misc, maybe ot: I return, and a partial return to the scheme way
cr88192
after my efforts diverged from having much of anything to do with scheme (I
forget, possibly I was not getting along that well with the people around
here).
now I am possibly returning to all this way, or at least partly.
this is largely a re-introductory post. others may focus more on the
specifics.
so, a history:
starting sometime around 4-6 years ago, I had implemented a scheme variant
(some ways it differed from the spec, but a lot of code ran ok). eventually,
the thing became a complicated and infexible mess, so the effort was laid to
rest.
at about this point, I implemented a new language, borrowing a lot of ideas
from javascript and self, but still maintaining a lot of functional
features.
some things were gained, some things were lost. this time, the vm's
implementation was very loose. it would integrate well enough with c code,
but generated unmanagable levels of garbage, and many features could not be
adequately re-implemented due to the highly ad-hoc nature of the
implementation.
eventually, I started to question dynamic typing altogether, and went down
the path of trying to design and implement a language that would have about
all of this, but be a statically typed class/instance language. several
attempts, all quickly became unmanagably complex and died.
more recently, I had came up with the idea of trying again, but working
clean. I would make a new memory manager and type system, and would keep
everything centralized. I then decided on using precise gc, ref counting,
and tagged references.
something done away with was dom-trees. xml has some coolness, but also some
major limitations (awkward to work with, ...).
the first thought was using s-expressions internally. the thought became a
multi-stage compilation process. in the first stage, data is parsed and ran
though a first-stage compiler, which would compile to a lisp-like language,
which would then be processed by a second stage compiler and made into the
bytecode.
I figured I would implement the lower level first, and use an s-expression
parser to test it out.
after implementation had began, the thought changed. most of my original
reasons for wanting static typing had largely faded away (most operations on
data are fairly cheap, and reference counting will make the garbage problem
a lot more managable).
the though became:
how about for the lower language and vm, I make them dynamic.
followed by:
making the surface level language static (and doing all the static
typesystem heavy lifting) didn't make a lot of sense.
the thought became that I make the lower language more or less a scheme
variant (not exactly, but "close").
the upper language will just be a modified form of my last language. this
part will be fairly thin, a lot closer to being a plain parser.
the syntax will be in a style vaguely similar to that of javascript (as was
the case in my last lang). note that, unlike javascript, it makes a little
less distinction between statements and expressions.
in the old lang, I could type:
var x={1, 2, 3};
which would generate an array of 3 numbers and bind them to x. this time, I
will make it be a list by default, and probably give arrays the syntax
#{...} instead.
likewise I would type something like:
function fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
and:
t=fun(x)fun(y)x;
f=fun(x)fun(y)y;
c_if=fun(c)fun(t)fun(f)c(t)(f);
this time, I may make both keywords optional, allowing one to write:
fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
and:
t=(x)(y)x;
f=(x)(y)y;
c_if=(c)(t)(f)c(t)(f);
and so on...
emptyset
> the upper language will just be a modified form of my last language. this
> part will be fairly thin, a lot closer to being a plain parser.
what's the motivation for writing your own language? it seems pretty
pointless to go through all that work to realize you could have just
used scheme as your "lower" language and defined your own abstractions
to solve the particular problem.
this all sounds suspect - like you're doing this all because of syntax
preference, and not really focusing on whether the language features are
solving the particular problem.
> the syntax will be in a style vaguely similar to that of javascript (as was
> the case in my last lang). note that, unlike javascript, it makes a little
> less distinction between statements and expressions.
> in the old lang, I could type:
> var x={1, 2, 3};
> which would generate an array of 3 numbers and bind them to x. this time, I
> will make it be a list by default, and probably give arrays the syntax
> #{...} instead.
case in point.
> this time, I may make both keywords optional, allowing one to write:
> fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
> and:
> t=(x)(y)x;
> f=(x)(y)y;
> c_if=(c)(t)(f)c(t)(f);
that's hideous, imho.
--
: alan a. fay : empt...@gehennom.net : www.gehennom.net/~emptyset :
: embrace all robots : because you can : because you should : 0xF0 :
cr88192
"emptyset" <empt...@gehennom.net> wrote in message
news:slrne8p7qm....@orcus.gehennom.net...
> <bdf04$448c4575$ca83abe2$74...@saipan.com>
>> the upper language will just be a modified form of my last language. this
>> part will be fairly thin, a lot closer to being a plain parser.
>
> what's the motivation for writing your own language? it seems pretty
> pointless to go through all that work to realize you could have just
> used scheme as your "lower" language and defined your own abstractions
> to solve the particular problem.
>
partly it is that I am a hobbyist who likes using only my own code...
possible examples here: my inflate/deflate code was written by me, along
with things like png load/save code, a jpeg loader, ... all of which could
have been sanely enough handled by common libraries (zlib, libpng, libjpeg,
...).
at least, if one writes it one can understand it, along with ideas related
to it.
I also have a full read/write archive format/library (uses deflate, and
compresses competatively with zip), for which I intend to use for the the
persistent store. note: I did my own file format, as zip is designed in a
way unsuitible for read/write (likewise for nearly every other archive
format, is mounting an archive as a read/write virtual filesystem such a
novel concept or something?...).
around 5 or 6 years ago, for some projects I had used guile and scm, and
that caused enough unpleasantness as to convince me to write my own scheme
implementation.
but, yes, scheme will be (more or less) the lower language anyways.
as noted, the reasons I stopped using scheme were:
after 2 years, I still couldn't stop being dissatisfied with the syntax;
I just couldn't handle maintaining my old vm (which had become very
inflexible, and had a few "unfixable" problems, particularly notable here
was the inability of the interpreted and compiled variants to share toplevel
environments, nor were they even strictly compatible at the source level).
> this all sounds suspect - like you're doing this all because of syntax
> preference, and not really focusing on whether the language features are
> solving the particular problem.
>
well, one problem is I don't have a particular problem...
or more like, the general problem is that I keep doing lots of stuff, and
the combination of nicety, efficiency, and capability has been an ongoing
problem.
my last lang had enough nicety (most of the time) but efficiency and
capability left something to be desired.
partly though you are right, syntax preference is a big part of it.
another issue though is that I have gained some dislike for use of lexical
scoping as the toplevel (largely for semantic reasons). so, my recent
languages have often not done this.
instead, I use object scoping here (using lexical scoping elsewhere, eg,
within function bodies and similar).
otherwise, yes, mostly syntactic...
>> the syntax will be in a style vaguely similar to that of javascript (as
>> was
>> the case in my last lang). note that, unlike javascript, it makes a
>> little
>> less distinction between statements and expressions.
>> in the old lang, I could type:
>> var x={1, 2, 3};
>> which would generate an array of 3 numbers and bind them to x. this time,
>> I
>> will make it be a list by default, and probably give arrays the syntax
>> #{...} instead.
>
> case in point.
>
well, I am not saying you are wrong.
personally I do feel that use of s-expressions as the front end syntax, with
only minor attempts at syntactic nicety, is a notable problem with scheme as
it stands (albeit, not for functionality, but more for nicety...).
of particular note is the awkwardness of typing non-trivial mathematical
expressions, given the general awkwardness of typing any mathematical
expressions.
I also like doing all my editing in notepad, and s-exps are known for being
bad for this (nice indentation is an art in itself, and it is annoying to
count parens, forcing people to use editors like emacs and similar...).
>> this time, I may make both keywords optional, allowing one to write:
>> fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
>> and:
>> t=(x)(y)x;
>> f=(x)(y)y;
>> c_if=(c)(t)(f)c(t)(f);
>
> that's hideous, imho.
>
well, I like this style, and it is not required that anyone else go along.
note that I had meant 'fib', but typed 'fact'.
(define (fib x) (if (> x 2) (+ (fib (- x 1)) (fib (- x 2))) 1))
fact(x) if(x>1)x*fact(x-1) else 1;
(define (fact x) (if (> x 1) (* x (fact (- x 1))) 1))
translated to scheme, the last 3 would become:
(define t (lambda (x) (lambda (y) x)))
(define f (lambda (x) (lambda (y) y)))
(define c_if (lambda (c) (lambda (t) (lambda (f) ((c t) f)))))
which is clearly much less terse, and imo much more "hideous" than the
above.
for everything else, the use of the language is likely to be fairly well
imperative, and I make a lot of use of oo approaches, for which I feel that
a c-like style does better (and the code looks a lot more mundane...).
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
>
> I also like doing all my editing in notepad, and s-exps are known for being
> bad for this (nice indentation is an art in itself, and it is annoying to
> count parens, forcing people to use editors like emacs and similar...).
Personally I cannot see this as a defensible concern in a modern
technological environment, and in particular, an open source
environment. I can understand not liking emacs. But insisting that
the editor be "completely dumb," and have no parentheses matching
feature at all, doesn't make sense in most programming environments I
can think of. Possibly in some crufty embedded systems programming
where the editor must always be written from scratch for every project?
In any tools environment where previous work can be retained, and in
particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
If you had what the industry calls a "driving problem," something that
you actually need to accomplish, it would separate the wheat from this
kind of chafe.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
cr88192
"Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150098100....@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>>
>> I also like doing all my editing in notepad, and s-exps are known for
>> being
>> bad for this (nice indentation is an art in itself, and it is annoying to
>> count parens, forcing people to use editors like emacs and similar...).
>
> Personally I cannot see this as a defensible concern in a modern
> technological environment, and in particular, an open source
> environment. I can understand not liking emacs. But insisting that
> the editor be "completely dumb," and have no parentheses matching
> feature at all, doesn't make sense in most programming environments I
> can think of. Possibly in some crufty embedded systems programming
> where the editor must always be written from scratch for every project?
> In any tools environment where previous work can be retained, and in
> particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
> Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
>
I don't like the expectation of any more advanced editor being required.
most langs are fine in notepad, but some are not.
> If you had what the industry calls a "driving problem," something that
> you actually need to accomplish, it would separate the wheat from this
> kind of chafe.
>
maybe.
then again, mostly I would probably be using it for more 3d
modeling/animating type stuff (note: for this kind of thing, good math stuff
is important...).
Erik Max Francis
> in the old lang, I could type:
> var x={1, 2, 3};
> which would generate an array of 3 numbers and bind them to x. this time, I
> will make it be a list by default, and probably give arrays the syntax
> #{...} instead.
