[OT] the funniest thing ever

this was so dang funny i had to share it

   C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.

     -- off smalltalk.org

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

i'm still laughing...

-a

···

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better.
simply reflect on that.
- the dalai lama

That's really good. Thanks for sharing. I followed the link. I think the article is well worth reading. Some of the other quotes appearing there were almost a good as the one you picked. This one really got my attention:

    C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but
    when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

       -- Bjarne Stroustrup

It's hard to believe that comes from Bjarne Stroustrup.

Regards, Morton

···

On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:13 AM, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:

this was so dang funny i had to share it

  C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.

    -- off smalltalk.org

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

i'm still laughing...

Hi --

···

On Sat, 10 Feb 2007, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:

this was so dang funny i had to share it

C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.

   -- off smalltalk.org

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

i'm still laughing...

If it walks like an octopus....

:slight_smile:

David

--
Q. What is THE Ruby book for Rails developers?
A. RUBY FOR RAILS by David A. Black (http://www.manning.com/black\)
    (See what readers are saying! http://www.rubypal.com/r4rrevs.pdf\)
Q. Where can I get Ruby/Rails on-site training, consulting, coaching?
A. Ruby Power and Light, LLC (http://www.rubypal.com)

Ara, thank you for sharing this - not only because of the funny quotes but also because of the lot of good brainfood!

Kind regards

  robert

···

On 10.02.2007 07:13, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:

this was so dang funny i had to share it

  C++ : an octopus made by nailing extra legs onto a dog.

    -- off smalltalk.org

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

my favourite quote from that article was lispnik Martin Rodgers's

Will write code that writes code that writes code for food.

martin

···

On 2/10/07, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov <ara.t.howard@noaa.gov> wrote:

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations... typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache? are there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available? Is there a a nice framework like Rails to build with? (just picking on it because the author likes it so much. I've never used OCAML)

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

More importantly, the scalability of a language depends more on the programmer than the language. I've seen scalable and brittle code in almost all of those languages.

David Morton
Maia Mailguard http://www.maiamailguard.com
mortonda@dgrmm.net

···

On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:15 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:

On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:13 AM, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

That's really good. Thanks for sharing. I followed the link. I think the article is well worth reading.

yeah - i though about stealing that one!

-a

···

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Martin DeMello wrote:

On 2/10/07, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov <ara.t.howard@noaa.gov> wrote:

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

my favourite quote from that article was lispnik Martin Rodgers's

Will write code that writes code that writes code for food.

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better.
simply reflect on that.
- the dalai lama

> That's really good. Thanks for sharing. I followed the link. I
> think the article is well worth reading.

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is
evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations...
typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache? are
there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available? Is there a a nice
framework like Rails to build with? (just picking on it because the
author likes it so much. I've never used OCAML)

OCaml gets a lot of attention mostly as a source of ideas for
language designers, who are designing other languages, not
OCaml.

It has some fantastic features at the language
design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
to speak of. The most sophisticated thing you can do with the
standard distro is read a file.

It *does* have a way of binding to C code. If it exists in C, you can
use it and that's its hand-wavey excuse for not having any APIs.

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language
that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

If anything is going to happen with OCaml, it will happen at the
heavy-duty OSS level (like kernel writers). Its getting a lot of attention from
the traditionally C-only crew.

Its feature set is extremely impressive though, if you are comfortable at
working in C, it would probably be an interesting language to learn.

Currently its use in practical concerns is almost zero without it though.

···

On 2/12/07, David Morton <mortonda@dgrmm.net> wrote:

His only point is that there is correlation between scalability and
applicability of a language.

The rest is evaluation of scalability of different languages.

Does the lack of a mod_ocaml make it less sacalable? No. It makes it more
applicable. Which isn't the same.

Does the hampered (is that a word?) scalability of C++ make it less
applicable? IMHO, it does.

The scalability of a language isn't dependent on the programmer. The
scalability of a language is the inverse of how much the language gets in
the way of writing scalable code (I think it's more fitting than "how much
the language helps the programmers write scalable code", though that can be
used too if we talk paths of least resistance).

Aur Saraf

Just my NIS.05

···

On 2/12/07, David Morton <mortonda@dgrmm.net> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is
evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations...
typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache? are
there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available? Is there a a nice
framework like Rails to build with? (just picking on it because the
author likes it so much. I've never used OCAML)

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language
that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

More importantly, the scalability of a language depends more on the
programmer than the language. I've seen scalable and brittle code
in almost all of those languages.

