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digitalmars.D - "The End of Native Code"

reply pragma <pragma_member pathlink.com> writes:
Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when is it the
right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language development.

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml

As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and see why this
article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to find a number of
people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native compilation plus garbage
collection" or some variant thereof.  What was also suprising was the number of
"have you not seen D yet?" replies to these posts, and how well they were modded
*up*.  As slashdot is peer-moderated, this means that registered users of the
site had to take the time to hand out positive reviews on those particular
posts.

So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much hung D
from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw today was a
subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word finally seems to be
getting out.

- EricAnderton at yahoo
Jun 13 2006
next sibling parent reply Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
pragma wrote:

 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when is it the
 right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language development.
 
 http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml
 
 As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and see why
this
 article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to find a number of
 people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native compilation plus garbage
 collection" or some variant thereof.  What was also suprising was the number of
 "have you not seen D yet?" replies to these posts, and how well they were
modded
 *up*.  As slashdot is peer-moderated, this means that registered users of the
 site had to take the time to hand out positive reviews on those particular
 posts.
 
 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much hung D
 from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw today was a


It's funny - in this high-tech business of constant change - how often I 
run into people who are extremely passionate about resisting change 
(myself included). It seems to be something in the makeup of 'techies', 
be it related to computers or not. I think it probably stems mostly from 
two things: 1) people invest a lot of time and effort into their skill 
sets and 2) many technical / engineering types have a "prove-it" 
attitude towards new stuff, especially stuff that may somewhat deprecate 
what has worked well for them in the past.


 subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word finally seems to be
 getting out.


In this particular case, I think some (many?) C++ coders are kind-of 
spotting the writing on the wall (they and/or C++ needs to change) but 
rightly see that "going whole hog" into things like Perl, Python and/or 
Java for every type of application is not the way to go either.


 
 - EricAnderton at yahoo
Jun 13 2006
parent reply Georg Wrede <georg.wrede nospam.org> writes:
Dave wrote:

 pragma wrote:

 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty
 much hung D from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.
 What I saw today was a




...

 

 subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word finally
 seems to be getting out.


 
 In this particular case, I think some (many?) C++ coders are kind-of
 spotting the writing on the wall (they and/or C++ needs to change)
 but rightly see that "going whole hog" into things like Perl, Python
 and/or Java for every type of application is not the way to go
 either.


I'm starting to think that today almost all C++ coders (and quite some 
of the gurus too) are secretly getting seriously fed-up with C++.

More and more they see this or that thing in some other languages done 
better, smarter, more reliable, etc., and a lot of those things are "so 
near" of being implementable in C++, if it just weren't for this or that 
backward issue, code compatibility, or the murky gotcha that simply 
precludes it. Or for the "old farts" who get to decide stuff.

Some of the adverse reaction towards D is from annoyance for having 
recognized the above. Kinda sour grapes. Especially when "depressingly 
many" of their peeves are fixed in D.

Now seeing that we obviously thrive and prosper (and quite possibly 
might prevail), there will be a stampede towards D, real soon now. IMHO, 
it'll be like with Linux, where it went unknown by most for years, 
slowly gaining momentum, and then just "overnight" became a household 
word, globally. Boom! Including "suits", the illiterati and Moms.

The stampede is pending. One of the biggest hints to this is that today 
it's un-cool to not "know all about this D language", even if you 
haven't actually tried it yet.

I sure hope Jan Knepper's servers won't melt down that day. <g>

<Deep voice> I have a Dream! </> Right after the stampede, IBM or 
somebody else is going to start supporting D! Borland and the FSF would 
too, but the former is too f***ed up internally and the latter is lead 
by an individual, whose, ehh, personality details preclude this. What a 
shame.

In any case, it will be an entity whose point of view lets them see the 
good in D, with many of its current and future implications -- and who 
at the same time has the resources to tackle the *gaps* we have. 
(Certain areas of development and attention, resources in library design 
and implementation, broad intimacy with multiple hw+os architectures, 
pure clout, actually employed programmers deployable, publicity 
resources, and industry visibility.)

_That_ ought to scare Walter. ;-)

But I'm talking an entity here who is capable of lifting Walter from 
essentially a DIY guy (no offense!!!) to a King. I'm talking king here 
like Linus Torvalds, who still has the last say, works with it if/when 
he pleases.