>
> likewise I would type something like:
> function fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
> and:
> t=fun(x)fun(y)x;
> f=fun(x)fun(y)y;
> c_if=fun(c)fun(t)fun(f)c(t)(f);
>
> this time, I may make both keywords optional, allowing one to write:
> fact(x)if(x>2)fact(x-1)+fact(x-2) else 1;
> and:
> t=(x)(y)x;
> f=(x)(y)y;
> c_if=(c)(t)(f)c(t)(f);
1. What's this have to do with Scheme?
2. Why haven't you gotten a blog yet instead of posting this kind of
stuff to Usenet, as you've been asked over and over again?
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Let me not seem to have lived in vain.
-- (last words of Tycho Brahe)
cr88192
"Erik Max Francis" <m...@alcyone.com> wrote in message
news:AfmdnUy_GpW4txDZ...@speakeasy.net...
> cr88192 wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> 1. What's this have to do with Scheme?
>
system). it will effectively replace the xml/dom stuff I was using the last
time around...
I will probably make it accessible as well, probably via a different file
extension...
most likely, it will be a subset though...
> 2. Why haven't you gotten a blog yet instead of posting this kind of stuff
> to Usenet, as you've been asked over and over again?
>
well, in these cases, no one talks to me, and I lose point.
I think I remember now why I stopped posting here, so I may stop again...
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk
> partly it is that I am a hobbyist who likes using only my own code...
This is called Not Invented Here syndrome, and I believe it can be cured.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ qrc...@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
Erik Max Francis
> I will probably make it accessible as well, probably via a different file
> extension...
> most likely, it will be a subset though...
If you ever finish it enough to release it. Which, given your history
so far in the game programming newsgroups, doesn't seem too likely.
> well, in these cases, no one talks to me, and I lose point.
> I think I remember now why I stopped posting here, so I may stop again...
That's because newsgroups are not your personal diary. If you want one
of those, get one -- start a blog or something. I'm sure you'd find
some people interested enough in what you have to say to subscribe, and
setting up a blog these days is damn near trivial. But subjecting the
rest of us to it simply because you're lonely is not particularly friendly.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
I want to know God's thought; the rest are details.
-- Albert Einstein
Brandon J. Van Every
Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> That's because newsgroups are not your personal diary. If you want one
> of those, get one -- start a blog or something. I'm sure you'd find
> some people interested enough in what you have to say to subscribe, and
> setting up a blog these days is damn near trivial. But subjecting the
> rest of us to it simply because you're lonely is not particularly friendly.
Hey Erik, why don't you try being less strident for a change and lay
off. It's not your personal bitch session either. Nobody's twisting
your arm to make you read cr8's posts. You're well acquainted with a
killfile; use it if cr8 makes life so unpleasant for you. Or just do
what the rest of us do. Which is pick and choose the points we respond
to, or decline to read things entirely if we're not interested in them.
There is some Scheme stuff scattered in what he says, it's not like
he's posting about the moonshot or something. Even if he was, gads,
get a life.
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
> > particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
> > Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
> >
> I use notepad and I like notepad...
> I don't like the expectation of any more advanced editor being required.
>
> most langs are fine in notepad, but some are not.
Schemers tend to believe that a simple parentheses-only syntax buys you
something. What it buys you, is worth beefing up your editor for. It
is a tradeoff between human processability and computational
processability, favoring the latter. And really, I have yet to
understand why people find parentheses so friggin' difficult to deal
with. They're not that tough to read with the naked eye, really. Not
if you indent 'em like C code when necessary.
Yeah I had a paren matching mistake the other day. I solved it by
clicking on parens in XEmacs Fundamental mode until the correct text
was highlighted. Think I've also done the same thing in Visual Studio
and it's not even a Scheme / Lisp editor. Only recently have I
installed Quack to get a proper Scheme mode, and I haven't really taken
advantage of it any way yet (cuz most of what I do is still CMake
support). It gives me nice text highlighting, but it was slowing
things down... but then I realized I hadn't byte compiled it, and I did
so... and now it dies. Oh well. Wonder if it's a XEmacs vs. GNU Emacs
schism. The author doesn't like XEmacs....
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk wrote:
> "cr88192" <cr8...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> writes:
>
> > partly it is that I am a hobbyist who likes using only my own code...
>
> This is called Not Invented Here syndrome, and I believe it can be cured.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here
I couldn't help but add my $0.02 in italics to that wikipedia entry.
One reason for NIH: no incentive to do otherwise. Like, people who are
getting paid to promote and aggrandize themselves by having their own
projects. You don't get ahead by wiping other people's hinnies,
usually. Usually, if you're at the top of the heap, spewing the code
that other people have to fix, you're in the most powerful position.
cr8 has a variation on "no incentive to do otherwise." He has no
long-term driving problem. He codes for short-term satisfaction. He's
prolific; his version of "short term" is a lot more code than most
people could generate. But there's no long term architectonic plan in
anything he does. He isn't serious about trying to "get somewhere." I
don't know what life change will make him become serious about it. I
do know that people change when they want to change, and not before.
There is also the possibility that some people are highly productive
coders but not good visionaries, and will not / cannot ever be
otherwise.
I have the opposite problem. I have very firm long-term goals, like,
take over the game industry with Chicken Scheme, and ship a kickass 4X
TBS game. These require bazillions of short-term steps which are hard
for me to get through because I'm not some uber-coder. I do plod
through them methodically, to the degree my finances allow, but
progress is slow. For instance I've been hammering the Chicken Scheme
CMake build into shape for 9 months now. The more "progress" I make on
it, the more I feel like I'm opening up new cans of worms. I wonder
when I'm going to reach a point of stability with it. This is like a
variation on "The Uncanny Valley": the closer I get, the farther away
it is.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Rob Thorpe
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1150098100....@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > cr88192 wrote:
> >>
> >> I also like doing all my editing in notepad, and s-exps are known for
> >> being
> >> bad for this (nice indentation is an art in itself, and it is annoying to
> >> count parens, forcing people to use editors like emacs and similar...).
> >
> > Personally I cannot see this as a defensible concern in a modern
> > technological environment, and in particular, an open source
> > environment. I can understand not liking emacs. But insisting that
> > the editor be "completely dumb," and have no parentheses matching
> > feature at all, doesn't make sense in most programming environments I
> > can think of. Possibly in some crufty embedded systems programming
> > where the editor must always be written from scratch for every project?
> > In any tools environment where previous work can be retained, and in
> > particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
> > Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
> >
> I use notepad and I like notepad...
> I don't like the expectation of any more advanced editor being required.
>
> most langs are fine in notepad, but some are not.
Most languages are editable in notepad, but few are fine.
Next time you have some time try writing your own editor rather than
your own language. Implement things like folding, cursor placement
registers and regexp replace. Then if you write a good one you'll find
maintaining your code much easier.
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> >
>> > In any tools environment where previous work can be retained, and in
>> > particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
>> > Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
>> >
>> I use notepad and I like notepad...
>> I don't like the expectation of any more advanced editor being required.
>>
>> most langs are fine in notepad, but some are not.
>
> Schemers tend to believe that a simple parentheses-only syntax buys you
> something. What it buys you, is worth beefing up your editor for. It
> is a tradeoff between human processability and computational
> processability, favoring the latter. And really, I have yet to
> understand why people find parentheses so friggin' difficult to deal
> with. They're not that tough to read with the naked eye, really. Not
> if you indent 'em like C code when necessary.
>
well, it is not that it is that hard anyways, just that it is not mainstream
style, and more so, is not so nice for math expressions...
my personal suspicion is that most "mainstream" developers are likely to
reject languages with oddball syntax without even putting in the time to
really investigate them.
then again, I am likely to be the only person to use my stuff, so my
preferences are the main point...
> Yeah I had a paren matching mistake the other day. I solved it by
> clicking on parens in XEmacs Fundamental mode until the correct text
> was highlighted. Think I've also done the same thing in Visual Studio
> and it's not even a Scheme / Lisp editor. Only recently have I
> installed Quack to get a proper Scheme mode, and I haven't really taken
> advantage of it any way yet (cuz most of what I do is still CMake
> support). It gives me nice text highlighting, but it was slowing
> things down... but then I realized I hadn't byte compiled it, and I did
> so... and now it dies. Oh well. Wonder if it's a XEmacs vs. GNU Emacs
> schism. The author doesn't like XEmacs....
>
I had used a windows port of xemacs before from what I remember.
cr88192
"Rob Thorpe" <robert...@antenova.com> wrote in message
news:1150116295.3...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1150098100....@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > cr88192 wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I also like doing all my editing in notepad, and s-exps are known for
>> >> being
>> >> bad for this (nice indentation is an art in itself, and it is annoying
>> >> to
>> >> count parens, forcing people to use editors like emacs and
>> >> similar...).
>> >
>> > Personally I cannot see this as a defensible concern in a modern
>> > technological environment, and in particular, an open source
>> > environment. I can understand not liking emacs. But insisting that
>> > the editor be "completely dumb," and have no parentheses matching
>> > feature at all, doesn't make sense in most programming environments I
>> > can think of. Possibly in some crufty embedded systems programming
>> > where the editor must always be written from scratch for every project?
>> > In any tools environment where previous work can be retained, and in
>> > particular open source environments, insisting on the universality of
>> > Notepad makes *NO* sense at all.
>> >
>> I use notepad and I like notepad...
>> I don't like the expectation of any more advanced editor being required.
>>
>> most langs are fine in notepad, but some are not.
>
> Most languages are editable in notepad, but few are fine.
>
c typically does pretty well with notepad, and mostly I am a c-head. c just
can't do everything though, but neither can many of the related languages
for that matter either.
sometimes, one needs a language that can be dynamically recompiled or allows
convinient introspection of data, ...
> Next time you have some time try writing your own editor rather than
> your own language. Implement things like folding, cursor placement
> registers and regexp replace. Then if you write a good one you'll find
> maintaining your code much easier.
>
the power of notepad is that it represents a good baseline for what can be
expected from an editor. personally, I don't need much.
likewise, my preference is to use either mingw or cygwin (which one depends
on the project, for graphical apps I prefer mingw, but for simpler
command-line apps cygwin is often better).
no need for fancy pointy clicky interfaces to compilers.
cr88192
"Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk" <qrc...@knm.org.pl> wrote in message
news:87lks2u...@qrnik.zagroda...
