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digitalmars.D.announce - Emerging Languages Conference next week!

reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See you there!
Jul 17 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <and.mitrovic hotmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
 http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See you there!


If anyone is interested, I've emailed the organizers and they said the whole
thing will be video recorded (therefore posted online as well).
Jul 17 2010
parent "Danny Wilson" <danny decube.net> writes:
Op Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:13:12 +0200 schreef Andrej Mitrovic  
<and.mitrovic hotmail.com>:


 If anyone is interested, I've emailed the organizers and they said the  
 whole thing will be video recorded (therefore posted online as well).



I hope it will be online soon :-)
Jul 21 2010
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
 http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See you 
 there!


Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430
Jul 23 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
 http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See you 
 there!


 
 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:
 
 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430 


Nice but short. I hate they made you "co-inventor", possibly implying 
that I'd be another one; whenever I have a chance I want to acknowledge 
you as the inventor. I can qualify at most as sorcerer's apprentice.

Andrei
Jul 23 2010
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:i2cnai$hgt$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
 http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See you 
 there!


 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:

 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430


 Nice but short. I hate they made you "co-inventor", possibly implying that 
 I'd be another one; whenever I have a chance I want to acknowledge you as 
 the inventor. I can qualify at most as sorcerer's apprentice.


It's always bugged me when people use the term "invent" in relaton to a 
programming language. It's like saying that a musician "invented" a song, or 
that Mark Twain "invented" a book. Wrong word.
Jul 23 2010
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisprog gmail.com> writes:
On Friday 23 July 2010 11:46:47 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 It's always bugged me when people use the term "invent" in relaton to a
 programming language. It's like saying that a musician "invented" a song,
 or that Mark Twain "invented" a book. Wrong word.


Actully, I believe that invent _is_ the right word here. You write a book or a 
song. With a book or a song, you're actually physically writing something
(well, 
in the past anyway - now it may be typing or involve a mouse, but people used 
pen and paper before). With a computer program, you are again writing it (again 
likely typing it, but for pretty much the same reasons, the word write
applies). 
However, a programming _language_ is a tool, not something that you write with 
pen and paper. Tools aren't written. They're invented. So, a programming 
language is invented, not written. The compiler itself - being a program - is 
written, but the language itself is invented.

- Jonathan M Davis
Jul 23 2010
next sibling parent awishformore <awishformore nospam.plz> writes:
On 24/07/2010 01:21, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Friday 23 July 2010 11:46:47 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 It's always bugged me when people use the term "invent" in relaton to a
 programming language. It's like saying that a musician "invented" a song,
 or that Mark Twain "invented" a book. Wrong word.


 Actully, I believe that invent _is_ the right word here. You write a book or a
 song. With a book or a song, you're actually physically writing something
(well,
 in the past anyway - now it may be typing or involve a mouse, but people used
 pen and paper before). With a computer program, you are again writing it (again
 likely typing it, but for pretty much the same reasons, the word write
applies).
 However, a programming _language_ is a tool, not something that you write with
 pen and paper. Tools aren't written. They're invented. So, a programming
 language is invented, not written. The compiler itself - being a program - is
 written, but the language itself is invented.

 - Jonathan M Davis


As both a programmer and an artist, I completely disagree.

When you craft/create a song/painting/statue, you use techniques that 
you learned over time and the experience that comes with using them 
again and again. These techniques have been discovered/invented by 
someone at some point, however the the piece of art hasn't.

The same holds true for a programming language.

To go with your analogy: the compiler is the tool that allows you to 
apply the art, not the other way around. The language then is the piece 
of art and the skill of creating a language is the art itself.

/Max
Jul 23 2010
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisprog gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.0.1279934183.13841.digitalmars-d-announce puremagic.com...

 On Friday 23 July 2010 11:46:47 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 It's always bugged me when people use the term "invent" in relaton to a
 programming language. It's like saying that a musician "invented" a song,
 or that Mark Twain "invented" a book. Wrong word.


 Actully, I believe that invent _is_ the right word here. You write a book 
 or a
 song. With a book or a song, you're actually physically writing something 
 (well,
 in the past anyway - now it may be typing or involve a mouse, but people 
 used
 pen and paper before). With a computer program, you are again writing it 
 (again
 likely typing it, but for pretty much the same reasons, the word write 
 applies).
 However, a programming _language_ is a tool, not something that you write 
 with
 pen and paper. Tools aren't written. They're invented. So, a programming
 language is invented, not written. The compiler itself - being a program - 
 is
 written, but the language itself is invented.


I'll grant that "'write' a language" isn't quite correct (unless you're 
talking about writing the spec, or writing the grammar, etc.), although I 
was going more for "create" (or "develop", or "design", etc.). "Invent" 
tends to imply the creation of a new technology or concept. But a new 
programming language is more an arrangement and implementation of such 
"inventions" (variables, static typing, LL/LR parsing, etc., although, of 
course, one could argue that even these are more "discoveries" than 
"inventions", but that gets into the "Is math/logic a creation or a 
discovery?" debate, on which I hold no particular opinion.) True, most 
inventions do include other inventions as their components, but I'd argue 
that merely using existing inventions doesn't necessarily constitute an 
invention.

