Open source project recommendations
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From: tm on 22 Jun 2010 03:13 On 21 Jun., 17:44, Patricia Shanahan <p...(a)acm.org> wrote: > I'm looking for an open source project to join. My "technical problems" when Firefox is accessing Google groups are gone... :-) Let me explain why I think that supporting a programming language project (and especially Seed7) is important: Languages are an instrument to think. Natural and computer languages provide a way to formulate ideas. How easy an idea can be formulated depends on the capabilities of a language. When new ideas emerge a language might need to be extended. Remember that the only constant thing in life is change. This led to the idea to make extensibility the most basic concept of a programming language. When a language is syntactical and semantically extensible all other features can be added sooner or later by using extensions. Most languages are extended by using ad hoc extensions for the syntax and the compiler. In the long run this is a wrong way. Syntactic and semantic extensions should fit into a structured concept. Otherwise a language and its compiler are in danger to become unmaintainable. Seed7 has several areas which need improvement. E.g.: - A database interface. Here I suggest something in the direction of LINQ. It is IMHO important to integrate database statements in Seed7 to avoid SQL-Injection. Sending unchecked strings as database commands from the user level should be avoided (or even prohibited). - Integrating a widget library (or inventing a new one) without complicated concepts with events and event loops (this should be hidden somehow). - Interface to OpenGL/Mesa (Complexities and OS/library differences should be hidden in a thin layer). - Checking and improving the documentation (this is a good first step to get understanding of Seed7 and its concepts). - Introduce statements with curly braces (many people are opposing Seed7 and don't have a closer look just because it is not a curly brace language). - Provide a mechanism such that Seed7 functions can be called from other programming languages. - Of course you can choose whatever you want. Be prepared to get stiff opposition when you decide for Seed7. New programming languages start in a hostile world and fans of existing programming languages fight against it from the first announcement. If you want to make a better world and don't fear the language competition Seed7 is the right project for you. :-) Please give me some feedback. Greetings Thomas Mertes Seed7 Homepage: http://seed7.sourceforge.net Seed7 - The extensible programming language: User defined statements and operators, abstract data types, templates without special syntax, OO with interfaces and multiple dispatch, statically typed, interpreted or compiled, portable, runs under linux/unix/windows.
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 22 Jun 2010 04:19 "Alf P. Steinbach /Usenet" <alf.p.steinbach+usenet(a)gmail.com> writes: > * Patricia Shanahan, on 21.06.2010 21:22: >> Simon Brooke wrote: >>> On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:44:58 -0700, Patricia Shanahan wrote: >>> >>>> I'm looking for an open source project to join. I want to get back to >>>> the challenge of non-trivial programming. After years of solo work on my >>>> dissertation research, I would like to be part of a team. Also, just >>>> doing programming exercises to keep my hand in seems a waste of my >>>> skills. > > With Thunderbird 3.0 the Mozilla folks introduced a lot of undesirable > functionality, in particular messing up quoting. When you quote source > code, and the original message has "flowed" text format (this is where > a space at the end of line indicates a continuing paragraph), then the > beast now collapses every sequence of spaces to a single space, except > indentation, which it removes completely. It's merely Very Bad for > quoting C++. It's completely unaccceptable for quoting Python, where > indentation is significant. Modify python to remove the signifiance of spaces. One good solution would be to use parentheses. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
From: Alessio Stalla on 22 Jun 2010 05:29 On Jun 21, 10:43 pm, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > Patricia Shanahan <p...(a)acm.org> writes: > > I'm looking for an open source project to join. I want to get back to > > the challenge of non-trivial programming. After years of solo work on my > > dissertation research, I would like to be part of a team. Also, just > > doing programming exercises to keep my hand in seems a waste of my skills. > > > My main requirement is an active project, with a team that works > > together, and multiple users outside the team. I am willing learn any > > required programming languages or libraries, though I am currently most > > fluent in Java. > > > I have 32 years experience in the computer industry, including work on > > compilers, operating systems, and multiprocessor computer architecture. > > I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at UCSD last December, with a > > 4.0 GPA on the coursework. > > > I would contribute to a suitable project in whatever way would be most > > useful, including programming and bug fixing, but the more technical > > challenge the better. > > > Any recommendations? > > You could work on ABCL or CLforJava, two Common Lisp implementations > targetting the JVM. > > http://abcl.sourceforge.net > http://clforjava.org/ I can speak for ABCL: I think it is a nice project to work on. Being an implementation of a programming language it has its share of technical challenges, including improving the compiler (for example by adding proper type inference). The team is small (I'd say 4 regular contributors) and the users are few (but growing! :) I also think a Common Lisp running natively on the .Net CLR is sorely missing. A port of ABCL would be neat! And I'd be willing to collaborate :) > Or even Clojure. > > http://clojure.org/ If I had time, I would have ported Clojure's functional data structures and concurrent constructs to ABCL. That would be another cool project :) Cheers, Alessio Stalla
From: Lew on 22 Jun 2010 08:01 tm wrote: > Be prepared to get stiff opposition when you decide for Seed7. New > programming languages start in a hostile world and fans of existing > programming languages fight against it from the first announcement. I don't recall that happening with FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, C, C++, C# or Java. Nor, for that matter, with Forth or LISP. Kinda hard to substantiate a thesis with that many counterexamples. -- Lew One should never generalize.
From: tm on 22 Jun 2010 08:41
On 22 Jun., 14:01, Lew <no...(a)lewscanon.com> wrote: > tm wrote: > > Be prepared to get stiff opposition when you decide for Seed7. New > > programming languages start in a hostile world and fans of existing > > programming languages fight against it from the first announcement. > > I don't recall that happening with FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, C, C++, C# or Java. AFAIK these languages had support from big companies (with big budgets. E.g.: C# and Java), universities or the military (E.g.: COBOL). With an PR budget and other backing the success of this languages is not a miracle. Your answer shows what I said. Instead of looking at something new with an open mind (and discuss the proposed ideas) you concentrate on an unimportant paragraph and try to nail me down. Okay, you won. I was wrong and take the last paragraph back. It is possible to talk about the other ideas now. Greetings Thomas Mertes Seed7 Homepage: http://seed7.sourceforge.net Seed7 - The extensible programming language: User defined statements and operators, abstract data types, templates without special syntax, OO with interfaces and multiple dispatch, statically typed, interpreted or compiled, portable, runs under linux/unix/windows. |