> "cr88192" <cr8...@NOSPAM.hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> partly it is that I am a hobbyist who likes using only my own code...
>
> This is called Not Invented Here syndrome, and I believe it can be cured.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Invented_Here
>
you know, if I used other peoples' code, there would be a lot less for me to
do, and that wouldn't be good...
I also am not very creative, so if I am not redoing something it seems, I
get stuck, and if I get stuck then I am not doing any coding.
from what I can remember, this will be about my 8th or so language
implementation I think (it is fuzzy though, for my first lang I rewrote the
vm about 4 or 5 times, and 2 of those 8 listed were never usably
implemented). one of these was a half-assed attempt at implementing a c99
compiler (but for bytecode instead of assembler or machine code), but this
was never finished.
3 of those listed were for specialized purposes:
2 for csg tasks, 1 as a replacement for windows calculator and use of guile
as a calculator, and also had graphing abilities (sometimes useful, eg, when
windows calculator just wont do, and is imo a lot nicer to type that scheme
in guile, as the syntax was designed for convinient typing...).
otherwise, there was a physics lib (but, worse than ode), a skeletal
animation tool (works well enough, frees me from having to use milkshape), a
3d engine, lots of data compression efforts, ...
when projects get too large they are awkward to work with, so spinning off
to smaller projects makes sense.
but, yeah, implementing a new language gives something to do, and could give
something useful for all I know...
Rob Thorpe
> "Rob Thorpe" <robert...@antenova.com> wrote in message
> news:1150116295.3...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > cr88192 wrote:
> >> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >> news:1150098100....@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> c typically does pretty well with notepad, and mostly I am a c-head. c just
> can't do everything though, but neither can many of the related languages
> for that matter either.
>
> sometimes, one needs a language that can be dynamically recompiled or allows
> convinient introspection of data, ...
>
>
> > Next time you have some time try writing your own editor rather than
> > your own language. Implement things like folding, cursor placement
> > registers and regexp replace. Then if you write a good one you'll find
> > maintaining your code much easier.
> >
>
> the power of notepad is that it represents a good baseline for what can be
> expected from an editor. personally, I don't need much.
I don't need anything more than notepad either. But that doesn't mean
I use notepad.
The point I'm making is that editing is like programming itself, it is
about convience rather than need. To program you only need assembly
language.
Try allowing yourself more and I expect it will pay. Even in terms of
improve the maintainability of your programs. In this an editor with
regexp replace is especially useful because it allows you to easily
rename variables. An editor that keeps track of indentation is also
very useful when moving sections of code between functions.
> likewise, my preference is to use either mingw or cygwin (which one depends
> on the project, for graphical apps I prefer mingw, but for simpler
> command-line apps cygwin is often better).
Yes, I use those on MS Windows too.
> no need for fancy pointy clicky interfaces to compilers.
No. Cleverness in the interface to the compiler is much less useful
than cleverness in an editor or language.
cr88192
> cr88192 wrote:
>
>> I will probably make it accessible as well, probably via a different file
>> extension...
>> most likely, it will be a subset though...
>
> If you ever finish it enough to release it. Which, given your history so
> far in the game programming newsgroups, doesn't seem too likely.
>
"release"...
releasing anything non-trivial is a problematic, even then, they are just
dumped to a website, and little else happens afaik...
that is a good point I have found in splitting up my efforts into smaller
projects.
if I do the lang as a standalone project, it might, say, fall into the
25kloc or less category, so I might just put it online (this is a rough
guesstimate).
my 200kloc beast hasn't been uploaded in a long time though, as it just
takes so long to upload. my recent previous few langs (except my calculator
lang, which was standalone) have generally depended on this codebase.
also, I figured maybe there was some value in starting clean. a general
absence of old code floating around and constraining the implementation.
>> well, in these cases, no one talks to me, and I lose point.
>> I think I remember now why I stopped posting here, so I may stop again...
>
> That's because newsgroups are not your personal diary. If you want one of
> those, get one -- start a blog or something. I'm sure you'd find some
> people interested enough in what you have to say to subscribe, and setting
> up a blog these days is damn near trivial. But subjecting the rest of us
> to it simply because you're lonely is not particularly friendly.
>
usually I like email, but not many people have been emailing me recently.
it is also unsettling that because of classes and other misc things, my
coding speed has been slow. I have implemented the "core" and a lot of the
vm/interpreter now, but pretty much none of the compiler or the new main
parser as of yet.
the low levels of coding tend to cause a kind of coding withdrawl, which is
at least partly helped by talking about stuff, assuming I have anyone to
talk to.
females would be cool, but the last female I talked to I last saw (irl) a
little over a week ago, and last got email from a little over 2 weeks ago.
female is not available though...
I had some dude I could talk to, but I have not heard anything for probably
about 6 weeks.
one of the main people I talk to has not written anything in the past 10
days.
irl, I have talked to some dude some, but he knows nothing really about
programming (dude is older, specialty is theology and natural linguistics,
and there is not much time to talk).
this leaves usenet...
also I figure maybe people have some cool ideas.
cool ideas are cool, giving something interesting to implement and mess with
(but, there needs to be at least some possible use I guess...).
cr88192
yes. problem is asm is not very portable, so one can only really use c...
> Try allowing yourself more and I expect it will pay. Even in terms of
> improve the maintainability of your programs. In this an editor with
> regexp replace is especially useful because it allows you to easily
> rename variables. An editor that keeps track of indentation is also
> very useful when moving sections of code between functions.
>
yeah.
usually for anything I might need to rename (functions, globals, ...) I
usually stick to a 3-part naming convention:
<lib>_<section>_<name>
or:
<major>_<minor>_<name>
<major>_<minor>_<name>_<sub>
...
this allows a simpler search/replace feature to work.
there is also sed.
actually, I name my directories sort of like this as well...
misc (self written) compressor projects:
bgb.proj.misc2 //data compressors
bgb.proj.misc2_1 //image compressors
bgb.proj.misc2_2 //funky algos testing
bgb.proj.misc2_3 //audio codecs and similar (misc)
bgb.proj.misc2_31 //more audio codecs (lossy linear and polynomial filters).
bgb.proj.misc2_4 //archivers (mostly)
or, more major efforts:
bgb.proj.bgbscr1 //this effort
bgb.proj.pdsys21 //main project codebase
...
bgb.misc.music //where I keep my mp3s
...
>> likewise, my preference is to use either mingw or cygwin (which one
>> depends
>> on the project, for graphical apps I prefer mingw, but for simpler
>> command-line apps cygwin is often better).
>
> Yes, I use those on MS Windows too.
>
ok.
stuck with windows, at least for now.
>> no need for fancy pointy clicky interfaces to compilers.
>
> No. Cleverness in the interface to the compiler is much less useful
> than cleverness in an editor or language.
>
yes, ok.
in my case, I designed the syntax for my own preferences. note that I like
using mostly c, so what I like in c I will use, but what I don't I will vary
from.
anymore, statements are largely a convention (the line was blurred a lot in
the last implementation, and may be more so now if I implement some things I
was imaginging).
I really do like scheme's list behavior and core semantics, and may support
this kind of thing better after the rewrite, as I will this time be using
real lists (vs arrays as before), and there will likely be a lot less
abstraction between some aspects of the syntax and the parse trees.
Erik Max Francis
> usually I like email, but not many people have been emailing me recently.
> females would be cool, but the last female I talked to I last saw (irl) a
> little over a week ago, and last got email from a little over 2 weeks ago.
> female is not available though...
>
> I had some dude I could talk to, but I have not heard anything for probably
> about 6 weeks.
>
> one of the main people I talk to has not written anything in the past 10
> days.
> this leaves usenet...
Attempting to use Usenet as your primary means of socialization is not
exactly healthy. You're making my point for me.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Whoever contends with the great sheds his own blood.
-- Sa'di
Erik Max Francis
> You're well acquainted with a
> killfile; use it if cr8 makes life so unpleasant for you. Or just do
> what the rest of us do. Which is pick and choose the points we respond
> to, or decline to read things entirely if we're not interested in them.
This coming from the guy who's claimed to have killfiled me multiple times.
> There is some Scheme stuff scattered in what he says, it's not like
> he's posting about the moonshot or something. Even if he was, gads,
> get a life.
He's the one talking about having no friends and that's why he has to
post his diary-like entries to random Usenet newsgroups, and I'm the one
who has no life?
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
>
> my personal suspicion is that most "mainstream" developers are likely to
> reject languages with oddball syntax without even putting in the time to
> really investigate them.
Syntax is not the reason that people switch languages. People switch
languages because they are shown compelling applications.
Example: Ruby. Ruby by itself is in the same equivalence class as
Python or Perl. If someone moves from C++ to Ruby, it may happen as a
matter of historical accident - what they ran into first, who they
knew, why they cared, etc. But Python and Perl people aren't going to
switch to Ruby just for syntax, they already have langauges that work
fine and do the same things. There is, however, this killer app that
everyone goes on and on about called "Ruby On Rails." *That* is what
gets people in the Ruby door.
Scheme has no compelling applications at all. I plan to create one in
the game industry. I figure the only useful way to evangelize is to
make $$$$$$ on some product and then tell people what I did. The proof
is in the $$$$$$. Not the syntax.
Most people stick with C++, Java, and C# because of $$$$$$. It's only
when people think they're making -$ that they move on to something
"better," or start seriously looking for something better.
In your case, you still have no $$$$$ riding on anything you do. This
is a big part of why you do or don't put effort into various things.
This is why I've encouraged you to go get a serious programming job,
seeing as how you're ridiculously overqualified for an entry level
position. You have no idea what your skills are worth in the
marketplace. With your prolific skills you can easily be rich, very
rich, but you have to make the move. The perspective of commercial
development would radically change how you focus yourself.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
Rob Thorpe wrote:
>
> Next time you have some time try writing your own editor rather than
> your own language. Implement things like folding, cursor placement
> registers and regexp replace. Then if you write a good one you'll find
> maintaining your code much easier.
Yeah I thought about doing this sort of thing for a "totally
self-enclosed" language and development environment. But as it turns
out, I partnered with the Chicken Scheme and CMake guys for base
materials instead. Along the way I started swallowing XEmacs, not
because I like it so much, but because I had bigger fish to fry. I may
revisit the editor question someday. But that depends on all the
bazillion things worked meanwhile. By the time you've swallowed enough
of XEmacs, do you have an incentive to build your own editor? I'd
first consider modifying XEmacs, or Eclipse.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
>
> you know, if I used other peoples' code, there would be a lot less for me to
> do, and that wouldn't be good...