David Morton <mortonda@dgrmm.net> writes:

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~mvanier/hacking/rants/
scalable_computer_programming_languages.html

That's really good. Thanks for sharing. I followed the link. I
think the article is well worth reading.

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is
evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations...
typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache?

Yes.

are there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available?

Yes, yes, maybe not but none of these are quite rocket science so why
do you care?

Is there a a nice framework like Rails to build with?

Well probably since it seems to be the only killer app in the world
and what every language zealot wants to copy. There is probably also
a framework that was designed to take advantage of the strengths of
the language instead of merely regurgitating another *ails.

(just picking on it because the author likes it so much. I've never
used OCAML)

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language
that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

The Pragmatic side of me says learn a language a year.

Steve

···

On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:15 AM, Morton Goldberg wrote:

On Feb 10, 2007, at 1:13 AM, ara.t.howard@noaa.gov wrote:

Richard Conroy wrote:

···

On 2/12/07, David Morton <mortonda@dgrmm.net> wrote:

> That's really good. Thanks for sharing. I followed the link. I
> think the article is well worth reading.

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is
evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations...
typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache? are
there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available? Is there a a nice
framework like Rails to build with? (just picking on it because the
author likes it so much. I've never used OCAML)

OCaml gets a lot of attention mostly as a source of ideas for
language designers, who are designing other languages, not
OCaml.

It has some fantastic features at the language
design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
to speak of. The most sophisticated thing you can do with the
standard distro is read a file.

It *does* have a way of binding to C code. If it exists in C, you can
use it and that's its hand-wavey excuse for not having any APIs.

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language
that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

If anything is going to happen with OCaml, it will happen at the
heavy-duty OSS level (like kernel writers). Its getting a lot of attention from
the traditionally C-only crew.

Its feature set is extremely impressive though, if you are comfortable at
working in C, it would probably be an interesting language to learn.

Currently its use in practical concerns is almost zero without it though.

Well ... the folks at INRIA have done some interesting things with it in their "Coq" proof assistant, including some proofs of program correctness. I've installed Coq on my machine and plan to play around a bit with that. If you can prove an OCaml program correct more easily than you can prove a Ruby program correct **for practical sized programs**, I'd say it's worth looking at.

--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.

especially since mod_ocaml is right here

   http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.en.cgi?contrib=281

along with smtp, pop, net, cgi, etc

   http://ocamlnet.sourceforge.net/manual-2.2/

fyi and very OT.

-a

···

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, SonOfLilit wrote:

On 2/12/07, David Morton <mortonda@dgrmm.net> wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I have to disagree with the paper a bit. It seems that the author is
evaluating languages in a vacuum without practical considerations...
typical for academia.

If he likes OCAML so much, is there a mod_ocaml for apache? are
there MIME, SMTP, IMAP libraries available? Is there a a nice
framework like Rails to build with? (just picking on it because the
author likes it so much. I've never used OCAML)

The pragmatic side of me says I don't have time to look at a language
that can't get the job done. (even if you add "yet" to that).

More importantly, the scalability of a language depends more on the
programmer than the language. I've seen scalable and brittle code
in almost all of those languages.

His only point is that there is correlation between scalability and
applicability of a language.

The rest is evaluation of scalability of different languages.

Does the lack of a mod_ocaml make it less sacalable? No. It makes it more
applicable. Which isn't the same.

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better.
simply reflect on that.
- the dalai lama

Richard Conroy wrote:

It has some fantastic features at the language
design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
to speak of.

That's funny. Coulda sworn that my Debian package listing contains
one hundred and forty five maintained ocaml packages. If the base
language package contains nearly nothing, *that's an advantage*.

Clifford Heath.

Ruby taught me that that is SO WRONG.

I install a compiler/interpreter and I want to DEVELOP THINGS.

Having a distribution with nearly nothing is OK, but the standard should be
as full of functionality as possible. That also establishes standards and
saves hackers who want to hack on a project in the language from the
uncomfortable experience of having to install a googol libraries.

Aur Saraf

···

On 2/13/07, Clifford Heath <no@spam.please.net> wrote:

Richard Conroy wrote:
> It has some fantastic features at the language
> design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
> to speak of.

That's funny. Coulda sworn that my Debian package listing contains
one hundred and forty five maintained ocaml packages. If the base
language package contains nearly nothing, *that's an advantage*.

