To follow up on Matthias's thread:<div><br></div><div>2025: Companies are forced to install soundproofing when the voices of NL programmers in their 4'x4' cubicles bother their neighbors in the "social marketing" department</div> <div><br></div><div>2035: A command reportedly issued by a POTUS "with a bad cold" to national SIRI causes the first ever worldwide internet shutdown</div><div><br></div><div>2045: Langbot creates code to search the past for old/new programming paradigms</div> <div><br></div><div>2046: Skynet goes active</div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 1:53 PM, Matthias Felleisen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:matthias@ccs.neu.edu" target="_blank">matthias@ccs.neu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br> 1983: Pascal doesn't have closures, so I built records once I understood the concept. But -- and that is a HUGE but -- I didn't really understand the concept of a closure until I had programmed in Scheme. In reality I couldn't imagine programming with closures when my boss told me it was possible and argued we could do it in Pascal.<br> <br> 1998: C programmers didn't know about objects until they worked in Java for a while. I am sure, however, that they could have managed with structs and function pointers.<br> <br> 2012: I am certain that Java-ists don't understand modules like MLers do.<br> <br> 2020: I also don't think Haskellians understand macros the way Racketeers do.<br> <br> These programmers are just too lazy to immerse themselves in something novel and truly learn. Now let's do some real work -- Matthias<br> <div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> On May 9, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Grant Rettke wrote:<br> <br> > Java doesn't have a nice module system but most people use IoC<br> > containers for the same thing.<br> ><br> > On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 3:16 PM, J. Ian Johnson <<a href="mailto:ianj@ccs.neu.edu">ianj@ccs.neu.edu</a>> wrote:<br> >> The abstractions and protections an API can provide are entirely fueled by the language its implementation (and its consumers) is written in, however. Is this not the case?<br> >> -Ian<br> >> ----- Original Message -----<br> >> From: "Grant Rettke" <<a href="mailto:grettke@acm.org">grettke@acm.org</a>><br> >> To: "racket" <<a href="mailto:users@racket-lang.org">users@racket-lang.org</a>><br> >> Sent: Wednesday, May 9, 2012 3:42:06 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern<br> >> Subject: [racket] The value of a language<br> >><br> >> Hi,<br> >><br> >> Hope this is on topic, if it is not a substantive contribution I apologize.<br> >><br> >> I just want to share a conversation from work. Bunch of experienced<br> >> developers who are all very thoughtful reached the conclusion that the<br> >> most important thing in a language choice is the APIs that come with<br> >> it. Basically talking through it, that is the thing that speeds up<br> >> work, and people can basically "think in any language they like" and<br> >> then "mentally compile it down" to whatever is the implementation<br> >> language. I generally agree in a corporate environment because you do<br> >> want save your customers time and therefore money and I have never<br> >> tried a non-mainstream language there such that I had real evidence<br> >> there is a more productive way to do things.<br> >><br> >> This was the same day that I finally read about syntax/parse and was<br> >> thinking about how much nicer it would be to use that than the<br> >> plumbing work I had to do to get nice error reporting, so perhaps I<br> >> was more struck with their observation. It was just funny to hear<br> >> everybody keep saying "the language doesn't matter" because it is so<br> >> different than how I think, and how I think other lispers think, and<br> >> even PLT people in general.<br> >><br> >> I thought this was a funny coincidence because I wanted to talk about<br> >> how great syntax/parse, and well I did talk to my one buddy about it<br> >> :).<br> >><br> >> Best wishes,<br> >><br> >> Grant<br> >><br> >> --<br> >> <a href="http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/" target="_blank">http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/</a><br> >> ACM, AMA, COG, IEEE<br> >> ____________________<br> >> Racket Users list:<br> >> <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/users</a><br> ><br> ><br> ><br> > --<br> > <a href="http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/" target="_blank">http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/</a><br> > ACM, AMA, COG, IEEE<br> ><br> > ____________________<br> > Racket Users list:<br> > <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/users</a><br> <br> <br> ____________________<br> Racket Users list:<br> <a href="http://lists.racket-lang.org/users" target="_blank">http://lists.racket-lang.org/users</a><br> </div></div></blockquote></div><br>