False, for 2 reasons. (1) You'd simply work on higher level problems
instead of reinventing low-level components. (2) Working with other
people's code introduces TONS of maintenance headaches. Believe me,
having things to do is NOT a problem. I could sit around perfecting
the Chicken Scheme CMake build for the next 6 months. But at some
point in that time window, I'm going to call it "good enough" and start
focusing on OpenGL and game stuff. That's the real mission.
There is a certain satisfaction in crancking out "easy" improvements
for an implementation, however. It may not be as purposeful or
important as the major goals that need the most work, but it builds
psychological satisfaction in what one is doing and keeps morale up.
> I also am not very creative, so if I am not redoing something it seems, I
> get stuck, and if I get stuck then I am not doing any coding.
You can still redo at a much higher level than you're currently
redoing. There's TONS of prior art out there to copy from.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
Erik Max Francis wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
> > You're well acquainted with a
> > killfile; use it if cr8 makes life so unpleasant for you. Or just do
> > what the rest of us do. Which is pick and choose the points we respond
> > to, or decline to read things entirely if we're not interested in them.
>
> This coming from the guy who's claimed to have killfiled me multiple times.
I don't know if you've noticed, in your haste to bash the next person
in some forum or another, but I've been off Usenet for very large
stretches at a time. Every time I come back, I see if interactions
with people like you are going to be any different. Sometimes they
are, and that's a good thing. I've also usually changed apps or ISPs
and lost all my killfile entries anyways. I'd be happy to put you in a
killfile if I thought it was warranted... except that now I'm on Google
Groups and they don't have killfiles as far as I know. I've put in the
feature request to them, awhile ago. For the scant volume of Usenet I
actually participate in, you alone are not worth me moving to some
other app.
Erik, I'm 36 years old now. How old are you now? This kind of posting
behavior of yours, where you bash on somebody because they do something
you sorta don't like, reminds me of people in their early 20s. Haven't
you figured out that there are better ways to spend your time?
> > There is some Scheme stuff scattered in what he says, it's not like
> > he's posting about the moonshot or something. Even if he was, gads,
> > get a life.
>
> He's the one talking about having no friends and that's why he has to
> post his diary-like entries to random Usenet newsgroups, and I'm the one
> who has no life?
Yeah, Erik, you're evidencing a lack of life here. Just because he
doesn't have a life doesn't mean you have one. In fact, the need to
bash on someone "seemingly weaker" than yourself is the strongest
possible evidence of a lack of life. I have questions about why you do
it, and I raise them in the hope that peer pressure might someday put a
stop to it. But mostly, I hope you ask yourself those questions at
some point.
YOU ARE TOO OLD FOR THIS.
And that's the last I'm going to say. About this or anyone else you
want to rag on. Even if it ends up being me. Which I anticipate, but
maybe you'll surprise me for a change.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Erik Max Francis
> I don't know if you've noticed, in your haste to bash the next person
> in some forum or another, but I've been off Usenet for very large
> stretches at a time.
Since you're here now, what does this have to do with anything?
> I've also usually changed apps or ISPs
> and lost all my killfile entries anyways. I'd be happy to put you in a
> killfile if I thought it was warranted... except that now I'm on Google
> Groups and they don't have killfiles as far as I know. I've put in the
> feature request to them, awhile ago. For the scant volume of Usenet I
> actually participate in, you alone are not worth me moving to some
> other app.
Oh, no! Brandon doesn't have access to a killfile! How will he
exercise control over other people now?
Nobody gives a flying fig about who's in your killfile, who you're
taking out of your killfile, who you forgot you're supposed to have
killfiled, or who you would have in your killfile if you currently had one.
> Erik, I'm 36 years old now. How old are you now? This kind of posting
> behavior of yours, where you bash on somebody because they do something
> you sorta don't like, reminds me of people in their early 20s. Haven't
> you figured out that there are better ways to spend your time?
Haven't you? This is pretty ironic coming from the wanna-be netcop of
the comp.games.programming.* hierarchy.
I simply pointed out something that has been pointed out before: That
cr's posts would be much better suited to a blog. The fact is, they
obviously are. Anyone who's interested can check out his previous
posting history on Google Groups. That right now you're simply trying
to out-netcop what you perceive to be a netcop is really neither here
nor there.
Why you think I'd have the slightest concern about your opinion is
beyond me. Given the reaction to your pestering by all the Usenet
newsgroups you've bothered over the years, it would appear that very few
other people do either.
> And that's the last I'm going to say. About this or anyone else you
> want to rag on. Even if it ends up being me. Which I anticipate, but
> maybe you'll surprise me for a change.
Okay, bye. Until the next time you forget that you're supposed to be
ignoring me again for my own good, that is.
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
Never had very much to say / Laugh last, laugh longest
-- Des'ree
cr88192
> cr88192 wrote:
>
>> usually I like email, but not many people have been emailing me recently.
>
>> females would be cool, but the last female I talked to I last saw (irl) a
>> little over a week ago, and last got email from a little over 2 weeks
>> ago. female is not available though...
>>
>> I had some dude I could talk to, but I have not heard anything for
>> probably about 6 weeks.
>>
>> one of the main people I talk to has not written anything in the past 10
>> days.
>
>> this leaves usenet...
>
> Attempting to use Usenet as your primary means of socialization is not
> exactly healthy. You're making my point for me.
>
not all of us have social lives irl. as a general rule people I see irl have
no real understanding of programming, and I have little in common with most
people...
I guess it has always been this way really (at least, since elem). now I am
in my 20s, and don't have much of anything to show for it. at least when I
was still in my teens, I could look forward, and had time to wait. now I am
as I am now, and more or less behind the normal people (them having gained
self-sufficiency, lots of mundane-seeming abilities, many of them have
married, ...).
all I can do really is coding it sometimes seems, I have no real other
abilities, and I am the only person who knows what all it is I am doing to
the level of detail at which it is performed.
all this was not by choice, but more a matter of existance...
I have minimal motivation for anything like money, fame, or popularity, yet
I am expected to persue all this. my actions are in effect an evidence of
this lack of motivation. but it seems only then would anyone be willing to
talk to me.
if I were "normal" I would be able to operate as others do, but would quite
likely be unable to code, so it is a tradeoff.
maybe I could learn to emulate everyone and their actions, but it is little
more than an emulation, and has little bearing on my existance.
I have seen the lives of people like me (obsessives doing little more than
living with family members most of their lives, and usually not finding
anyone until later ages, if at all), but it seems I can't escape this
either. there is motivation to keep doing what I want to do, but I don't
want to remain completely by myself either. female interest would be cool,
but females generally have nothing in common with me either, and have nearly
always found someone else already (that or they don't hope for finding
anyone at all).
most "normal" people, if they do anything, it is often only for gaining
something else. coding for fame, money, or whatever. rarely does anyone seem
to code for the primary goal of coding, or because that is all that is left
for them, or whatever...
at least, when I can talk about stuff through email/usenet that is some
help.
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>>
>> my personal suspicion is that most "mainstream" developers are likely to
>> reject languages with oddball syntax without even putting in the time to
>> really investigate them.
>
> Syntax is not the reason that people switch languages. People switch
> languages because they are shown compelling applications.
>
yet, most popular languages tend to follow certain styles of syntax?...
nearly all the ones I have seen have, for example, some manner of precedence
based expression parsing.
2*3+4 and 4+2*3.
as a general rule, mainstream languages will parse them similarly, and get
the same result.
now what is usually in the interesting but generally failed land?...
(+ (* 2 3) 4)
2 3 * 4 +
((2 *: 3) +: 4)
...
what about many others?...
how about major semantic problems, ...
note how assembler is nearly always well supported, but it is nearly always
the case that people use other languages, and very few popular languages
resemble assembler, really, at all.
my suspition is that there is a relation, namely, languages that have major
issues to begin with don't have much chance even if the language itself is
very effective at what it does.
> Example: Ruby. Ruby by itself is in the same equivalence class as
> Python or Perl. If someone moves from C++ to Ruby, it may happen as a
> matter of historical accident - what they ran into first, who they
> knew, why they cared, etc. But Python and Perl people aren't going to
> switch to Ruby just for syntax, they already have langauges that work
> fine and do the same things. There is, however, this killer app that
> everyone goes on and on about called "Ruby On Rails." *That* is what
> gets people in the Ruby door.
>
yes, ok.
> Scheme has no compelling applications at all. I plan to create one in
> the game industry. I figure the only useful way to evangelize is to
> make $$$$$$ on some product and then tell people what I did. The proof
> is in the $$$$$$. Not the syntax.
>
that is one way as well...
> Most people stick with C++, Java, and C# because of $$$$$$. It's only
> when people think they're making -$ that they move on to something
> "better," or start seriously looking for something better.
>
I stick to C for most things, as it best matches how I do things, and (apart
from when I started out, and was using basic) has been about the only
language I have used for significant things (had written some interesting
things in the past in scheme, but they died with my implementation...).
> In your case, you still have no $$$$$ riding on anything you do. This
> is a big part of why you do or don't put effort into various things.
> This is why I've encouraged you to go get a serious programming job,
> seeing as how you're ridiculously overqualified for an entry level
> position. You have no idea what your skills are worth in the
> marketplace. With your prolific skills you can easily be rich, very
> rich, but you have to make the move. The perspective of commercial
> development would radically change how you focus yourself.
>
dunno.
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>>
>> you know, if I used other peoples' code, there would be a lot less for me
>> to
>> do, and that wouldn't be good...
>
> False, for 2 reasons. (1) You'd simply work on higher level problems
> instead of reinventing low-level components. (2) Working with other
> people's code introduces TONS of maintenance headaches. Believe me,
> having things to do is NOT a problem. I could sit around perfecting
> the Chicken Scheme CMake build for the next 6 months. But at some
> point in that time window, I'm going to call it "good enough" and start
> focusing on OpenGL and game stuff. That's the real mission.
>
well, it would both give hassles, and a lack of fammiliarity with the code,
and the added cost of not having strict control over the liscensing.
in many of my projects, I have used bits of other peoples' code, and have
not been able to get liscense wavers (so, I have for example, a mostly
public domain library, with a small set of functions that are covered by a
bsd-style liscense, and have to make note of that).
eg: the read/write archiver used a few functions from zlib I just couldn't
completely understand (those for combining CRCs). otherwise, I could just
fall back, eg, to xoring the CRCs together, but this is lame.