The King has the say, this benign entity gives the resources, and the 
King doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, like (I'm assuming 
here) writing the boring parts of library code, designing and 
implementing the web presence of D, orchestration and administration, 
fine tuning license details, creating packages for all architectures and 
flavors, writing inter-language convenience code and libraries, 
developing astounding language tools only possible for D, writing 
professional quality documentation, properly reviewing and polishing the 
specs, ...

--
A fanatic, with reason
Jun 16 2006
next sibling parent reply Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:
Georg Wrede wrote:

 Dave wrote:

 [snip]
 
 But I'm talking an entity here who is capable of lifting Walter from
 essentially a DIY guy (no offense!!!) to a King. I'm talking king here
 like Linus Torvalds, who still has the last say, works with it if/when
 he pleases.
 
 The King has the say, this benign entity gives the resources, and the
 King doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to, like (I'm assuming
 here) writing the boring parts of library code, designing and
 implementing the web presence of D, orchestration and administration,
 fine tuning license details, creating packages for all architectures and
 flavors, writing inter-language convenience code and libraries,
 developing astounding language tools only possible for D, writing
 professional quality documentation, properly reviewing and polishing the
 specs, ...


I believe the term you're looking for is BDFL: Benevolent Dictator For Life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDFL

	-- Daniel

-- 
Unlike Knuth, I have neither proven or tried the above; it may not even
make sense.

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D
i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/
Jun 16 2006
parent Frits van Bommel <fvbommel REMwOVExCAPSs.nl> writes:
Daniel Keep wrote:

 I believe the term you're looking for is BDFL: Benevolent Dictator For Life.
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDFL
 
 	-- Daniel
 


Beat me by 2 minutes. I should really learn to be less long-winded when 
posting this kind of stuff :).
Jun 16 2006
prev sibling parent Frits van Bommel <fvbommel REMwOVExCAPSs.nl> writes:
Georg Wrede wrote:

 But I'm talking an entity here who is capable of lifting Walter from 
 essentially a DIY guy (no offense!!!) to a King. I'm talking king here 
 like Linus Torvalds, who still has the last say, works with it if/when 
 he pleases.


I think the term you're looking for here is "Benevolent Dictator for 
Life". Though according to Wikipedia[1] that term is (currently) used 
only in open source projects, which D isn't. Not completely, anyway. But 
anyway, a open source front-end and standard library might be close 
enough. Especially as that's where the most important decisions (i.e. 
the language and interface) are made :).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_Dictator_for_Life
Jun 16 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:
pragma wrote:

 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when is it the
 right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language development.


A while back, Ars Technica had an article on hardware level 
interpolation of binaries, but I haven't heard much about the idea 
since.  Still, it seems to make more sense than software emulation of a 
generic machine model.


Sean
Jun 13 2006
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
pragma wrote:

 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when is it the
 right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language development.
 
 http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml
 
 As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and see why
this
 article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to find a number of
 people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native compilation plus garbage
 collection" or some variant thereof.  What was also suprising was the number of
 "have you not seen D yet?" replies to these posts, and how well they were
modded
 *up*.  As slashdot is peer-moderated, this means that registered users of the
 site had to take the time to hand out positive reviews on those particular
 posts.
 
 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much hung D
 from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw today was a
 subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word finally seems to be
 getting out.


I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to go 
read the followups.

The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script 
languages because they are more productive. Why are they more productive?

1) garbage collection

2) dynamic typing

3) lots of libraries

D's got garbage collection.

Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive, it's 
a big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also 
interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot of 
what they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.

D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking a 
hard look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying 
to figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good 
example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic 
typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.

D doesn't have lots of libraries. But, in reality, C++ doesn't either, 
because it's too **** hard to write general purpose libraries in the 
absence of garbage collection. I believe that it's so much easier to 
write libraries in D that D will quickly surpass C++ in depth and 
breadth of libraries. Of course, that isn't good enough, we need to get 
to the Python or Ruby level of library support.
Jun 13 2006
parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 pragma wrote:
 

 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when 
 is it the
 right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language 
 development.

 http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml

 As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and 
 see why this
 article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to find a 
 number of
 people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native compilation plus garbage
 collection" or some variant thereof.  What was also suprising was the 
 number of
 "have you not seen D yet?" replies to these posts, and how well they 
 were modded
 *up*.  As slashdot is peer-moderated, this means that registered users 
 of the
 site had to take the time to hand out positive reviews on those 
 particular
 posts.

