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The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come!

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  The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 15:59 -0700
    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 09:38 +1000
      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 16:46 -0700
        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2011-07-02 20:09 -0500
      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 17:21 -0700
        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 10:36 +1000
          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-03 16:06 +1200
        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 17:58 -0700
          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 11:12 +1000
            Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 18:43 -0700
              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 11:49 +1000
                Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 19:24 -0700
                  Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 13:14 +1000
                    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 21:13 -0700
              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 19:08 -0700
                Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-03 15:57 +1200
                  Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 21:34 -0700
                    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-03 14:46 +1000
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-07-03 02:59 -0700
              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-03 16:00 +1200
                Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-02 21:42 -0700
                  Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-07-03 22:06 -0700
                    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-04 09:35 -0700
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 03:19 +1000
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-05 09:24 +1000
                        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-07-04 19:09 -0700
                        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 18:07 -0700
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 12:31 +1000
                          Microsoft GUIs (was: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come!) (OT) Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 23:13 -0500
                          Re: Microsoft GUIs (was: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come!) (OT) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 14:25 +1000
                          Re: Microsoft GUIs Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 23:53 -0500
                          Re: Microsoft GUIs Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 00:29 -0500
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-07-05 22:26 -0700
                          Re: Microsoft GUIs Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 15:43 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 15:47 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-06 19:15 +1200
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-06 21:46 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-07-06 09:55 -0700
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-07-04 19:31 -0700
                        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! sal migondis <salmig99@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 11:14 -0700
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 16:01 -0500
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 08:36 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2011-07-05 22:26 -0700
                            Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-07-07 15:10 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 00:37 -0500
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-06 21:45 +1000
                            Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! sal migondis <salmig99@gmail.com> - 2011-07-08 12:05 -0700
                              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2011-07-08 13:21 -0600
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-07-04 19:36 -0700
                  Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-04 19:36 +1200
                    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 04:42 -0700
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Corey Richardson <kb1pkl@aim.com> - 2011-07-05 12:04 -0400
                        Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-05 15:35 -0700
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 08:49 +1000
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2011-07-05 18:21 -0500
                          Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-06 21:44 +1000
                            Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 06:41 -0700
                              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 23:52 +1000
                                Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Neil Cerutti <neilc@norwich.edu> - 2011-07-06 15:13 +0000
                              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-07 00:55 +1000
                                Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> - 2011-07-06 08:33 -0700
                              Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2011-07-06 19:55 +0300
                      Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2011-07-06 19:05 +1200
    Re: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come! Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-07-03 13:21 +1000

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#8725

On Jul 2, 11:00 pm, Gregory Ewing <greg.ew...@canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> rantingrick wrote:
> > Ruby: for x in blah: blah_blah_blah
> > Python: for x in blah: blah_blah_blah
>
> Here you're making the mistake of thinking that surface syntax
> is all that matters. Although the 'for' statements in Python and
> Ruby look very similar, underneath they're based on quite
> different mechanisms. They're not equivalent: the Python way
> leads to various powerful things such as generators; the Ruby
> way lends itself more to user-defined control structures.

I agree however i see merit in both approaches. But why must we have
completely different languages just for that those two approaches? We
don't it's just a religious thing.  Doesn't make sense to me. If Guido
and Matz got together over some sake and Monty Python i'll bet they
could hash out a singular replacement fro Ruby and Python in no time!

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#8754

rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But why must we have
> completely different languages just for that those two approaches?

Because monocultures die.

Because having broader diversity leads to more evolutionary leaps.

Because the implementations are so fundamentally different.

Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
different implementations.

Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
different syntax & semantics.

Because learning different approaches expands your appreciation of &
informs your understanding of both.

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#8775

On Jul 4, 12:06 am, alex23 <wuwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > But why must we have
> > completely different languages just for that those two approaches?
>
> Because monocultures die.

That's an interesting statement Alex (even though you parrot it
constantly). So what IS a mono culture exactly? Lemme see...

   """A single, homogeneous culture without diversity or dissension.
"""

Interesting. Would you consider the Python community to be a
monoculture? We are working towards a singular goal so i would say so.
We should be working towards the language that is best for all but
instead we are working towards the language that is best for US.

How about the Ruby community?

Here's a good one; How about the programming community? These groups
would ALL classify as monocultures Alex. So why are they NOT dying?
Well maybe they are and you just cannot see past your own nose (it
does get fairly long from time to time you know).

