MetaFilter posts tagged with programminglanguages

Feel your inadequacy

Monday, stony Monday — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:32:54 -0800

If you're like me, you are not a top computer science researcher, and you haven't written a classic book about programming and made it available online for free. Let's review who we're not. We're neither Abelson nor Sussman, and we haven't written Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (previous proof). We're not part of TeachScheme and we had no hand in the writing of How to Design Programs (not even the second edition, natch). Shriram Krishnamurthi didn't need our help to write Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation. We wish we were Simon Peyton-Jones and had a hand in The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages. And since we're in a depressing mood, let's say Van Roy and Haridi are not us, and we have nothing to do with Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming. (not really online...)

Is Haskell Failing?

Monday, stony Monday — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:38:42 -0800

Haskell has a sort of unofficial slogan: avoid success at all costs says one of its inventors, Simon Peyton-Jones. But will the advanced purely functional programming language[, a]n open source product of more than twenty years of cutting edge research remain true to its roots? Things look rather bleak for the obscurity of Haskell. In the wake of Peyton-Jones's own A taste of Haskell, and with the imminent publication of Real World Haskell by O'Reilly and the emergence of the Haskell Platform, comes BONUS's fun, colorfully illustrated Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!. (Somewhat reminiscent of why's (poignant) guide to Ruby [previously], but a little less, er, exhuberant.) If you read Proggit and LtU, you've already seen all this. Also, sorry inverted-pyramid lovers.

A mouthful of bytecode

Skorgu — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 07:57:16 -0800

Bytecode-based virtual machines are the Next Big Thing in programming. You can run Lisp, Ruby, Python, OCaml, and yes even COBOL on the JVM. Or if you prefer your languages to be a bit more melodic there's J#, A#, P# and F#. Even C/C++ has a bytecode compiler now. That's not to mention languages that have their own VMs like Erlang or that are writing their own like Parrot or PyPy. Some background for the confused: Computer programs are traditionally written in human-readable source code then compiled to computer-executable machine code. Bytecode is a sort of halfway point between the two. It's not human readable but neither is it tied to a specific architecture like compiled code is. Java is the canonical example: a program written in Java will run on any machine that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) from your desktop to your cellphone. With bytecode-targeted compilers programmers can write in their favorite language without being limited by the libraries and compilers written for it and have those programs run anywhere there's an appropriate VM.

Stop End

alms — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:49:28 -0800

John W. Backus, creator of Fortran, RIP

rschram — Wed, 13 Jun 2001 17:22:08 -0800

NYT celebrates 40 (or so) years of FORTRAN
The computer language that started it all is remembered in this breezy Times article (reg. req.'d.). [I think it has to do with some recent reunion of original team-members, but any contemporary event to rationalize printing this is buried in the copy.] Do something high-level with your computer today to commemorate. Here's an ibiblio.org text with more information.