 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much 
 hung D
 from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw 
 today was a
 subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word finally seems 
 to be
 getting out.


 
 
 I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to go 
 read the followups.
 
 The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script 
 languages because they are more productive. Why are they more productive?
 
 1) garbage collection
 
 2) dynamic typing
 
 3) lots of libraries
 
 D's got garbage collection.
 
 Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive, it's 
 a big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also 
 interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot of 
 what they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.
 
 D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking a 
 hard look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying 
 to figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good 
 example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic 
 typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.


  <snip>

Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner type) ?

Please elaborate if you can.

-DavidM
Jun 13 2006
next sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
David Medlock wrote:

 Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner 
 type) ?
 
 Please elaborate if you can.


Nothing formal, just looking to extend type inference where it can be, 
such as:

	auto x = foo();

instead of:

	int x = foo();
Jun 13 2006
prev sibling parent reply "Andrei Khropov" <andkhropov nospam_mtu-net.ru> writes:
David Medlock wrote:


 Walter Bright wrote:

 pragma wrote:
 

 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when  is
 it the right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language
 development.
 
 http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml
 
 As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and  see
 why this article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to
 find a  number of people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native
 compilation plus garbage collection" or some variant thereof.  What was
 also suprising was the  number of "have you not seen D yet?" replies to
 these posts, and how well they  were modded *up*.  As slashdot is
 peer-moderated, this means that registered users  of the site had to take
 the time to hand out positive reviews on those  particular posts.
 
 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much
 hung D from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw
 today was a subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word
 finally seems  to be getting out.


 
 
 I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to go  read
 the followups.
 
 The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script
 languages because they are more productive. Why are they more productive?
 
 1) garbage collection
 
 2) dynamic typing
 
 3) lots of libraries
 
 D's got garbage collection.
 
 Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive, it's  a
 big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also
 interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot of  what
 they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.
 
 D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking a  hard
 look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying  to
 figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good
 example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic
 typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.


  <snip>
 
 Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner type) ?


See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax. Looks
very promising.


-- 
AKhropov
Jun 14 2006
next sibling parent reply "BLS" <lietz wanadoo.fr> writes:
Hi Andrej,
off topic, but thanks for the link. never heard about Nemerle before.
Phantastic, clean, modern language.!!
Bjoern

 See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax.


Looks

 very promising.


 -- 
 AKhropov
Jun 15 2006
parent reply MicroWizard <MicroWizard_member pathlink.com> writes:
If it is a joke, it is disgusting.
If it is real, I think you are right, "phantastic", not more.

Ugly macrolike hack over the M$ .NET hackwork.

MicroWizard

In article <e6r55r$qr3$1 digitaldaemon.com>, BLS says...

Hi Andrej,
off topic, but thanks for the link. never heard about Nemerle before.
Phantastic, clean, modern language.!!
Bjoern

 See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax.


Looks

 very promising.


 -- 
 AKhropov
Jun 16 2006
parent "BLS" <lietz wanadoo.fr> writes:
Hi Micro Wizard,
my apologies for beeing off topic.
what really picks on my nerves is that programming maniacs are not able to
have an eye  on
Time to market,
 TCO,
 QA.
In other words,
thinking like a software customer,
thinking like somebody who is responsible for a software company ( and his
employees),
thinking like somebody who is responsible for quality assurence.
From this point of view the DOT NET framework has a lot to offer. and let me
say one thing more .

wish D has something compareable to the dot net framework.
bjoern
simple is ...











MicroWizard_member pathlink.com> schreef in bericht
news:e6v6qq$ekd$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 If it is a joke, it is disgusting.
 If it is real, I think you are right, "phantastic", not more.

 Ugly macrolike hack over the M$ .NET hackwork.

 MicroWizard

 In article <e6r55r$qr3$1 digitaldaemon.com>, BLS says...

Hi Andrej,
off topic, but thanks for the link. never heard about Nemerle before.
Phantastic, clean, modern language.!!
Bjoern

 See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax.


Looks

 very promising.


 -- 
 AKhropov
Jun 17 2006
prev sibling parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Andrei Khropov wrote:

 David Medlock wrote:
 
 

Walter Bright wrote:


pragma wrote:



Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about when  is
it the right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language
development.