As far as "Tools aren't written. They're invented.", I agree, but only to a 
point: The hammer is an invention. But if you go and create your own line 
and brand of hammers, you didn't "invent" Brand X Hammers. "Programming 
language" itself was an invention. But it's already been invented, and now 
we're just making specific instances of the technology that is "programming 
language". A new programming language may intruduce a new invention (like 
LISP's invention of macros), but even then it's that particular component 
that's the invention, not the whole language.

I guess one way to sum it up would be:

Common Noun: Invention
Proper Noun: Not an Invention

At least that's the way I see it.
Jul 23 2010
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 I'm speaking at OSCON July 22 at 5:20 about D 
 http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/grid/2010-07-22 See 
 you there!


 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:

 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430 


 
 
 Nice but short. I hate they made you "co-inventor", possibly implying 
 that I'd be another one; whenever I have a chance I want to acknowledge 
 you as the inventor. I can qualify at most as sorcerer's apprentice.


Since the reporter was recording my conversation with him, I was pretty worried 
it would come out all wrong. I prefer to do interviews via email based on a 
couple bad experiences I had. It turned out better than I expected.
Jul 23 2010
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound2 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:i2coqa$jss$1 digitalmars.com...

 Since the reporter was recording my conversation with him, I was pretty 
 worried it would come out all wrong. I prefer to do interviews via email 
 based on a couple bad experiences I had. It turned out better than I 
 expected.


I find email to be far more reliable (and practical) than voice for most 
forms of "business" communication. There's a number of problems I find that 
voice has for such types of conversations, one of the more notable being the 
need to blurt out an answer (nearly) immediately without always being able 
to give proper thought.
Jul 23 2010
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I find email to be far more reliable (and practical) than voice for most 
 forms of "business" communication. There's a number of problems I find that 
 voice has for such types of conversations, one of the more notable being the 
 need to blurt out an answer (nearly) immediately without always being able 
 to give proper thought. 


Here's what a journalist printed after a phone interview with me many years ago 
after I said something stupid, he printed what I said verbatim followed by:

[Walter] ... laughs ...
[Walter] don't print that
[journalist] Ok
Jul 23 2010
prev sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Walter Bright:

 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:
 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430


From the text:


The idea with D is to push complexity into the compiler so user code is simple
and elegant, he said.<


It's the first time I read such comment about D :-) I am not sure it's a right
comment. Lately I have seen the opposite, moving complex numbers and
associative arrays out of the compiler...



Many companies use it, but they do not advertise their use, Bright said.<


Really? ^_^ I didn't know this.

More comments about the event (that looks pretty interesting), D commented on
page 2:
http://olabini.com/blog/2010/07/emerging-languages-camp-day-1/
http://olabini.com/blog/2010/07/emerging-languages-camp-day-2/

Bye,
bearophile
Jul 23 2010
next sibling parent dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS lycos.com)'s article

 Walter Bright:

 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:
 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430


 From the text:

The idea with D is to push complexity into the compiler so user code is simple




and elegant, he said.<

 It's the first time I read such comment about D :-) I am not sure it's a right


comment. Lately I have seen the opposite, moving complex numbers and associative
arrays out of the compiler...

This misses the point.  The point is that AAs and complex numbers require lots
of
complexity in the compiler to be implemented simply and elegantly as libraries.
The fact that these can be implemented well within the language means that lots
of
other things can be, too.  If they couldn't be, that would mean that the
language
wasn't powerful enough to make defining good user defined types possible in
general.
Jul 23 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
bearophile wrote:

 Many companies use it, but they do not advertise their use, Bright said.<


 Really? ^_^ I didn't know this.


Yes, I receive a lot of information via the "back channel" that I can't discuss 
more than that. It's not that I was asked not to talk about it, I just think 
it's best to let companies do any such disclosures themselves if and when they 
choose to.
Jul 23 2010
parent reply BCS <none anon.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 Yes, I receive a lot of information via the "back channel" that I
 can't discuss more than that.
 


Can you give a ball park on how many?

-- 
... <IXOYE><
Jul 24 2010
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Hello Walter,
 

 Yes, I receive a lot of information via the "back channel" that I
 can't discuss more than that.


 
 Can you give a ball park on how many?
 


Sorry, I never kept track.
Jul 24 2010
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> wrote in message 
news:i2ddai$1rrq$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright:

 Inforworld writeup on it mentions D on page 2:
 http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/mirah-brings-ruby-niceties-java-430


 From the text:


The idea with D is to push complexity into the compiler so user code is 
simple and elegant, he said.<


 It's the first time I read such comment about D :-) I am not sure it's a 
 right comment. Lately I have seen the opposite, moving complex numbers and 
 associative arrays out of the compiler...


I think the main point there is that it's "behind-the-scenes" from the 
viewpoint of the user of the language instead of actually having to be right 
there in the user's own code. Whether some of that hidden complexity is in 
the runtime, in the language proper or in the std lib (albiet to a slightly 
lesser extent) is an implementation detail from the perspective of anyone 
who isn't actually working directly on one of those three (or on an 
alternate implementation of one).
Jul 23 2010