> There is a certain satisfaction in crancking out "easy" improvements
> for an implementation, however. It may not be as purposeful or
> important as the major goals that need the most work, but it builds
> psychological satisfaction in what one is doing and keeps morale up.
>
I don't know.
the problem with pre-written code is that problems can take a lot more work
to fix, especially if they run deep. often after a while it is easier to
drop the code and write it clean, designing ahead to avoid those problems
occuring again (then again, the consequence is almost always a new set of
problems).
after a few large-scale rewrites though, one will internalize enough of the
code that it is less of a big deal.
imo, one of the bigger problems resolved by a clean write is that of
systematic redundancy (eg: when multiple incompatible solutions to the same
problem come into existance, and there is lack of an obvious way to "bridge"
the systems, that or the bridge collapses every time much of anything is
changed...).
>> I also am not very creative, so if I am not redoing something it seems, I
>> get stuck, and if I get stuck then I am not doing any coding.
>
> You can still redo at a much higher level than you're currently
> redoing. There's TONS of prior art out there to copy from.
>
yeah. higher level goals have anymore become mostly 3d modeling/animating
stuff I guess. if anything, the lang needs to be good at nicely handling
maths (especially vectors and matrices, quats could also be helpful), and
needs to be easily used for scripting.
I have some amount of code in my last lang, so a more or less
re-implementation saves at least some porting effort (then again, most was
small and ad-hoc enough that it may not be much of a loss...).
just the occurance of frequent and slow gc's (the script lang and main app
shared the same heap, which could get large, and the gc was conservative).
the problem was that also gc's would be triggered too damn often...
a thought is that of having multiple heaps:
one stores core app data (conservative, with the older style decentralized
dynamic types system);
one stores lang data (precise, with a centralized types system).
current plan is that they will be able to interact (more so: the lang will
be able to reference external data, but will only hold weak references).
the main app data will generally be disallowed from directly referencing
lang data, and this makes sense. names make sense instead.
this could resolve some issues:
app data will not clutter the lang heap;
lang-invoked gc cycles will not worry about app data, and will run a lot
more quickly (as only stuff related to the interpreter will be checked);
app data will be allocated much less frequently, thus big slow conservative
collections will be a lot more rare.
...
the rewrite effort is involving some alterations though:
the old [: ... :] list syntax is being moved to { ... };
the old { ... } array syntax is being moved to #{ ... };
the old #{...} matrix syntax is being moved to #[ ... ];
#[...] is the numeric vector syntax, so:
#[3, 4, 5] is a numeric vector, but:
#[[1, 0, 0], [0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1]]
is a matrix.
the impact will be minor as I had almost never used the literal matrix
syntax anyways, and lists are assuming the responsibility of the arrays.
the complex syntax #(...) will be dropped altogether. instead, I will only
have the <number>i syntax (2+3i). this may or may not be resolved at
compile-time.
today, if I get to it, I will probably write the lower portion of the
compiler (the core parts of the interpreter are already largely written, but
the lower compiler is needed before much can be done with it).
unlike before, I will probably replace most uses of doubles with floats (for
numeric vectors and matrices). as this will save memory, and I don't usually
need the full precision of doubles anyways...
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
>
> not all of us have social lives irl. as a general rule people I see irl have
> no real understanding of programming, and I have little in common with most
> people...
>
> I guess it has always been this way really (at least, since elem). now I am
> in my 20s, and don't have much of anything to show for it. at least when I
> was still in my teens, I could look forward, and had time to wait. now I am
> as I am now, and more or less behind the normal people (them having gained
> self-sufficiency, lots of mundane-seeming abilities, many of them have
> married, ...).
Dude you're in GUAM. GET OUT OF THERE!!!
> I have minimal motivation for anything like money, fame, or popularity, yet
> I am expected to persue all this. my actions are in effect an evidence of
> this lack of motivation. but it seems only then would anyone be willing to
> talk to me.
Money can't buy you happiness. However, it *can* buy you a plane
ticket, an apartment, a car, and groceries, somewhere other than Guam.
You have the skills to pay the bills. Your choice. Nobody can choose
for you, we can only point out your options.
I'd hire you if I could. And I'd force you to do a lot of things on
the edge of your comfort zone, that you wouldn't force yourself to do.
That's what bosses do. But I don't have a company, or money, so I'm
afraid I can't help really. You'll have to get your 1st job the old
fashioned way: applying for them.
You been down to NASA yet?
> if I were "normal" I would be able to operate as others do, but would quite
> likely be unable to code, so it is a tradeoff.
I'm somewhat normal, I code. I also gather signatures. Gathering
signatures AND coding is not normal, oh well! It's paying my bills and
giving me the coding freedom I need at the moment.
> I have seen the lives of people like me (obsessives doing little more than
> living with family members most of their lives, and usually not finding
> anyone until later ages, if at all), but it seems I can't escape this
> either.
You can, but you have to choose. You have to take Existential
responsibility for your choices.
> there is motivation to keep doing what I want to do, but I don't
> want to remain completely by myself either. female interest would be cool,
> but females generally have nothing in common with me either, and have nearly
> always found someone else already (that or they don't hope for finding
> anyone at all).
"No money, no honey."
Go get a job. Seriously. It's your next life phase and you have to
face it. I went kicking and screaming into the workplace, once upon a
time.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1150151850.2...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > cr88192 wrote:
> >>
> >> my personal suspicion is that most "mainstream" developers are likely to
> >> reject languages with oddball syntax without even putting in the time to
> >> really investigate them.
> >
> > Syntax is not the reason that people switch languages. People switch
> > languages because they are shown compelling applications.
> >
>
> yet, most popular languages tend to follow certain styles of syntax?...
Doesn't prove anything by itself. Perhaps people haven't changed
languages because nobody's impemented killer apps in other stuff
really. There's this huge historical accident of installed base to
consider. Consider how many Intel CPUs are out there for instance.
Doesn't make 'em great chips.
> now what is usually in the interesting but generally failed land?...
> (+ (* 2 3) 4)
> 2 3 * 4 +
> ((2 *: 3) +: 4)
It just doesn't matter. If I told you I could predict the weather in
Scheme, but not C++, and I could back my claim up with an app, you'd
use Scheme. Scientists are smart. Notations like this are not a
barrier to them. Any overly complicated mathematical expression gets
compartmentalized into subroutines anyways. Nobody's ever looking at
big, gigantic, inscrutable monolithic equations unless they're math
PhDs.
People worry about stuff like this when they don't haven anything
better to do. Like, when they're shopping languages, and not really
trying to solve anything.
CMake build scripts look like ass, arguably. But they work. I learned
it because it solves my problem. In fact it solves it rather well.
The guts matter not the syntax.
A good Schemer can mostly devise his own syntax anyways, if he really
really cares. You're not supposed to be stuck with what you're handed.
> note how assembler is nearly always well supported, but it is nearly always
> the case that people use other languages, and very few popular languages
> resemble assembler, really, at all.
ASM statements do too little and are too error prone to get much done
with them. Unless your problem is optimizing low-level performance
loops in machine registers. That was my career, previously. It was a
niche.
Scheme does more than ASM. It's not a valid comparison.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1150151850.2...@h76g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >
>> > cr88192 wrote:
>> >>
>> >> my personal suspicion is that most "mainstream" developers are likely
>> >> to
>> >> reject languages with oddball syntax without even putting in the time
>> >> to
>> >> really investigate them.
>> >
>> > Syntax is not the reason that people switch languages. People switch
>> > languages because they are shown compelling applications.
>> >
>>
>> yet, most popular languages tend to follow certain styles of syntax?...
>
> Doesn't prove anything by itself. Perhaps people haven't changed
> languages because nobody's impemented killer apps in other stuff
> really. There's this huge historical accident of installed base to
> consider. Consider how many Intel CPUs are out there for instance.
> Doesn't make 'em great chips.
>
ok, a crufty instruction set, and early on an absense of a worthwhile
addressing scheme. as a general rule, both users and most programmers were
largely insulated from a lot of this anyway (yeah, I remember the 'far'
keyword and other limits, and, though annoying, were passable).
>> now what is usually in the interesting but generally failed land?...
>> (+ (* 2 3) 4)
>> 2 3 * 4 +
>> ((2 *: 3) +: 4)
>
> It just doesn't matter. If I told you I could predict the weather in
> Scheme, but not C++, and I could back my claim up with an app, you'd
> use Scheme. Scientists are smart. Notations like this are not a
> barrier to them. Any overly complicated mathematical expression gets
> compartmentalized into subroutines anyways. Nobody's ever looking at
> big, gigantic, inscrutable monolithic equations unless they're math
> PhDs.
>
yeah, but typing math does make a difference, especially if one does a
reasonable amount.
schemes' problem isn't one that can't be fixed by adding a custom parser,
but many will apparently argue that the problem either does not exist or is
irrelevant, and last I checked there was no common notion as to what a good
alternative syntax would be (everyone that does so does their own).
a big hassle is that for all one covers the syntax, that much more is
hidden, limiting some of schemes' core uses (eg: introspection of syntax,
...).
in my case, I put such introspection as a much lower priority...
> People worry about stuff like this when they don't haven anything
> better to do. Like, when they're shopping languages, and not really
> trying to solve anything.
>
in my case I am an implementor. I worry as a side effect of deciding what to
do.
> CMake build scripts look like ass, arguably. But they work. I learned
> it because it solves my problem. In fact it solves it rather well.
> The guts matter not the syntax.
>
yeah.
> A good Schemer can mostly devise his own syntax anyways, if he really
> really cares. You're not supposed to be stuck with what you're handed.
>
but then, it is non-standard...
most of these syntaxes anyways are either along the lines of "oh wow, I feel
like replacing the parens with indentation" or "I am going to put all these
symbols all over the place for some new forms". this is what most of the
alternative syntaxes for my old scheme implementation were.
this is clearly different than parsing a more notably different syntax...