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml

As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read and  see
why this article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to
find a  number of people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native
compilation plus garbage collection" or some variant thereof.  What was
also suprising was the  number of "have you not seen D yet?" replies to
these posts, and how well they  were modded *up*.  As slashdot is
peer-moderated, this means that registered users  of the site had to take
the time to hand out positive reviews on those  particular posts.

So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much
hung D from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What I saw
today was a subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word
finally seems  to be getting out.



I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to go  read
the followups.

The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script
languages because they are more productive. Why are they more productive?

1) garbage collection

2) dynamic typing

3) lots of libraries

D's got garbage collection.

Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive, it's  a
big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also
interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot of  what
they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.

D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking a  hard
look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying  to
figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good
example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic
typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.


 <snip>

Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner type) ?


 
 
 See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax. Looks
 very promising.
 
 


Thanks for the heads up.
It does look good!  Looks like dot Net only though.. :(

I hope they get either native or even translation to C.

-DavidM
Jun 15 2006
parent reply Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:
David Medlock wrote:

 Andrei Khropov wrote:

 David Medlock wrote:



 Walter Bright wrote:


 pragma wrote:



 Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about
 when  is
 it the right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language
 development.

 http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml

 As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read
 and  see
 why this article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to
 find a  number of people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native
 compilation plus garbage collection" or some variant thereof.  What
 was
 also suprising was the  number of "have you not seen D yet?"
 replies to
 these posts, and how well they  were modded *up*.  As slashdot is
 peer-moderated, this means that registered users  of the site had
 to take
 the time to hand out positive reviews on those  particular posts.

 So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much
 hung D from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What
 I saw
 today was a subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word
 finally seems  to be getting out.



 I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to
 go  read
 the followups.

 The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script
 languages because they are more productive. Why are they more
 productive?

 1) garbage collection

 2) dynamic typing

 3) lots of libraries

 D's got garbage collection.

 Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive,
 it's  a
 big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also
 interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot
 of  what
 they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.

 D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking
 a  hard
 look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying  to
 figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good
 example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic
 typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.


 <snip>

 Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner
 type) ?



 See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax.
 Looks
 very promising.


 
 Thanks for the heads up.
 It does look good!  Looks like dot Net only though.. :(
 
 I hope they get either native or even translation to C.
 
 -DavidM


I've never understood this aversion to non-native languages.  Let's be
frank: native machine code is good, but it isn't the be-all and end-all.
 Nemerle was developed using .NET because that way they didn't have to
write a compiler; they could just use Reflection.Emit to generate their
assemblies.

Plus, it frees them from having to support every platform and processor
separately.

As for .NET itself, I think it's excellent.  For most purposes, it's got

different languages to use, and a fairly complete set of libraries.

I agree in that it would be fantastic to have something like Nemerle for
native code, but I certainly won't discriminate against it just because
it's managed.

	-- Daniel

P.S.  Just in case you get the wrong idea, I'm far from a .NET fanb0i.

many places.  Still, it's better than Java *shudders*.

-- 
Unlike Knuth, I have neither proven or tried the above; it may not even
make sense.

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D
i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/
Jun 15 2006
parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Daniel Keep wrote:

 
 David Medlock wrote:
 

Andrei Khropov wrote:


David Medlock wrote:




Walter Bright wrote:



pragma wrote:




Slashdot had an interesting ask slashdot article yesterday about
when  is
it the right time to go whole-hog into interpreted/VM style language
development.

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/06/12/2044245.shtml

As its an issue that we're all familar with, I figured I'd read
and  see
why this article had 1000+ comments.  I was actually quite suprised to
find a  number of people, mostly C++ guys, clamoring for "native
compilation plus garbage collection" or some variant thereof.  What
was
also suprising was the  number of "have you not seen D yet?"
replies to
these posts, and how well they  were modded *up*.  As slashdot is
peer-moderated, this means that registered users  of the site had
to take
the time to hand out positive reviews on those  particular posts.

So I have to say: you guys rock.  Remember, slashdot users pretty much
hung D from the yard-arm on not one but two articles about D.  What
I saw
today was a subtle, but noticable shift in this attitude.  The word
finally seems  to be getting out.



I saw the article when it first came out, but I obviously need to
go  read
the followups.

The gist of the article as I interpreted it is that people go to script
languages because they are more productive. Why are they more
productive?