I believe (unlike most people) that nature is striving for perfection
NOT for diversity. Diversity is just a byproduct of feeble attempts to
GUESS the correct answer. Here is a thought exercise for the advanced
reader...Which is more efficient; Numerous groups working to create
languages that satisfy their selfish needs OR one group of all the
bright minds working to destroy multiplicity and bring about the one
true language that meets the needs of productivity?

In order to achieve perfection we must propagate unity within the
system and we must destroy multiplicity with a vengeance. We must
unite to defeat multiplicity and in doing so we create innovation.
That is the job of intelligent agents, to BRING ORDER TO THE NATURAL
CHAOS OF THIS UNIVERSE! Your natural instincts are of propagating
diversity (read as selfishness) HOWEVER the future exists only in
unity.

What do you think will be the eventual outcome of the human existence
Alex? Since you have no imagination i will tell you, a singular
intelligence. However an intelligence that is the product of many
"intelligent agents". A unity intelligence if you will. Just think of
it as a botnet alex, i am sure you have plenty of experience in this
area!

> Because having broader diversity leads to more evolutionary leaps.

Do you think that if we combine all the worthwhile attributes of the
high level languages that somehow everyone is just going to accept
that forever? No, of course not. HOWEVER instead of splitting off into
sects (and damaging our hive mind capabilities) we need to focus our
efforts on one goal... CREATING THE BEST LANGUAGE WE CAN AT ANY ONE
TIME IN HISTORY... and we will all learn TOGETHER not APART. Diversity
only propagates multiplicity and slows our evolution Alex. It is
selflessness on a grand scale.

> Because the implementations are so fundamentally different.

In the big picture that's untrue. Between say Ruby and Python you a
few LARGE differences and many SMALL differences (and even some
replication). I propose that we combine the Ruby and Python languages
using all the best ideas, however dropping the multiplicity.

> Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
> different implementations.

Why can they not explore within the hive mind? Why must they hide
their explorations from the greater group. SELFISHNESS

Here is another thought exercise for the advanced reader. Remember in
the old days when furniture was crafted by hand? Not only was the
furniture EXPENSIVE it was also scarce to come by. Why was this the
case. Because human nature is to be selfish. And our selfishness slows
evolution. But one day some very intelligent chap realized that he
could build furniture not only faster but cheaper by using the
assembly line. Now we have furniture stores on practically every
corner at prices almost anyone can afford. Yes i realize "some" of the
products are not of good quality but that is a result of economics
(and greed) not unity.

> Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
> different syntax & semantics.

We should have nailed down syntax and semantics long ago alex! This
should have been step one. No instead we have groupA, groupB, and
groupC still fighting about what is best for their selfish needs
without concerning themselves wit the big picture. It's not what is
best for ME, NO, it's what is best for US.

 * What syntax is most widely intuitive?
 * What semantics are the best for productivity?
 * etc...

> Because learning different approaches expands your appreciation of &
> informs your understanding of both.

Yes, and i agree. But instead of learning in small groups we need to
learn together. Of course we are going to make mistakes along the way.
Heck we may even have to re write the whole spec a time or two. But i
would argue that the chances of making mistakes decrease as the number
of agents increase. I dunno, have you ever heard of a little thing
called Open Source Software. Where people from all over the world
maintain a piece of software. AMAZING HUH? Just imagine if we combined
all the best people from all the current languages. There is your
diversity Alex, however sadly, you have no imagination to see it.

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#8778

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 2:35 AM, rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe (unlike most people) that nature is striving for perfection
> NOT for diversity. Diversity is just a byproduct of feeble attempts to
> GUESS the correct answer. Here is a thought exercise for the advanced
> reader...Which is more efficient; Numerous groups working to create
> languages that satisfy their selfish needs OR one group of all the
> bright minds working to destroy multiplicity and bring about the one
> true language that meets the needs of productivity?

You assume that there is one right answer. I'm not sure whether this
is provably wrong or just utterly unfounded, but I see no reason to
believe that it is so.

> In order to achieve perfection we must propagate unity within the
> system and we must destroy multiplicity with a vengeance. We must
> unite to defeat multiplicity and in doing so we create innovation.
> That is the job of intelligent agents, to BRING ORDER TO THE NATURAL
> CHAOS OF THIS UNIVERSE!