I guess a biggie is context-free vs context-dependent parsers. one is
limited if one does not use context, so things will always come out
structurally about the same (causing it to be more a matter of sugaring or a
straight syntax->syntax mapping). context-dependent parsing can go a little
further, as there is not as strict of a notion of input and output syntax
(some of my described ideas would rely on this).
in my case, some of my recent parsers have ended up partly in temporarily
ambiguous land, and I have made use of context to resolve said ambiguities
(what was visible previously? what was visible later?). said ambiguities can
then result in a partial rewrite of what came before (usually because some
later syntax makes the previous syntax no longer "sane" in some predefined
manner).
or at least this is how I have usually done it...
>> note how assembler is nearly always well supported, but it is nearly
>> always
>> the case that people use other languages, and very few popular languages
>> resemble assembler, really, at all.
>
> ASM statements do too little and are too error prone to get much done
> with them. Unless your problem is optimizing low-level performance
> loops in machine registers. That was my career, previously. It was a
> niche.
>
asm is a good example though of a lang with not well developed syntax. one
writes a sufficiently involved parser that outputs asm and they find they
have written a compiler...
> Scheme does more than ASM. It's not a valid comparison.
>
yes, true, it has more involved semantics.
what it doesn't have, imo, is a particularly enjoyable syntax, and most vm's
lack some feautres I want in my case (so my effort is forced to be more
involved than a simple parser targeting scheme, as I also need to be able to
control the semantics of the underlying vm...).
cr88192
parents have now raised the idea of going to taiwan. previously they
considered korea, but korea has a lot stricter immigration laws than
taiwan...
> I'd hire you if I could. And I'd force you to do a lot of things on
> the edge of your comfort zone, that you wouldn't force yourself to do.
> That's what bosses do. But I don't have a company, or money, so I'm
> afraid I can't help really. You'll have to get your 1st job the old
> fashioned way: applying for them.
>
> You been down to NASA yet?
>
still dunno what is there, parents have not gone, so I don't know.
I am getting some money for doing IT...
it is not really formal though I think, and I end up going around and doing
busywork...
>> if I were "normal" I would be able to operate as others do, but would
>> quite
>> likely be unable to code, so it is a tradeoff.
>
> I'm somewhat normal, I code. I also gather signatures. Gathering
> signatures AND coding is not normal, oh well! It's paying my bills and
> giving me the coding freedom I need at the moment.
>
yeah.
I am supposed to be doing other stuff, but am behind. too few hours per
day...
not even gotten to any coding yet.
>> I have seen the lives of people like me (obsessives doing little more
>> than
>> living with family members most of their lives, and usually not finding
>> anyone until later ages, if at all), but it seems I can't escape this
>> either.
>
> You can, but you have to choose. You have to take Existential
> responsibility for your choices.
>
hmm...
>> there is motivation to keep doing what I want to do, but I don't
>> want to remain completely by myself either. female interest would be
>> cool,
>> but females generally have nothing in common with me either, and have
>> nearly
>> always found someone else already (that or they don't hope for finding
>> anyone at all).
>
> "No money, no honey."
>
well, I would hope for a female that is not vain (eg, liking me for
psychological/emotional reasons, or at least for "l33t sk1lz", and not for
anything like money...). maybe unlikely though.
> Go get a job. Seriously. It's your next life phase and you have to
> face it. I went kicking and screaming into the workplace, once upon a
> time.
>
>
ok.
Rob Thorpe
I suggested it only because the OP seems to like writing things
himself.
I learnt to use GNU Emacs years ago and have no desire to learn
anything else or write anything else after that.
Brandon J. Van Every
> >> now what is usually in the interesting but generally failed land?...
> >> (+ (* 2 3) 4)
> >> 2 3 * 4 +
> >> ((2 *: 3) +: 4)
> >
> > It just doesn't matter. If I told you I could predict the weather in
> > Scheme, but not C++, and I could back my claim up with an app, you'd
> > use Scheme. Scientists are smart. Notations like this are not a
> > barrier to them. Any overly complicated mathematical expression gets
> > compartmentalized into subroutines anyways. Nobody's ever looking at
> > big, gigantic, inscrutable monolithic equations unless they're math
> > PhDs.
> >
>
> yeah, but typing math does make a difference, especially if one does a
> reasonable amount.
You telling me that after typing the same style of thing a bazillion
times, you can't get used to it? If so I don't sympathize. It just
doesn't compute to me. Most people get used to drills they do over and
over and over again. I've been decomposing math equations into stuff I
need to shove into ASM registers for years anyways. I'd prefer to lay
things out on a 2D grid of graph paper. Sometimes my notations looke
like prefix, other times postfix. Infix really isn't applicable to
streams of instructions, only humans like it, and it's historical
accident that they like it. Or maybe there's a Linguistics argument to
be made for why they like it, but I don't really care because clearly,
humans can learn languages.
> > A good Schemer can mostly devise his own syntax anyways, if he really
> > really cares. You're not supposed to be stuck with what you're handed.
> >
>
> but then, it is non-standard...
So what? I mean, if you're *more* concerned about standards, go do
Common Lisp. And it's missing important standards too, like C FFIs.
CL has lots more stuff standardized than the Scheme SRFI patchwork
universe, but for game development (what I care about) CL offers no
advantages at all. So I live and die by my implementation.
I would have swallowed OCaml if the C FFI hadn't annoyed me so much.
Bigloo and Chicken are definitely better choices for those more
oriented towards C and ASM.
I don't think you really care about standards.
> what it doesn't have, imo, is a particularly enjoyable syntax,
There's no point arguing taste. I consistently fail to see why parens
are a big deal to people. Perhaps it's because I'm an abstract
thinker. Prefix notation was more annoying initially, particularly for
math, but I've stared at the stuff so much that it just doesn't matter
anymore. If you stare at a visual pattern enough times your brain
starts to work that way. Well, *my* brain starts to work that way, at
any rate.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
> >
> > ticket, an apartment, a car, and groceries, somewhere other than Guam.
> > You have the skills to pay the bills. Your choice. Nobody can choose
> > for you, we can only point out your options.
> >
> dunno...
>
> parents have now raised the idea of going to taiwan. previously they
> considered korea, but korea has a lot stricter immigration laws than
> taiwan...
Gotta grow up sometime. It's not about your parents. It's about you
making your own decisions as an adult.
All of my own major unpleasant changes in life, I was forced into.
Parents were moving to Geneva, I wasn't invited to come along. I had
to go get a real job and fend for myself. When in 2002 I finally blew
through all my credit cards, and the dot.com bust was in full swing, I
was forced to deal with poverty.
"That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." Can't remember who
said that.
> > You been down to NASA yet?
> >
> still dunno what is there, parents have not gone, so I don't know.
You could poke at it on the web. Having started e-mail exchanges with
the right people, you could rope a ride down there from someone. Heck,
for all I know they might have a website of job listings. You have to
be the proactive one. No one else can do these things for you.
> I am getting some money for doing IT...
> it is not really formal though I think, and I end up going around and doing
> busywork...
It's good that you're getting some kind of work experience. It's bad
that you're doing jobs you're WAY overqualified for. Go get a real
programming job. People will pay you a LOT of money and then you don't
have to put up with what your parents want anymore.
> > "No money, no honey."
> >
>
> well, I would hope for a female that is not vain (eg, liking me for
> psychological/emotional reasons, or at least for "l33t sk1lz", and not for
> anything like money...). maybe unlikely though.
No dude, you don't get it. No MONEY, no HONEY. You don't got your own
wheels, you're not gettin' any. Or at least your own place. I don't
have wheels but I do have my own place, lotsa chicks are within walking
distance of me, and I'm sitting on top of all major bus lines. On the
other hand I still don't have any time, haven't made the time, so no
honey. Too much coding and signature gathering. Signature gathering
ends in 3 weeks in WA, so then I hope to have more time to pursue my
agendas.
You gotta get yourself around, buy your own stuff, live in your own
space, have your own life, on your own schedule, be able to take a
woman out on a date. No MONEY, no HONEY.
With certain exceptions that certainly do not apply to you, nor to me.
If you ever choose to move to Seattle, I'll be happy to show you the
real world. Too bad you didn't have an older brother or something.
Go ask about compiler jobs in comp.compilers. You're qualified.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> > cr88192 wrote:
>
>> >> now what is usually in the interesting but generally failed land?...
>> >> (+ (* 2 3) 4)
>> >> 2 3 * 4 +
>> >> ((2 *: 3) +: 4)
>> >
>> > It just doesn't matter. If I told you I could predict the weather in
>> > Scheme, but not C++, and I could back my claim up with an app, you'd
>> > use Scheme. Scientists are smart. Notations like this are not a
>> > barrier to them. Any overly complicated mathematical expression gets
>> > compartmentalized into subroutines anyways. Nobody's ever looking at
>> > big, gigantic, inscrutable monolithic equations unless they're math
>> > PhDs.
>> >
>>
>> yeah, but typing math does make a difference, especially if one does a
>> reasonable amount.
>
> You telling me that after typing the same style of thing a bazillion
> times, you can't get used to it? If so I don't sympathize. It just
> doesn't compute to me. Most people get used to drills they do over and
> over and over again.
note that my complaint was not for my sake, I can adapt, but I never did
particularly like it (in fact, until I wrote my calculator lang, I was
generally summoning up guile whenever I needed to do non-trivial
calculations anyways...). even as such, the lang was not too far removed,
mostly varying some more inconvinient to type aspects of the syntax...
otherwise, a bigger thought is that this is one of the more frequently
complained about things from people who are new to the language, so it
deserves some merit.
> I've been decomposing math equations into stuff I
> need to shove into ASM registers for years anyways. I'd prefer to lay
> things out on a 2D grid of graph paper. Sometimes my notations looke
> like prefix, other times postfix. Infix really isn't applicable to
> streams of instructions, only humans like it, and it's historical
> accident that they like it. Or maybe there's a Linguistics argument to
> be made for why they like it, but I don't really care because clearly,
> humans can learn languages.
>
I think it is because, secretly, an operator is actually a preposition.
the book is hidden under the bed.
so we have: article, noun (nom), linking verb, adjective, preposition,
article, noun (dat).
(is (book the) (under hidden (bed the)))
prepositions generally behave like that of binary operators, and relate
things in a similar manner. humans have apparently noticed this pattern, and
designed things accordingly.
note that in the declarative case, verbs are located between the subject and
predicate (a similar pattern to operators/prepositions), but function names
are placed before the arguments.
in the imperative case, however, verbs are placed first, matching the style
of prog langs. likewise, some actions (particularly assignment) have the
operation located between the the args.
note that there were languages that put the verb first (gaelic, ...). more
languages like putting it last though. prepositions, however, are generally
only placed between the words they modify.
nicety is desired, and humans seem to show preference for some styles over
others. we can only assume that those which occure most often are those
which are most preferred.