1) garbage collection

2) dynamic typing

3) lots of libraries

D's got garbage collection.

Dynamic typing is interesting in that while it is more productive,
it's  a
big reason why scripting languages will always be slooow. It's also
interesting in that if you look real hard at C++ templates, a lot
of  what
they are used for is to fake dynamic typing.

D is moving towards what I call implicit typing - I've been taking
a  hard
look at where one is required to specify a type, and instead trying  to
figure out a way the type can be inferred instead (foreach is a good
example). Implicit typing gets D a number of the benefits of dynamic
typing with less complexity than the C++ template approach.


<snip>

Are you saying you will move towards SML like typing (Hindley-Milner
type) ?



See Nemerle (http://nemerle.org/) - Hidney-Milner in C-family syntax.
Looks
very promising.


Thanks for the heads up.
It does look good!  Looks like dot Net only though.. :(

I hope they get either native or even translation to C.

-DavidM


 
 
 I've never understood this aversion to non-native languages.  Let's be
 frank: native machine code is good, but it isn't the be-all and end-all.
  Nemerle was developed using .NET because that way they didn't have to
 write a compiler; they could just use Reflection.Emit to generate their
 assemblies.
 
 Plus, it frees them from having to support every platform and processor
 separately.
 
 As for .NET itself, I think it's excellent.  For most purposes, it's got

 different languages to use, and a fairly complete set of libraries.
 
 I agree in that it would be fantastic to have something like Nemerle for
 native code, but I certainly won't discriminate against it just because
 it's managed.
 
 	-- Daniel
 
 P.S.  Just in case you get the wrong idea, I'm far from a .NET fanb0i.

 many places.  Still, it's better than Java *shudders*.
 


I make my living as a Java developer for 10 years now, so I would 
definitely say I don't have an aversion to bytecode languages.

Actually the majority of my non-D hobby programming is in python and 
lua, the opposite end of native-code languages.

Please try not to draw conclusions which aren't there.  I like doing 


1. Learn a new language(not too difficult but still annoying with little 
benefit over D)

2. Find wrappers for any libraries I may be using or write them.

3. Get used to MS development tools, which I have not really used at all.

4. Make sure anyone who tries my programs has .NET installed.

5. Expect some difficulty re: cross platform games if I use any MS 
specific .NET libraries.

Thanks.
Jun 15 2006
parent reply Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:
David Medlock wrote:

 Daniel Keep wrote:

 [snip]


 I make my living as a Java developer for 10 years now, so I would
 definitely say I don't have an aversion to bytecode languages.
 
 Actually the majority of my non-D hobby programming is in python and
 lua, the opposite end of native-code languages.
 
 Please try not to draw conclusions which aren't there.  I like doing

 
 1. Learn a new language(not too difficult but still annoying with little
 benefit over D)
 
 2. Find wrappers for any libraries I may be using or write them.
 
 3. Get used to MS development tools, which I have not really used at all.
 
 4. Make sure anyone who tries my programs has .NET installed.
 
 5. Expect some difficulty re: cross platform games if I use any MS
 specific .NET libraries.
 
 Thanks.


My apologies if I offended you; I see far too many programmers turn
their nose up at a language because "eww, it's not native code therefore
it sucks!" or "eww, it's native code therefore it sucks!".

Also, if you have been programming in Java for ten years, you have my
sympathies.  I used it for two sessions at university and I barely got
out with my sanity intact ;) [1]

As for MS-specific stuff, you can avoid that entirely and go with Mono.

want to play with Nemerle.  You can just use Nemerle, Boo
(Python-inspired but statically typed with type inference) or IronPython
(full Python implementation for .NET).

MS-specific libraries aren't much of a problem.  I believe Mono now
supports much of System.Windows.Forms (just don't call any Win32 APIs),

you can always use OpenGL+OpenAL instead of DirectX.

And finally, Java needs a runtime, too.  Actually, considering that the
latest ATI video card drivers *require* .NET [2], I'd say a fair few
Windows users would have it by now.

	-- Daniel

[1] Case in point: our lecturer was trying to teach us how to program
using Objects since C++ isn't object oriented and we were all clearly
unbelievers.  How does he teach us?  He takes hello world.  Good old six
line hello world.  He spends fifteen minutes "object orienting" it.  It
ends up something like 60-70 lines across three files.

"This is java.  It is good."