You join a long line of Lawful Evil villains who have made that
statement. Look at such as Darth Vader, is that your goal? Bringing
order to the universe even if it means choking it to death? Yes,
humans will tend to bring orderliness to what used to be chaotic. But
this cannot be the ultimate goal; order is but a means to an end. What
end? What IS the end of programming? Is it not productivity?

> What do you think will be the eventual outcome of the human existence
> Alex? Since you have no imagination i will tell you, a singular
> intelligence. However an intelligence that is the product of many
> "intelligent agents". A unity intelligence if you will. Just think of
> it as a botnet alex, i am sure you have plenty of experience in this
> area!

Thanks. Mind if I borrow your crystal ball for a moment? Seems to be a
good one, since you can see *with certainty* the eventual outcome of
all humans. I can't help thinking, though, that you're aligning
yourself with villains again - in this case the Borg.

> Do you think that if we combine all the worthwhile attributes of the
> high level languages that somehow everyone is just going to accept
> that forever? No, of course not. HOWEVER instead of splitting off into
> sects (and damaging our hive mind capabilities) we need to focus our
> efforts on one goal... CREATING THE BEST LANGUAGE WE CAN AT ANY ONE
> TIME IN HISTORY... and we will all learn TOGETHER not APART. Diversity
> only propagates multiplicity and slows our evolution Alex. It is
> selflessness on a grand scale.

Once again, you assume that there is one ultimate language, just
waiting to be discovered/developed. One language which will be perfect
in every way, for every purpose.

> Why can they not explore within the hive mind? Why must they hide
> their explorations from the greater group. SELFISHNESS

If they explore anything that the whole hive isn't doing, they're
making that disagreement again. Suppose we had that one language that
I described earlier - the "clean slate representation" (CSR, but
that's just syntactic sugar - if you'll pardon the awful pun) one
where the only thing you have is "define operator". We then, as a
single unified collective hive mind unity, develop a Standard Library
for this language. Putting "#include std" or "import std" or whatever
at the top of your code gives you a fairly normal set of things you
can do. Well and good; we all use the same language. As soon as anyone
explores anything within that language that hasn't yet been done, he
has created a new dialect - a new language, if you will. It's right
back with what you are ripping on, except that we now call it the same
language.

> We should have nailed down syntax and semantics long ago alex! This
> should have been step one. No instead we have groupA, groupB, and
> groupC still fighting about what is best for their selfish needs
> without concerning themselves wit the big picture. It's not what is
> best for ME, NO, it's what is best for US.

Actually no. It's still about what's best for ME. I can't think of
what would be best for you - you're the best one to think about that.
Open source actually encourages and allows selfishness in ways that
are far too awkward else; groupA can code to groupA's needs, then
groupB adds code to that to make it do what groupB needs, and offers
their enhancements back to the world, meaning that groupC need only
code what groupC needs.

>  * What syntax is most widely intuitive?
>  * What semantics are the best for productivity?
>  * etc...

These are subjective questions. I happen to be able to work very well
with a bracey language, but other people can't. To me, Pike was
incredibly intuitive, because it has so many similarities to languages
I already know. To someone who knows only lisp, that would not be the
case. Incidentally, your questions cross-multiply too: What semantics
are more intuitive, and what syntax is best for productivity? Four
good questions.

> Yes, and i agree. But instead of learning in small groups we need to
> learn together.

Do you mean literally? Huge classrooms good, individual/small-group
learning bad? That's provably empirically wrong. But if not that, then
what?

> Of course we are going to make mistakes along the way.
> Heck we may even have to re write the whole spec a time or two.

Yep, and code will be written for older versions of the spec. The way
you're talking, it'd likely be a LOT more than Py2 vs Py3, with lots
of installations and lots of programmers preferring to stick to the
old language. Or are you planning to somehow force everyone to upgrade
to the latest?

> But i
> would argue that the chances of making mistakes decrease as the number
> of agents increase. I dunno, have you ever heard of a little thing
> called Open Source Software. Where people from all over the world
> maintain a piece of software. AMAZING HUH? Just imagine if we combined
> all the best people from all the current languages. There is your
> diversity Alex, however sadly, you have no imagination to see it.