>> > A good Schemer can mostly devise his own syntax anyways, if he really
>> > really cares. You're not supposed to be stuck with what you're handed.
>> >
>>
>> but then, it is non-standard...
>
> So what? I mean, if you're *more* concerned about standards, go do
> Common Lisp. And it's missing important standards too, like C FFIs.
> CL has lots more stuff standardized than the Scheme SRFI patchwork
> universe, but for game development (what I care about) CL offers no
> advantages at all. So I live and die by my implementation.
>
> I would have swallowed OCaml if the C FFI hadn't annoyed me so much.
> Bigloo and Chicken are definitely better choices for those more
> oriented towards C and ASM.
>
> I don't think you really care about standards.
>
yeah, but one needs at least an implementation-level standard. expecting
each "concerned user" to roll their own is imo asking for a mess, especially
if they ever care to share code...
>> what it doesn't have, imo, is a particularly enjoyable syntax,
>
> There's no point arguing taste. I consistently fail to see why parens
> are a big deal to people. Perhaps it's because I'm an abstract
> thinker. Prefix notation was more annoying initially, particularly for
> math, but I've stared at the stuff so much that it just doesn't matter
> anymore. If you stare at a visual pattern enough times your brain
> starts to work that way. Well, *my* brain starts to work that way, at
> any rate.
>
in any case, I am too much of a c head, and most of my coding will remain in
c. I use the script langs largely for scripting, but I found long and
frequent gc pauses to be terribly annoying...
I was about willing to go as far as dropping dynamic typing to escape this,
but found I don't need to.
then again, a lot of this implies writing more involved tools than my
current ones (a simplistic skeletal animator, ...). never did get to adding
ik to the damn thing, nor many other needed features (oh well, fk and
keyframing works good enough for now).
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> >
>> > Dude you're in GUAM. GET OUT OF THERE!!!
>> >
>> > Money can't buy you happiness. However, it *can* buy you a plane
>> > ticket, an apartment, a car, and groceries, somewhere other than Guam.
>> > You have the skills to pay the bills. Your choice. Nobody can choose
>> > for you, we can only point out your options.
>> >
>> dunno...
>>
>> parents have now raised the idea of going to taiwan. previously they
>> considered korea, but korea has a lot stricter immigration laws than
>> taiwan...
>
> Gotta grow up sometime. It's not about your parents. It's about you
> making your own decisions as an adult.
>
> All of my own major unpleasant changes in life, I was forced into.
> Parents were moving to Geneva, I wasn't invited to come along. I had
> to go get a real job and fend for myself. When in 2002 I finally blew
> through all my credit cards, and the dot.com bust was in full swing, I
> was forced to deal with poverty.
>
> "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." Can't remember who
> said that.
>
my case, things are as they are...
>> > You been down to NASA yet?
>> >
>> still dunno what is there, parents have not gone, so I don't know.
>
> You could poke at it on the web. Having started e-mail exchanges with
> the right people, you could rope a ride down there from someone. Heck,
> for all I know they might have a website of job listings. You have to
> be the proactive one. No one else can do these things for you.
>
dunno.
>> I am getting some money for doing IT...
>> it is not really formal though I think, and I end up going around and
>> doing
>> busywork...
>
> It's good that you're getting some kind of work experience. It's bad
> that you're doing jobs you're WAY overqualified for. Go get a real
> programming job. People will pay you a LOT of money and then you don't
> have to put up with what your parents want anymore.
>
well, it works maybe...
>> > "No money, no honey."
>> >
>>
>> well, I would hope for a female that is not vain (eg, liking me for
>> psychological/emotional reasons, or at least for "l33t sk1lz", and not
>> for
>> anything like money...). maybe unlikely though.
>
> No dude, you don't get it. No MONEY, no HONEY. You don't got your own
> wheels, you're not gettin' any. Or at least your own place. I don't
> have wheels but I do have my own place, lotsa chicks are within walking
> distance of me, and I'm sitting on top of all major bus lines. On the
> other hand I still don't have any time, haven't made the time, so no
> honey. Too much coding and signature gathering. Signature gathering
> ends in 3 weeks in WA, so then I hope to have more time to pursue my
> agendas.
>
but, you seem to want females for physical reasons.
my reasons are emotionally based, and I believe in abstinence anyways, so
the situation may well be different.
probably useful would be a female worse off (eg: less normal) than I am, as
maybe I would have hope. none seen though. I have limits though (being high
functioning is at least a requirement...).
from what I can gather, things like that are primarly a concern for "normal"
people.
that or one could go for, eg, the chukese (they often hardly speak english,
and come from an island which generally does not have cars or electricity).
problem is, most of them are "normal" though as well, so less motivation.
I guess, informally, for me at least AS is probably also a requirement. then
again, the 2 risks would then be a kid that is either normal or LFA. neither
is that great though, and me going for anyone normal would likely increase
the risk of both cases.
> You gotta get yourself around, buy your own stuff, live in your own
> space, have your own life, on your own schedule, be able to take a
> woman out on a date. No MONEY, no HONEY.
>
> With certain exceptions that certainly do not apply to you, nor to me.
>
> If you ever choose to move to Seattle, I'll be happy to show you the
> real world. Too bad you didn't have an older brother or something.
>
I have a younger brother. he is mostly interested in big robots and gaming
though. some overlap in preferences for anime, but I like a lot of kawai
stuff, and he does not.
"ore wa kawai desu yo...".
hmm, that summons dubious thoughts...
> Go ask about compiler jobs in comp.compilers. You're qualified.
>
dunno...
comp.compilers is moderated, and in the past I was too impatient to wait for
posts to go through...
Anton van Straaten
>>need to shove into ASM registers for years anyways. I'd prefer to lay
>>things out on a 2D grid of graph paper. Sometimes my notations looke
>>like prefix, other times postfix. Infix really isn't applicable to
>>streams of instructions, only humans like it, and it's historical
>>accident that they like it. Or maybe there's a Linguistics argument to
>>be made for why they like it, but I don't really care because clearly,
>>humans can learn languages.
>>
>
> I think it is because, secretly, an operator is actually a preposition.
>
> the book is hidden under the bed.
Or as Yoda would say, hidden the book under the bed is. Don't forget
that English word order isn't somehow fundamental to humanity.
Anton
cr88192
"Anton van Straaten" <an...@appsolutions.com> wrote in message
news:tUBjg.23968$VE1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
well, the relative position of the verbs move from what I have seen (some
like them in the middle, some at the end, ...), but the prepositions are
fairly regular in most languages afaik...
then again, I am not really a linguist, so I may be wrong...
even in the above example, a lot of the semantics are preserved, as although
the adjective and verb were moved, the object modified by the preposition is
valid (albeit the subject is now being modified directly, rather than
indirectly via the adjective).
restoring the word order (with the effected change):
the book under the bed is hidden.
it is similar to the original, however, there is a causal difference:
former, the book is hidden as a consequence of being under the bed;
latter, the book that is under the bed is hidden (but we don't know why or
how).
oh well, bytecode interpreter has been about written, started writing the
lower compiler (where the scheme part is located) but I need to sleep...
> Anton
Brandon J. Van Every
> > wheels, you're not gettin' any. Or at least your own place. I don't
> > have wheels but I do have my own place, lotsa chicks are within walking
> > distance of me, and I'm sitting on top of all major bus lines. On the
> > other hand I still don't have any time, haven't made the time, so no
> > honey. Too much coding and signature gathering. Signature gathering
> > ends in 3 weeks in WA, so then I hope to have more time to pursue my
> > agendas.
> >
>
> but, you seem to want females for physical reasons.
>
> my reasons are emotionally based, and I believe in abstinence anyways, so
> the situation may well be different.
Yoda sez, NO different! Only different in your MIND. No MONEY, no
HONEY.
> that or one could go for, eg, the chukese (they often hardly speak english,
> and come from an island which generally does not have cars or electricity).
> problem is, most of them are "normal" though as well, so less motivation.
You stay in Guam by choice.
> > Go ask about compiler jobs in comp.compilers. You're qualified.
> >
>
> dunno...
>
> comp.compilers is moderated, and in the past I was too impatient to wait for
> posts to go through...
You are going to make excuses about why you can't / won't take action
until the cows come home. I slightly sympathize with why Erik chewed
you out. But only slightly, because he's rather mean about it, and
isn't trying to help you in any way. I'm your friend and I'm just
trying to give you "tough love." Show you that you have options, and
remind you over and over again that you're making CHOICES about your
life. You have to take RESPONSIBILITY for your CHOICES.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
> note that there were languages that put the verb first (gaelic, ...). more
> languages like putting it last though. prepositions, however, are generally
> only placed between the words they modify.
But arithmetic operations are commutative. "The book is under the bed"
is rather different from "The bed is under the book." I would say
there are "directed infix" operators and "undirected infix" operators.
Prepositions are directed infix. Conjunctions are undirected infix.
"The book and the candle are under the bed" is the same as "The candle
and the book are under the bed."
> > I don't think you really care about standards.
> >
>
> yeah, but one needs at least an implementation-level standard. expecting
> each "concerned user" to roll their own is imo asking for a mess, especially
> if they ever care to share code...
But you don't care about sharing code! If you did, I'd have a helluva
easier time recruiting you to work on Chicken Scheme. "Sharing code"
has a huge pile of engineering and social dimensions that I've never
seen you seriously concern yourself with. What I'm saying is, when
you're serious about sharing code, you work with other people on a
project and use a Darcs repository. And when what other people do on
the project annoys you, you put up with it and work on a solution with
them.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon J. Van Every
cr88192 wrote:
>
> restoring the word order (with the effected change):
> the book under the bed is hidden.
>
> it is similar to the original, however, there is a causal difference:
> former, the book is hidden as a consequence of being under the bed;
> latter, the book that is under the bed is hidden (but we don't know why or
> how).
Or if you speak like Yoda, you can make it clump as "the book [under
the bed is hidden!]". "Under the bed is hidden the book" is also a
valid English sentence.
The problem with comparison to arithmetic infix operators is they're
not causal. They're declarative only.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
cr88192
"Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1150230170.6...@c74g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>>
>> restoring the word order (with the effected change):
>> the book under the bed is hidden.