I think I heard someone sobbing at that point... or it might have been me...

[2] For the record, I think this is ridiculous.  Installing the new ATI
drivers is ~35MB.  That's without the .NET runtime.

-- 
Unlike Knuth, I have neither proven or tried the above; it may not even
make sense.

v2sw5+8Yhw5ln4+5pr6OFPma8u6+7Lw4Tm6+7l6+7D
i28a2Xs3MSr2e4/6+7t4TNSMb6HTOp5en5g6RAHCP  http://hackerkey.com/
Jun 15 2006
parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Daniel Keep wrote:


 
 David Medlock wrote:
 

Daniel Keep wrote:


[snip]






[snip]

 
 My apologies if I offended you; I see far too many programmers turn
 their nose up at a language because "eww, it's not native code therefore
 it sucks!" or "eww, it's native code therefore it sucks!".
 
 Also, if you have been programming in Java for ten years, you have my
 sympathies.  I used it for two sessions at university and I barely got
 out with my sanity intact ;) [1]
 
 As for MS-specific stuff, you can avoid that entirely and go with Mono.

 want to play with Nemerle.  You can just use Nemerle, Boo
 (Python-inspired but statically typed with type inference) or IronPython
 (full Python implementation for .NET).
 
 MS-specific libraries aren't much of a problem.  I believe Mono now
 supports much of System.Windows.Forms (just don't call any Win32 APIs),

 you can always use OpenGL+OpenAL instead of DirectX.
 
 And finally, Java needs a runtime, too.  Actually, considering that the
 latest ATI video card drivers *require* .NET [2], I'd say a fair few
 Windows users would have it by now.
 
 	-- Daniel
 
 [1] Case in point: our lecturer was trying to teach us how to program
 using Objects since C++ isn't object oriented and we were all clearly
 unbelievers.  How does he teach us?  He takes hello world.  Good old six
 line hello world.  He spends fifteen minutes "object orienting" it.  It
 ends up something like 60-70 lines across three files.
 
 "This is java.  It is good."
 
 I think I heard someone sobbing at that point... or it might have been me...
 
 [2] For the record, I think this is ridiculous.  Installing the new ATI
 drivers is ~35MB.  That's without the .NET runtime.
 


No apologies necessary, I was just clearing up confusion.  I did not 
intend to sound offended(but I can see that I did).

Although Java feeds my wife and kids, I have no great love for it.  I 
have more fun with Groovy(a JVM scripting language) honestly.

Its not great but it is 'good enough'(tm).

I can even stomach VB in small doses, but the only truely painful 
programming I have ever done is Perl.  This is a language full of 
special cases and inconsistencies like no other.  It has embedded type 
information which serves no real benefit, but is touted by Perl hackers 
as a useful feature!  Unfortunately I have been moved in my company to a 
dept which is run by Perl guys...I'm doomed.

Java does need a runtime, but I have done web server side stuff mostly, 
with some doses of large data mining thrown in(NIO libraries arent too bad).

Python and D are the most enjoyable programming I've done.

Cheers.
-DavidM
Jun 15 2006
parent Sjoerd van Leent <svanleent gmail.com> writes:
 No apologies necessary, I was just clearing up confusion.  I did not 
 intend to sound offended(but I can see that I did).
 
 Although Java feeds my wife and kids, I have no great love for it.  I 
 have more fun with Groovy(a JVM scripting language) honestly.
 
 Its not great but it is 'good enough'(tm).
 
 I can even stomach VB in small doses, but the only truely painful 
 programming I have ever done is Perl.  This is a language full of 
 special cases and inconsistencies like no other.  It has embedded type 
 information which serves no real benefit, but is touted by Perl hackers 
 as a useful feature!  Unfortunately I have been moved in my company to a 
 dept which is run by Perl guys...I'm doomed.
 
 Java does need a runtime, but I have done web server side stuff mostly, 
 with some doses of large data mining thrown in(NIO libraries arent too 
 bad).
 
 Python and D are the most enjoyable programming I've done.
 
 Cheers.
 -DavidM


Perl is OK, I use it in some project. Though it is not OK for 
everything, it is still OK. The way Perl-files are written by most 
Perl-geeks are sometimes quite beyond understandable, but one is able to 
write clear-looking Perl-files, and so an understandable piece of code. 

D as well.

Regards,
Sjoerd
Jun 15 2006