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From: BGB / cr88192 on 23 Feb 2010 07:32 "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb(a)informatimago.com> wrote in message news:877hq4z1ia.fsf(a)galatea.lan.informatimago.com... > "BGB / cr88192" <cr88192(a)hotmail.com> writes: > >> "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb(a)informatimago.com> wrote in message >> news:87d3zx5kar.fsf(a)galatea.lan.informatimago.com... >>> "BGB / cr88192" <cr88192(a)hotmail.com> writes: >>> >>>> the problem though is that neither are commonly used or "accepted" >>>> languages >>>> in the same sense as C, C++, Java, C#, ... >>>> >>>> how does one justify that they use them?... >>>> why should it matter?... >>> >>> How do you justify using English? It is not commonly used or >>> "accepted" a language, in the same sense as Chinese or Spanish... >>> >> >> it is in the US, and commonly understood in most of the rest of the >> world... >> it is also within the top 10... >> >> also, a person doesn't have nearly the same level of free choice WRT >> natural >> language, since even if they could use a different language, no one in >> their >> immediate area would understand them, and they would be alone in having >> tried to do so... >> >> for example, in the US, people can look to the government, the >> educational >> system, to companies like Microsoft, Oracle, AOL-Time-Warner, ... and >> have a >> fairly solid justification for being an English-speaker... >> >> >> although not necessarily so positive can be said for matters of >> ethnicity, >> ... but even then one may not find it without merit, and hell, one can't >> change ones' own existence (regardless of ones' own or others' opinions >> WRT >> ones' heritage, better than hiding off in some corner somewhere terrified >> that history will repeat itself or that ones' enemies will prevail...). >> >> >> well, anyways, don't get me wrong. >> I don't personally have anything against Scheme... >> >> or such... > > It would have been funnier if you had impersonated Wong Tin from Beijin, > or just taken a more global standpoint ;-) > ?... > Even in the USA, English is disappearing in favor of Spanish (which is > why I mentionned it), so your justification is not only localized in > space, but also in time. Soon enough it'll be harder to justify. I'm > told that in South California it's already hard enough. > well, I am not currently in California... I am currently in Arizona. before that, I was living in Guam, where English was one of around several languages in common use: English; Chamorro; Chuukese; Tagalog; Japanese; Chinese; .... here, however, English was sort of the natural glue language, as most could speak and understand it, but rarely could they directly speak and understand each-others native languages. > > Anyways, back to programming languages, if you don't care that they > speak Chinese in Beijin, why should you care they use C, C++, Java or C# > at Microsoft or AOL-Time-Warner? Are you there in the job market, or > are you here to learn something and having fun with programming? > well, I am mostly an open-source / hobbyist type person... however, corporations, ... are sort of like authorities on the matter. good enough for them, good enough for individuals. if the language were so obscure that corporations didn't use it, then one would have a problem, but many large corporations do use it... so, MS, ... can endorse ones' merit to be an English speaker... as for PL's in use at corporations, maybe so. but, these same languages hold dominance in open-source as well (although I suspect C# has much weaker grounds here, possibly owing to the existing O/S implementations leaving some to be desired, its association with MS, ...). much the same, Chinese can look to the PRC goverment or similar to endorse their language, FWIW... but, alas, I am aware my ancestors used other languages. many used a language which has any more ceased to exist. others used a language which fell into disuse millenia ago, but was revived from old text and used as the official language of a certain country, ... or such... > > -- > __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 23 Feb 2010 08:29 "BGB / cr88192" <cr88192(a)hotmail.com> writes: > I am currently in Arizona. > [...] > well, I am mostly an open-source / hobbyist type person... > [...] > however, corporations, ... are sort of like authorities on the matter. > good enough for them, good enough for individuals. Of course not. What is good in Arizona is of no use in New York, and what is good for corporation is of no use for individuals. > if the language were so obscure that corporations didn't use it, then one > would have a problem, but many large corporations do use it... so, MS, ... > can endorse ones' merit to be an English speaker... > > as for PL's in use at corporations, maybe so. And even in the case of corporations, they're multidinuous entities, with various needs for different kinds of programming and programming languages. Perhaps the army of monkeys is using Java, but there are groups or individuals even inside corporations that will use other technologies to reach other subgoals, and this includes less known languages such as lisp, smalltalk, or even haskell. There are even corporations who use proportionaly much more these languages than the popular ones (but admitedly, they have other goals than the common corporations). What I'm telling you is to use the language that fit your needs, not a language that fits the needs of other entities, be they individual, corporations or aliens. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: cr88192 on 23 Feb 2010 10:07 "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb(a)informatimago.com> wrote in message news:87zl30xepn.fsf(a)galatea.lan.informatimago.com... > "BGB / cr88192" <cr88192(a)hotmail.com> writes: > >> I am currently in Arizona. >> [...] >> well, I am mostly an open-source / hobbyist type person... >> [...] >> however, corporations, ... are sort of like authorities on the matter. >> good enough for them, good enough for individuals. > > Of course not. What is good in Arizona is of no use in New York, and > what is good for corporation is of no use for individuals. > NY does most of the same stuff as AZ though, and so most things relevant in one are relevant in the other... corporations though are usually motivated both by profit and by practicality, and so, as a general rule, what is done by corporations can be used as a model of the way things are to be done, be it programming or dress or family life or whatever (granted, this is below that of any requirements made by ones' religion, which may partially determine matters of ethics, dress, family life, ...). > >> if the language were so obscure that corporations didn't use it, then one >> would have a problem, but many large corporations do use it... so, MS, >> ... >> can endorse ones' merit to be an English speaker... >> >> as for PL's in use at corporations, maybe so. > > And even in the case of corporations, they're multidinuous entities, > with various needs for different kinds of programming and programming > languages. Perhaps the army of monkeys is using Java, but there are > groups or individuals even inside corporations that will use other > technologies to reach other subgoals, and this includes less known > languages such as lisp, smalltalk, or even haskell. There are even > corporations who use proportionaly much more these languages than the > popular ones (but admitedly, they have other goals than the common > corporations). > granted, but one is still motivated by practical concerns in each case. for example, Scheme may work well in particular tasks, and there its use is no problem. however, using it as the general PL or to the exclusion of other options would not be of much practical benefit... similarly, one faces larger problems if one is intending actually to endorse it, since not so many people are motivated, for example, by S-Exps, ... > > What I'm telling you is to use the language that fit your needs, not a > language that fits the needs of other entities, be they individual, > corporations or aliens. > it is tradeoffs I think... using common and accepted technologies may provide a better net payoff than would using a different technology providing a better immediate payoff but leading to maintainence issues later on...