>>
>> it is similar to the original, however, there is a causal difference:
>> former, the book is hidden as a consequence of being under the bed;
>> latter, the book that is under the bed is hidden (but we don't know why
>> or
>> how).
>
> Or if you speak like Yoda, you can make it clump as "the book [under
> the bed is hidden!]". "Under the bed is hidden the book" is also a
> valid English sentence.
>
I feel unsure on that one. many may understand it, except I am not sure if
it is allowed gramatically (eg: if 'is' is symetric).
just like, it is viewed as invalid to end a sentance in a preposition,
despite the fact that many people do this.
I think it is partly that humans have an ability to understand statements
that goes beyond strict reliance on grammar, wheras machines do not.
> The problem with comparison to arithmetic infix operators is they're
> not causal. They're declarative only.
>
well, at the time it seemed to make sense.
anyways, that argument was more about rules than semantics.
semantics is where humans and machines differ the most afaict, so an
argument based on semantics is likely to be problematic.
>
> Cheers,
> Brandon Van Every
>
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> note that there were languages that put the verb first (gaelic, ...).
>> more
>> languages like putting it last though. prepositions, however, are
>> generally
>> only placed between the words they modify.
>
> But arithmetic operations are commutative.
only some, eg, '+' and '*'.
> "The book is under the bed"
> is rather different from "The bed is under the book." I would say
> there are "directed infix" operators and "undirected infix" operators.
> Prepositions are directed infix. Conjunctions are undirected infix.
> "The book and the candle are under the bed" is the same as "The candle
> and the book are under the bed."
>
yes, note that 2-3, and 2/3 are rather different than 3-2 and 3/2.
this is especially true with operations like << and >>.
1<<20 vs 20<<1.
so, the same pattern holds in both cases. some things are directed, some
things are not.
>> > I don't think you really care about standards.
>> >
>>
>> yeah, but one needs at least an implementation-level standard. expecting
>> each "concerned user" to roll their own is imo asking for a mess,
>> especially
>> if they ever care to share code...
>
> But you don't care about sharing code! If you did, I'd have a helluva
> easier time recruiting you to work on Chicken Scheme. "Sharing code"
> has a huge pile of engineering and social dimensions that I've never
> seen you seriously concern yourself with. What I'm saying is, when
> you're serious about sharing code, you work with other people on a
> project and use a Darcs repository. And when what other people do on
> the project annoys you, you put up with it and work on a solution with
> them.
>
I am willing to give out any code if people ask, or if they go and download
stuff (I guess, assuming I ever get to uploading it...).
now, if my code was written in something generic (eg: plain c) people may
well be able to use if, but if it is something weird (c with syntactic
alterations or some weird preprocessor) then it is a lot less useful.
that was my point here.
at least, things have to be consistent among the same
language/implementation, which breaks down if individual coders are varying
important aspects of the syntax.
for example, although I will probably be using a scheme variant internally,
I will probably not be passing the lang off as scheme.
no intent to go for full r5rs conformance, as that is largely pointless for
parse trees. at the same time, function/variable naming conventions are
different (only alphanumeric characters and '_' are allowed in most
cases...). the s-expr parser allows the full set of names, but the language
itself will limit itself to the previous rule for all "normal" occuarances
(normal functions and variables).
so:
(define (foo? x) x)
(define (bar-baz x) x)
...
will be viewed as technically invalid.
also, exit-only continuations, no intent for a macro system, different
semantics for toplevel scoping, ...
I am calling it 'bs1' ("BGB Script 1") which is an occurance of going to a
smaller number ("BGB Script 2" was the statically typed, and never fully
implemented language).
so, mostly this is a vm rewrite of "BGB Script", which is the lang I have
been using/maintaining for about the last 2 years. some things are being
altered, but it should be ok. the biggie is that I am rewriting the whole vm
clean (very little of my old code would work on the new vm anyways, as the
internals have been changed fairly drastically).
cr88192
>
> cr88192 wrote:
>> "Brandon J. Van Every" <SeaFu...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> >
>> > No dude, you don't get it. No MONEY, no HONEY. You don't got your own
>> > wheels, you're not gettin' any. Or at least your own place. I don't
>> > have wheels but I do have my own place, lotsa chicks are within walking
>> > distance of me, and I'm sitting on top of all major bus lines. On the
>> > other hand I still don't have any time, haven't made the time, so no
>> > honey. Too much coding and signature gathering. Signature gathering
>> > ends in 3 weeks in WA, so then I hope to have more time to pursue my
>> > agendas.
>> >
>>
>> but, you seem to want females for physical reasons.
>>
>> my reasons are emotionally based, and I believe in abstinence anyways, so
>> the situation may well be different.
>
> Yoda sez, NO different! Only different in your MIND. No MONEY, no
> HONEY.
>
since I say what I expect up front, those types (usually also the same types
that are promiscuous) are expected to go away...
that is the power of the quick rule-out system. say a lot of stuff up front,
and if it wouldn't work anyways, they go away (and will often avoid me after
that). better to know all this up front, than invest several months of
effort and then finding out that things wouldn't work out.
>> that or one could go for, eg, the chukese (they often hardly speak
>> english,
>> and come from an island which generally does not have cars or
>> electricity).
>> problem is, most of them are "normal" though as well, so less motivation.
>
> You stay in Guam by choice.
>
hmm.
as far as normal, I have noted that some people can seem not-normal, but
still be normal (eg: people who did not attend public schools). after some
thought, one realizes that they are operating on the same basic lines of
thought as normal people, albeit their conventions are varried slightly.
normal people are stressful. almost like the main existance for normal
people is to be an annoyance to those who are AS...
problem is that normal people are by far the majority, really, anywhere it
seems, and they go out and claim that AS is the defect. AS is not the
problem really, it is them...
LFA is a risk, and LFA people do have a problem though, but LFA is more of a
degenerate case I think.
if the situation were set up right, after a long enough time (eg: a few
generations) AS would probably be able to stabilize and LFA would probably
become a rarity within the core group...
or something...
>> > Go ask about compiler jobs in comp.compilers. You're qualified.
>> >
>>
>> dunno...
>>
>> comp.compilers is moderated, and in the past I was too impatient to wait
>> for
>> posts to go through...
>
> You are going to make excuses about why you can't / won't take action
> until the cows come home. I slightly sympathize with why Erik chewed
> you out. But only slightly, because he's rather mean about it, and
> isn't trying to help you in any way. I'm your friend and I'm just
> trying to give you "tough love." Show you that you have options, and
> remind you over and over again that you're making CHOICES about your
> life. You have to take RESPONSIBILITY for your CHOICES.
>
dunno though.
I just don't really like moderated groups in general, as it usually takes a
while for the moderator to review and accept/reject posts...
Marcin 'Qrczak' Kowalczyk
> Infix really isn't applicable to streams of instructions, only
> humans like it, and it's historical accident that they like it.
> Or maybe there's a Linguistics argument to be made for why they
> like it, but I don't really care because clearly, humans can
> learn languages.
Here is an argument for infix syntax:
When reading code from left to right in prefix syntax, the mental
stack of pending operations whose arguments are yet to be read has
the maximal depth equal to the depth of the syntax tree, i.e. on
each node the depth is 1 + maximum of depths of children.
For an infix operation where the first argument is unparenthesized,
the first argument can be analysed before considering how it will be
operated on: the local mental depth is the maximum of the depth of
the left argument, and 1 + the depth of the right argument.
This works well only if the semantics of the operation always
evaluates the first argument and generally can consider it first,
so the person reading the code can think "here is an expression,
and later we will see what happens to its result". Otherwise it would
be misleading.
This is advantageous when the first argument is more complex. This is
why addition and subtraction in conventional notation is left-associative.
Lisp and Scheme partially overcome this in the case of addition by
having functions with an arbitrary number of arguments; this approach
is not applicable for mixing several different operations.
This can be emulated by introducing temporary variables: even if the
usage of a variable is later deeply nested, the expression whose value
is bound to the variable can be analysed without keeping the deep
nesting on the mental stack, and thus the computation gets more
flattened. Unfortunately Lisp and Scheme have a heavy syntax for
introducing a block of local variables.
Similarly, for operations where the last argument is unparenthesized
and the semantics "tail calls" it, or at most tail calls it modulo
some simple closing operation, the person reading the code can discard
the operation itself from the mental stack before going into this last
argument. In these cases it's advantageous to put the complex argument
last, if there is a choice (for example in a conditional, where the
condition can be negated).
When the syntax requires the closing parenthesis and suggests an
indentation after the last argument, this works worse and requires
a mental act to ignore the syntactic nesting.
--
__("< Marcin Kowalczyk
\__/ qrc...@knm.org.pl
^^ http://qrnik.knm.org.pl/~qrczak/
http://www.biep.org
cr88192 schreef:
> for all who remember me, I was a poster here before, but largely went away
> after my efforts diverged from having much of anything to do with scheme (I
> forget, possibly I was not getting along that well with the people around
> here).
I may well be wrong, but weren't you the guy with Asperger's disorder?
If so, that is important information for the others, or else they may
end up unintentionally hurting you again. I am sure nobody wants to,
but the bandwidth of Usenet is not that high, so many people may not
realise what is going on.
Welcome back!
Biep
P.S.: my email address as give above doesn't work. Use anything but
"google" as the account name.
H.
> my reasons are emotionally based, and I believe in abstinence anyways, so
> the situation may well be different.
>
> probably useful would be a female worse off (eg: less normal) than I am, as
> maybe I would have hope. none seen though. I have limits though (being high
> functioning is at least a requirement...).
>
> from what I can gather, things like that are primarly a concern for "normal"
> people.
>
We've gone entirely OT here, but you seem not to know all the great
places on the net to meet others who aren't NT (an abbreviation you
probably know, and others reading this probably don't).
May I suggest the aspergers community on livejournal for starters,
which you can find here:
http://community.livejournal.com/asperger/
It's also absurdly easy to set up a blog there, if that interests you.
I don't say this to shoo you away, but in the hopes it might be useful.
I am sorry about the meanness exhibited here - what you were writing
about had enough to do with scheme to belong in the newsgroup, so I
don't understand a prior poster getting all huffy about it.
Anyway, if you frequent the right areas, you'll have an easier time of
finding other aspies to talk to, of both genders...and by "talk" I mean
im/e-mail, etc.