Re: what's so difficult about namespace?
Xah Lee wrote: In many languages, they don't have namespace and is often a well known sour point for the lang. For example, Scheme has this problem up till R6RS last year. PHP didn't have namespace for the past decade till about this year. Javascript, which i only have working expertise, didn't have namespace as he mentioned in his blog. Elisp doesn't have name space and it is a well known major issue. Namespaces are useful for one reason: they allow you to have conflicts with names in some cases. In Java, there are two Lists: java.awt.List and java.util.List. Since a name must only be unique within a namespace, you can use shorter names without fear of conflict. In languages without these namespaces, you end up with stuff like g_type_init, e_data_server_module_init, mysql_connect, etc., where the prefixes are used to emulate the unique nature of namespaces. Of languages that do have namespace that i have at least working expertise: Mathematica, Perl, Python, Java. Knowing these langs sufficiently well, i do not see anything special about namespace. Most features aren't sufficiently appreciated until one has to do without it. The avoidance of collision that comes with namespaces has shown to be sufficiently useful that I doubt we'll ever see a future major language that doesn't have some sort of namespace feature. > The _essence_ of namespace is that a char is choosen as a separator, and the compiler just use this char to split/connect identifiers. That's just composition of namespace names. It's not what namespaces is about. i cannot fathom what could possibly be difficult of introducing or implementing a namespace mechanism into a language. Namespaces go to the very core of a language, name resolution. Retroactively adding such a feature is extremely difficult because there is a strong chance of accidentally breaking existing code. > I do not understand, why so many languages that lacks so much needed namespace for so long? If it is a social problem, i don't imagine they would last so long. It must be some technical issue? It's technical: it would be difficult to retroactively implement such a feature. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: blogs, longbets.org, and education of sociology
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: For about the past 10 years, i have been concerned in the programing community's level of education in social issues. [ Adjusts killfile as necessary. ] I have found that recently, a news that would be of interest to programers. There was a bet at longbets.org (run by Long Now Foundation) regarding the importance of blogs. The bet was made in 2002. The prediction has a resolution date in 2007. In 2008, the bet is resolved. See “Decision: Blogs vs. New York Times” (2008-02-01) by Alexander Rose http://blog.longnow.org/2008/02/01/decision-blogs-vs-new-york-times/ ^^ Recently? Also, work on that spelling of yours. I'd like encourage, for many of you, who have lots of opinions on technical issues or social issues surrounding software, to make use of longbets.org. It can help shape your thoughts from blog fart to something more refined. In any case, your money will benefit society. I am getting this sense that you have some sort of monetary connection to said site. • I bet that Java will be out of the top 10 programing languages by 2020. FORTRAN was first used in the 1950s. IIRC, it's still in the top 10. Languages die hard. • I bet that the top 10 programing languages in 2015 (as determined by requirement from job search engine), the majority will be those characterized as dynamic languages (e.g. php, perl, python, javascript, tcl, lisp. (as opposed to: C, Java, C++, C#, F#, Haskell)). Right, once again Java-bashing in a Java forum. There's one (actually two, but that's a different story) too many trolls in here! I'd also like to point out that determining language use by "job search engine" requirements is setting one up to certain biases and is not sufficiently representative of the true patterns. Note, in almost all online forums where tech geekers gather (e.g. newsgroups, slashdot, irc, etc), often they are anonymous, each fart ignorant cries and gripes and heated arguments, often in a irresponsible and carefree way. Okay, we already know that most /. users tend to act immature, but that can hardly be said about newsgroups or IRC. Just read c.l.j.p's postings for the last month to disprove your proposition. One of the longbets.org's goal is to foster RESPONSIBILITY. How does making a bet make one responsible? In recent years, i have often made claims that the Python's documentation, it's writing quality and its documentation quality in whole, is one of the worst. ... Are you trying to be ironic on purpose? Among all the wild claims in our modern world, from the sciences to social or political issues, my claim about Python's technical writing quality or its whole quality as a technical documentation, is actualy trivial to verify by any standards. Quality is subjective, so it's not trivial to verify. Some of these beer drinking fuckheads are simply being a asshole, which are expected by the nature of online tech geeking communities (a significance percentage are bored young males). However, many others, many with many years of programing experience as a professional, sincerely tried to say something to the effect of “in my opinion it's good”, or voice other stupid remarks to the effect of “why don't you fix it”, and in fact find my claim, and its tone too fantastical, to the point thinking i'm a youngling who are bent on to do nothing but vandalism. (the tech geekers use in-group slang for this: “troll”.) Right, so in response to your complaints that something is poor, people who try to (IMHO validly so) claim otherwise, or suggest that you take the initiative to change the status quo makes them blithering idiots. Although I'm sure that I have already lost all credibility with you, I would like to point out one of the defining features of open source: if you don't like it, you can change it. No one is pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to use python's documentation. Besides, you claim that longbets.org is fostering "responsibility." If you want to change the world, take some responsibility and do it yourself. By that i mean that there is no consensus on the subject among its experts, and the issue is complex, and has political implications. I think all concerned would agree that crossposting a message to several groups (one of your examples) with the intent of criticizing those in one group and providing information at best tangential to the charters of other groups is of no merit, and is bad form. I think, the founding of Long Now Foundation with its longbets.org, shares a concern i have on the tech geeking communities. In particular, tech geekers need to have a broader education on social sciences, needs to think in long term, and needs to foster personal Lesson 1: in public fora, screaming and using the most vulgar language at someone is poor social form. In olden times, such language as you have presented here might merit punishments like lashings, but in o
OT: OT posts [was Re: proliferation of computer languages]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ⢠many says i'm posting off topic posts. In recent years they start to say i'm posting tangentially relevant posts. That's not correct. In fact, there are huge number of blatantly off-topics posts by regulars that spawn off from threads, happens regularly. The topics vary anywhere from discussing politics, law, licenses, free speech, math education, yapping on happenings of celebrity programers, and including rampant flamewars and accusations among themselves. There is a difference. Many of your claimant off-topic posts are buried in the end of threads, not at the explicit start of a thread. In those cases, I personally feel that not moving to another forum is trumped by the sake of continuity. Even then, it should be indicated as such by OT: in the subject, but it gets easy to forget it. Starting a thread that is OT does not have such continuity considerations, though. And realize that something is not on-topic merely because it's relevant to Java programmers. You can see people's responses to one of Roedy's threads as an example. ⢠Most newsgroup tech geekers consider cross-posting wrong. I consider the taboo of this convention being a major contribution to the redundant creation of new languages, and foster the hostile faction nature of programing language communities we see. X-Posting to groups as diverse as c.l.perl.misc, c.l.python, c.l.lisp, c.l.functional, and c.l.java.programmer (the last one especially, as it is not a functional language nor will it ever be) is generally a sign that you are not X-Posting in a germane fashion. Your original topic belongs in comp.programming or maybe (I can see a case for it) in c.l.functional, but not the other four groups. I wrote detailed argument about my edit in my Wikipedia's personal talk page. The Wikipedia fuckheads not only ban'd me, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Fragrantly violating the established rules of an organization, especially after being reminded of these rules, is sufficient cause for disciplinary action. And you're entire post gets more and more OT every paragraph. I can in no good faith allow this to continue. Setting F-U header to take appropriate actions. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: multi-core software
Jon Harrop wrote: No. Most programmers still care about performance and performance means mutable state. [ Citation needed ]. Most programmers I've met could care less about performance. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