I'd say all the best people for Language X are already there. And all
the best people for Language Y are already _there_. There's a lot of
people who would be good in multiple communities, and guess what?
They're already IN multiple communities. These things have a way of
sorting themselves out.

There cannot be one perfect language for everything, unless that
language is so flexible that it is nothing. I retract my earlier
statement that the "universal language" is C; no, it goes back
further. The universal language is a text editor where you write your
source code. You then run it through the universal compiler called
"make", which figures out what to do with your source. You then run it
on the universal hardware... oh. Well, make can figure out the
hardware too, so we'll pretend it's universal. Is this one language?

At work, I have SciTE holding several files in separate tabs - they
might be C++, Python, Lua, Javascript, Pike, the Makefile, and a plain
text file where I keep my notes. SciTE edits all of them (although
it's less intelligent with the languages it doesn't know). In any of
them, I can hit F7 to compile the current file and deploy it to my
test-box. Does that mean they're all one language?

Different languages have different purposes. As I found out recently,
trying to use Python in a situation where you need to sandbox
user-supplied code is a bad idea; I ended up with a p0wned test-box
and a lot of egg on my face, and it's only because the Python
community is intelligent adults that we didn't have some rather nasty
consequences. (That box failed the test, but it was an incredibly
successful test. We learned the painful truth that we needed to hear.)

Has anyone ever used a very-high-level language (like Python or Ruby
or Lua) to write, say, a video driver? There is a place for the
languages that take most of the work away from the programmer, and a
place for languages that basically give you the hardware and say "have
fun". There will never be a universal language that does both jobs
perfectly. *returns the crystal ball*

Chris Angelico

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#8799

rantingrick wrote:

> On Jul 4, 12:06 am, alex23 <wuwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > But why must we have
>> > completely different languages just for that those two approaches?
>>
>> Because monocultures die.
> 
> That's an interesting statement Alex (even though you parrot it
> constantly). So what IS a mono culture exactly? Lemme see...
> 
>    """A single, homogeneous culture without diversity or dissension.
> """
> 
> Interesting. Would you consider the Python community to be a
> monoculture? We are working towards a singular goal so i would say so.

We are? Certainly not.

Some people want to make Python more dynamic. Some want it to be less
dynamic. Some care about integrating it with Java or .Net, some don't care
about either. Some are interested in clever optimization tricks, some
oppose adding any more complexity.

Some want it to be faster, and are happy to throw more memory at it to do
so. Some want it to use less memory, because on embedded devices and smart
phones memory is the bottleneck, not time.

Some only program in Python. Some treat Python as merely one language out of
many that they use.

Some come to Python from the C/C++ community, and their wants are influenced
by C. Some come to Python from Lisp, Scheme or Haskell, and their wants are
influenced by functional programming ideas. Some have never programmed
before, and don't know want they want.


> We should be working towards the language that is best for all but

Define "best for all", and try not to make it "what Rick wants".


No, Python is not a monoculture. There are the Stackless, Jython, PyPy and
IronPython sub-cultures, all with their own needs, wants and desires. There
are sub-cultures for embedded devices and smart phones, sub-cultures for
those who use Python as a teaching language, for web development, for GUI
development, and for system administration. There are the Numpy and Scipy
sub-cultures, sub-cultures in the fields of linguistics and biology.


> I believe (unlike most people) that nature is striving for perfection
> NOT for diversity. 

Nature isn't striving for anything. 

Rick, you think that you're an iconoclast bravely swimming against the tide
of wrong-headed public opinion, but what you believe is not new and it is
not a minority view. It is old, obsolete, and the vast majority of people
with no modern biology education believe something like it. It is,
essentially, just the Victorian concept of the "Great Chain of Being" --
not that it was unique to the Victorians, of course.


> Diversity is just a byproduct of feeble attempts to 
> GUESS the correct answer. Here is a thought exercise for the advanced
> reader...Which is more efficient; Numerous groups working to create
> languages that satisfy their selfish needs OR one group of all the
> bright minds working to destroy multiplicity and bring about the one
> true language that meets the needs of productivity?

The first: numerous groups. Anything else is false efficiency. If you think
otherwise, you have seriously missed the point.

Efficiency requires that all needs are met first. "The most efficient way to
build a house" is NOT "Don't build a house, live in a cardboard box, it's
cheaper". Who cares if it is cheaper or not, it's not a house, and doesn't
meet the required needs.