From: Dan on 25 Feb 2010 12:18 On Feb 23, 2:31 am, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > "BGB / cr88192" <cr88...(a)hotmail.com> writes: > Even in the USA, English is disappearing in favor of Spanish (which is > why I mentionned it), so your justification is not only localized in > space, but also in time. Soon enough it'll be harder to justify. I'm > told that in South California it's already hard enough. I wouldn't use your particular spoken language analogy here. Spanish is about as close to replacing English in the US as it is to replacing Chinese in China ( of course, I'm assuming here that it's not taking over in China ). Dan :-)
From: BGB / cr88192 on 26 Feb 2010 11:51
"Dan" <dantex1(a)aol.com> wrote in message news:79be3aba-e4b3-41b2-b96b-f050cdd9885c(a)k6g2000prg.googlegroups.com... On Feb 23, 2:31 am, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > "BGB / cr88192" <cr88...(a)hotmail.com> writes: > Even in the USA, English is disappearing in favor of Spanish (which is > why I mentionned it), so your justification is not only localized in > space, but also in time. Soon enough it'll be harder to justify. I'm > told that in South California it's already hard enough. <-- I wouldn't use your particular spoken language analogy here. Spanish is about as close to replacing English in the US as it is to replacing Chinese in China ( of course, I'm assuming here that it's not taking over in China ). --> yeah, spoken languages vs programming languages have very different cost/benefit tradeoffs... for example, spoken languages are primarily localized, and often culturally or ethnically related. so, for example, one has several goals: talk to relatives, talk to people around them, ... similarly, the cost of moving from one spoken language to another is very high, ... in this case, an absolute ontology doesn't matter as much. however, common languages are more relevant for addressing a larger audience, for example, it would be better to write something intended for an international audience in English rather than, say, German, Dutch, or Polish... granted, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, and Spanish have more total speakers, but are likely less accepted for international use. I am not sure what the statistics would be like if one were to rank them in terms of "total number of people who can partly understand the language but need not have fluency". English may well have a better standing in this case (as well as its use in many pidgins, ...). programming languages are often much lighter-weight, are naturally much more global, and usually the cost of a person moving from language-to-language is fairly low (although, the same can't usually be said of ones' codebase). so, given these cases, usually one is better off using a very common language, since this gives one a larger potential audience, as well as reducing the likely costs of one migrating their codebase (since it is far more likely that they will not have to convert to another). for example: as for the top languages (C, C++, Java, C#), it can be noted that these languages are typically close enough that there is not "that" much trouble interfacing them. C plays well with C++, and can be easily coerced into "being" C++ if needed; C++ is backwards compatible with C, and can interface with C# (via C++/CLI, which can also be used to coerce C code into .NET-land); Java is generally capable of interfacing with C (although it is crufty...), and can interface with C# via J#; C# is partway between Java and C++, and so allows some level of transition (of both programmers and code), ... but, anyways, if one moves much outside this circle, the interface/conversion cost becomes much larger (the amount of effort needed to interface becomes larger, and the cost of code-conversion becomes essentially requiring a full rewrite). so, one may find that, for example, even though a language like Scheme or Lisp is fairly clean and elegant, can do lots of interesting stuff, ... it tends to be a bit distant from the C-family languages in most regards, which is a bit of a hinderance for most "non-trivial" uses. granted, they work decent in compiler IL's, and for smaller special-purpose uses, but not really as a good "bulk language" (for example, a 500 kloc or 1 Mloc codebase in Scheme would likely be just asking for pain later on...). at most a few kloc "here and there" works much better IME (and in cases where it is essentially "embedded" in the machinery of another component, ....). and, yes, one can implement 1/2 of Common Lisp in C... and, there is also JavaScript, ... so, yeah, I suspect there are reasons all is as it is... |