On Jun 24, 2009, at 1:21 AM, Cowley Harris wrote:
This guy asked a relatively simple question which I'm paraphrasing here as "can you run Debian without perl or python", the answer is pretty much no. He gave his reasons for the question and his opinion on the answers he was given. He's also started probably the most interesting thread on this list for a while.
I think the interest has come from people responding to him, not from anything he's said.
As I've read it, he's not attacked anyone personally even when disagreeing with people and yet he is being personally attacked for his opinions. Well, here is my opinion, if you feel threatened enough by someone who disagrees with you, that you must insult them, it's a sign of a weak logic or a weak mind. It's the reaction typical of a zealot, fool or troll and not the response of someone with some useful knowledge to share.
I don't see anyone being threatened by him or acting like they're threatened. I know I've stated my thoughts on this as I've seen some patterns emerge, such as his statements getting more and more extreme and as many of them show more and more of a claim to knowing something it's clear he does not know. But I haven't seen anyone insult him yet -- but then I haven't read many of the overnight posts yet.
I don't agree with him that a "one programming language system" would be "the right way to do things" or that it would lead to a bright future of our free software world". but I'm not going to insult him for his belief. In fact it might be a good thing that he tries this endeavor. “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.” GB Shaw.
Yes, that's a cute quotation. I can also cite Zen quotations or other sources about the wisdom of knowing when to fight and when not to, or when to push a big rock out of the way or when it's better to walk around that rock.
The benefits of multiple languages over a 1 language system (1LS) is that it gives you the ability to program at the appropriate level of the problem space. The studies show that the higher level you program the more instructions you have per line, and yet the bugs per line stay about the same. The studies also show that the amount of LOC produced by programmers of the same skill level is about the same, whether they use assembly, c or java, and yet the amount of instructions per LOC increase with level of the language. More productivity in the same time span is a major advantage.
Definitely. There are definite advantages to a higher level language and we are well past the days when we gained any significant advantage by having a programmer write in Assembler to save memory space and CPU time instead of having the same system done in a higher level language, whether it's an interpreted one or compiled one.
On a personal note, I think that programmers that use different languages can communicate in "meta-programming" terms, a hash-table is a hash-table whether you call it a hash or a dictionary. The benefits of a 1LS would be small in comparison to the benefits of plural system.
Which is what pretty much everyone but the OP has said. I think we all agree on that. I've found times where I may be talking with someone who knows one language but does not know the one I'm working in that I'm using a modified hash table or I'll say, "It's something like a hash table, but it's my own class, so there's some extra functions." That generally does well enough. I've never had a problem talking with another programmer who is not familiar with the language I'm using where I couldn't communicate what I was doing easily.
Hal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