Since needs are frequently in opposition (e.g. the speed/memory trade-off),
a single "true language" must be a compromise language that leaves nobody
happy. Or some dictator (Rick?) declares that such-and-such a set of
features is, by definition, the "perfect" language and those who want
something else have to miss out.

Imagine a world where *every* shop was Walmart. That would be good for
Walmart, but terrible for everyone else. That's Rick's plan for
programming.

Screw that. We don't want "the perfect language", because there is no such
thing and there is no point in wanting square circles or five-sided
triangles or invisible pink unicorns. And even if we did, we wouldn't want
YOUR idea of the perfect language.

Rick, stop trying to "help" the community with these over-reaching grand
schemes that nobody but you wants, that always involve you telling everyone
else that they have to build the system you think you want. Go do something
useful.



-- 
Steven

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#8808

On Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:24:00 +1000, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> declaimed the following in
gmane.comp.python.general:

> 
> Rick, stop trying to "help" the community with these over-reaching grand
> schemes that nobody but you wants, that always involve you telling everyone
> else that they have to build the system you think you want. Go do something
> useful.
> 

	I shouldn't do this, but that last sentence just begs to be
continued...

	... like /build/ this supposed perfect system, and see if the world
beats a path to your (R^2) door.
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
        wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#8883

On Jul 4, 6:24 pm, Steven D'Aprano <steve
+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote:
> rantingrick wrote:

> Some people want to make Python more dynamic. Some want it to be less
> dynamic. Some care about integrating it with Java or .Net, some don't care
> about either. Some are interested in clever optimization tricks, some
> oppose adding any more complexity.
>
> Some want it to be faster, and are happy to throw more memory at it to do
> so. Some want it to use less memory, because on embedded devices and smart
> phones memory is the bottleneck, not time.
>
> Some only program in Python. Some treat Python as merely one language out of
> many that they use.
>
> Some come to Python from the C/C++ community, and their wants are influenced
> by C. Some come to Python from Lisp, Scheme or Haskell, and their wants are
> influenced by functional programming ideas. Some have never programmed
> before, and don't know want they want.

And are any of them getting what they want? No. And they should not.
(stay tuned for the reason "why not")

> Define "best for all", and try not to make it "what Rick wants".

You want features? And remember i am talking about scripting/glue
level languages here. Something to replace Python, Ruby, Perl,
JavaScript, etc, etc not some "pie-in-the-sky",  "single-answer-to-all-
our-problems" pipe dream language.

 * Intuitive syntax.
 * Productivity friendly.
 * Complex enough to solve large problems but simple enough for simple
problems (that does include extending into C when needed)
 * Multi paradigm (problem
 * Promotes a culture of code readability (because people read source;
not just machines!).
 * there is always more.
 * we all know this list steven!

> No, Python is not a monoculture. There are the Stackless, Jython, PyPy and
> IronPython sub-cultures, all with their own needs, wants and desires. There
> are sub-cultures for embedded devices and smart phones, sub-cultures for
> those who use Python as a teaching language, for web development, for GUI
> development, and for system administration. There are the Numpy and Scipy
> sub-cultures, sub-cultures in the fields of linguistics and biology.

Hmm. Just think how far ahead we would be if these folks would stop
trying to support petty differences and focus on a singular Python
language?

But let's not kid ourselves here!

This problem is far bigger than python. Selfishness infests every
group of humans on this planet. Why do we need multiple OS's? Just so
one can say "\" is the proper file path sep and someone else can say
"/" is the proper one! Are you kidding me?

Look at the multiplicity. Look at the asinine nature of it all and for
once in your life join the group that is the future of human
evolution, not the evolutionary dead-end! BTW: Tell Lucy i said hello!


> Nature isn't striving for anything.
> [...]
> what you believe is not new and it is
> not a minority view. It is old, obsolete,

Before you go out babbling about "concepts" you should understand what
these "concepts" are; or at least at the minimum read the freaking
Wiki! My statements are in no way remotely related to "Great Chain of
Being" and this feeble attempt to prove so is obviously another one of
your half stuffed straw-men arguments.

> and the vast majority of people
> with no modern biology education believe something like it.

You sure presume to know quite a lot about "uneducated people". Do you
know these folks personally? Do you chit-chat with them on the subway
or whilst sharing a Frappuccino?

