced that people who invent new computer languages because it sounds like a nifty idea (or, for the hell of it) deserve to be put in front of firing squads.

We'll start with Mr. Yukihiro Matsimoto for having the egotistical gall of a clueless grad student and reinventing the programming wheel "to make programmers happy".

As if much of humanity would be better served if we created more verbal and written languages... :(

Do I sound like that much of a grump?? :D
 

Martin

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
As I read through Ruby manuals to try to learn it myself, I've become convinced that people who invent new computer languages because it sounds like a nifty idea (or, for the hell of it) deserve to be put in front of firing squads.

We'll start with Mr. Yukihiro Matsimoto for having the egotistical gall of a clueless grad student and reinventing the programming wheel "to make programmers happy".

As if much of humanity would be better served if we created more verbal and written languages... :(

Do I sound like that much of a grump?? :D
Well, put it this way. You chose the absolute worst language to complain about. Ruby is just about the nicest, cleanest, most cozy language there is. It's one thing for Andy to bash c++ of fortran, those really are horrible languages. And I concur. But you can't handle ruby? Cmon, you're not even trying :p

Matz is a hero to coders :weee:

(Granted, any poison is still a poison, but there's the most aggressive ones and there's the mildest ones, like ruby.)
 

blondu

Grazie Ale
Nov 9, 2006
27,408
cursing...goddam bears, they really had to play at night....so the match with packers will be at 03.30 am in my country. And i gotta wake up at 06.00 to go to work..
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,830
Well, put it this way. You chose the absolute worst language to complain about. Ruby is just about the nicest, cleanest, most cozy language there is. It's one thing for Andy to bash c++ of fortran, those really are horrible languages. And I concur. But you can't handle ruby? Cmon, you're not even trying :p

Matz is a hero to coders :weee:

(Granted, any poison is still a poison, but there's the most aggressive ones and there's the mildest ones, like ruby.)
Not saying Matz isn't a nice, thoughtful guy here. :smoke:

Just that the answer to every problem in computer science simply cannot be the "ya*" pattern: "Yet Another ____".

Talk about running in place. It's a classic Not Invented Here problem. Many programmers are so lazy they will look to reinvent things rather than learn about something else, maybe modify it, and simply seek reuse first as a solution.
 

Martin

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
Not saying Matz isn't a nice, thoughtful guy here. :smoke:

Just that the answer to every problem in computer science simply cannot be the "ya*" pattern: "Yet Another ____".

Talk about running in place. It's a classic Not Invented Here problem. Many programmers are so lazy they will look to reinvent things rather than learn about something else, maybe modify it, and simply seek reuse first as a solution.
Complexity, dude. I shouldn't have to tell you this :p

The truth is a lot of problems do merit new tools. If for no other reason than to address well known deficiencies in existing tools, which then get an incentive to fix those problems.

And frankly it actually takes less brain power to do something new within boundaries that you know inside out than to attempt grand unification efforts. Believe me, I've been there. Rather depend on one tool you wrote yourself than 6 different ones in their various versions, bugs, quirks and feature sets. As one guy put it, it rarely happens that an app takes off to the point where it becomes almost an operating system in itself, and then you know it'll live forever. Emacs is one, programmable to the last rubber band. Firefox is a modern example with all the extensions.
 

swag

L'autista
Administrator
Sep 23, 2003
84,830
I don't buy the complexity argument, Martin. After all, you should know how much of a Bad Idea(tm) it is to have four ways to do essentially the same thing living in the same project codebase.
 

Martin

Senior Member
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
I don't buy the complexity argument, Martin. After all, you should know how much of a Bad Idea(tm) it is to have four ways to do essentially the same thing living in the same project codebase.
Still complexity, man. The same guy didn't write the four different libs, various people did. People who don't know each other and maybe never even met. Not that there's any shortage of bad practice, thedailywtf.com is alive and kicking of course. But look at it this way. You're working on this piece of the system over here, this is your domain. You don't know the whole codebase, only god does. Whoever is managing you is supposed to vouch for your piece of the puzzle. If that guy knows nothing about other areas of the system then is it any wonder people duplicate things?
 

Bjerknes

"Top Economist"
Mar 16, 2004
116,527
Well, put it this way. You chose the absolute worst language to complain about. Ruby is just about the nicest, cleanest, most cozy language there is. It's one thing for Andy to bash c++ of fortran, those really are horrible languages. And I concur. But you can't handle ruby? Cmon, you're not even trying :p

Matz is a hero to coders :weee:

(Granted, any poison is still a poison, but there's the most aggressive ones and there's the mildest ones, like ruby.)
I only got a friggin' B+ in that damn Fortran class. Should have gotten an A for how much time I put into it.. :melayyanandmessi:
 

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