Richard Conroy wrote:
> It has some fantastic features at the language
> design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
> to speak of.

That's funny. Coulda sworn that my Debian package listing contains
one hundred and forty five maintained ocaml packages.

I didn't get enough time to itemise the OCaml library space. Apologies
if I have misrepresented the language. But I spent some time googling
and chasing resources and didn't find anything, and no real links from
the main page or tutorials. I got the impression that Caml development
basically meant binding to C libraries.

Whats the rubyforge equivalent for (O)Caml? Private e-mail it if you think
this thread has gone too OT. I am very interested. A healthy library
ecology raises OCaml from something to keep an eye on, to immediate
attention.

If the base
language package contains nearly nothing, *that's an advantage*.

Agreed. But if I didn't make it clear, my main concern was the availability
of libraries for common development tasks, like database development,
network comms protocols (particularly secure ones). etc.

Yeah, this is getting more than a bit OT, but (O)Caml *is* interesting.

···

On 2/13/07, Clifford Heath <no@spam.please.net> wrote:

Maybe some projects such as http://www.haxe.org or
http://www.ocsigen.org should have been mentioned in the article.

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

http://caml.inria.fr/cgi-bin/hump.cgi

Share and enjoy :slight_smile:

m.

···

On 2/13/07, Richard Conroy <richard.conroy@gmail.com> wrote:

Whats the rubyforge equivalent for (O)Caml? Private e-mail it if you think
this thread has gone too OT. I am very interested. A healthy library
ecology raises OCaml from something to keep an eye on, to immediate
attention.

<snip>

I didn't get enough time to itemise the OCaml library space. Apologies

if I have misrepresented the language. But I spent some time googling
and chasing resources and didn't find anything, and no real links from
the main page or tutorials. I got the impression that Caml development
basically meant binding to C libraries.

Whats the rubyforge equivalent for (O)Caml?

I think enough people have shown interest in this thread to reply on list
(there is a delete button too;)
Caml has a Hump,right;) http://caml.inria.fr//cgi-bin/hump.en.cgi
more interesting stuff can be found here:

http://caml.inria.fr/resources/index.en.html

HTH
Robert

···

On 2/13/07, Richard Conroy <richard.conroy@gmail.com> wrote:

--
We have not succeeded in answering all of our questions.
In fact, in some ways, we are more confused than ever.
But we feel we are confused on a higher level and about more important
things.
-Anonymous

i don't think that's slowed rails down too much... it's a big install too...

we can thank rubygems for that!

-a

···

On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, SonOfLilit wrote:

Ruby taught me that that is SO WRONG.

I install a compiler/interpreter and I want to DEVELOP THINGS.

Having a distribution with nearly nothing is OK, but the standard should be
as full of functionality as possible. That also establishes standards and
saves hackers who want to hack on a project in the language from the
uncomfortable experience of having to install a googol libraries.

--
we can deny everything, except that we have the possibility of being better.
simply reflect on that.
- the dalai lama

And you have to love the Ruby community where an off-topic humor
thread starts espousing the wonders of the ocaml language. I remember
a similar thing happening on a previous thread comparing Ruby and
Python. It, too, ended up discussing how the wonders of ocaml.

TwP

···

On 2/13/07, Richard Conroy <richard.conroy@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2/13/07, Clifford Heath <no@spam.please.net> wrote:
> Richard Conroy wrote:
> > It has some fantastic features at the language
> > design level. We are talking drool-worthy. And absolutely no library
> > to speak of.
>
> That's funny. Coulda sworn that my Debian package listing contains
> one hundred and forty five maintained ocaml packages.

I didn't get enough time to itemise the OCaml library space. Apologies
if I have misrepresented the language. But I spent some time googling
and chasing resources and didn't find anything, and no real links from
the main page or tutorials. I got the impression that Caml development
basically meant binding to C libraries.

Whats the rubyforge equivalent for (O)Caml? Private e-mail it if you think
this thread has gone too OT. I am very interested. A healthy library
ecology raises OCaml from something to keep an eye on, to immediate
attention.

> If the base
> language package contains nearly nothing, *that's an advantage*.

Agreed. But if I didn't make it clear, my main concern was the availability
of libraries for common development tasks, like database development,
network comms protocols (particularly secure ones). etc.

Yeah, this is getting more than a bit OT, but (O)Caml *is* interesting.