> Since needs are frequently in opposition (e.g. the speed/memory trade-off),
> a single "true language" must be a compromise language that leaves nobody
> happy.

Oh Steven, that's just your fear of unity acting out again. Yes,
what's good for the group will not *always* be good for you, or me, or
xah lee! But what matters is progress. Not your selfish needs Steven.

> Or some dictator (Rick?) declares that such-and-such a set of
> features is, by definition, the "perfect" language and those who want
> something else have to miss out.

I have never held myself out as some sort of dictator. These decisions
must be made in a democratic manner. This is FUD.

> Imagine a world where *every* shop was Walmart. That would be good for
> Walmart, but terrible for everyone else. That's Rick's plan for
> programming.

You know Steven, wal-mart is a very successful company. And wal-mart
meets the needs of the many. Again you fail to see the truth behind
the curtain. If (as you say) wal-mart really is such a bad company and
it's existence is hurting "the many"... then explain to the class (if
you can) why wal mart is the most successful retail chain in the
history of the world?

We are listening...

Do you realize that without customers buying products that wal-mart
could never get to this pinnacle of retail success? If you are
correct, then people buy from wal-mart even though wal-mart is "bad"
for them. Please explain this reversal of reality Steven because i
think you are watching too much MTV and it's rotting your brain.

> Go do something useful.
Well i might just go to wal-mart!

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#8885

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:07 AM, rantingrick <rantingrick@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 4, 6:24 pm, Steven D'Aprano <steve
> +comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote:
>> Define "best for all", and try not to make it "what Rick wants".
>
> You want features? And remember i am talking about scripting/glue
> level languages here. Something to replace Python, Ruby, Perl,
> JavaScript, etc, etc not some "pie-in-the-sky",  "single-answer-to-all-
> our-problems" pipe dream language.
>
>  * Intuitive syntax.
Subjective.

>  * Productivity friendly.
Depends heavily on the task at hand. HQ9+ is extremely productivity
friendly if you're trying to write a quine.

>  * Complex enough to solve large problems but simple enough for simple
> problems (that does include extending into C when needed)
Subjective. Any Turing-complete language is technically complex enough
to solve large problems, but would you care to write a web browser in
Ook?

>  * Multi paradigm (problem
?

>  * Promotes a culture of code readability (because people read source;
> not just machines!).
from __future__ import braces # this'll make it more readable for C programmers

>> No, Python is not a monoculture. There are the Stackless, Jython, PyPy and
>> etc etc
>
> Hmm. Just think how far ahead we would be if these folks would stop
> trying to support petty differences and focus on a singular Python
> language?

Imagine how much faster we'd all reach our destinations if whenever I
push my car's accelerator, it moves every car in the world the same
distance in the same direction!

> This problem is far bigger than python. Selfishness infests every
> group of humans on this planet. Why do we need multiple OS's? Just so
> one can say "\" is the proper file path sep and someone else can say
> "/" is the proper one! Are you kidding me?

I've said for a while that Microsoft could do far worse than to turn
Windows into a GUI that sits on top of a Unix-derived kernel. They
won't do it, though, because it would be tantamount to admitting both
that Unix is superior to Windows, AND that Apple got it right.

However, if the entire world moved to one kernel, that would be a
spof. That's why the DNS root servers don't all run the same software;
if a flaw were found in BIND that brought everything down, there would
still be three root servers (two of them anycasted) which would be
unaffected.

There's another good reason for diversity, too. Suppose you know only
one language, and you want to verify that your program is producing
correct results. What do you do? You're forced to do the job manually.
If you have a completely different system, you could verify it against
that - for instance, check your Python program by implementing
equivalent functionality in Lua.

> Look at the multiplicity. Look at the asinine nature of it all and for
> once in your life join the group that is the future of human
> evolution, not the evolutionary dead-end! BTW: Tell Lucy i said hello!

You can't know what the future of human evolution is, unless it
involves time travel.

>> Since needs are frequently in opposition (e.g. the speed/memory trade-off),
>> a single "true language" must be a compromise language that leaves nobody
>> happy.
>
> Oh Steven, that's just your fear of unity acting out again. Yes,
> what's good for the group will not *always* be good for you, or me, or
> xah lee! But what matters is progress. Not your selfish needs Steven.

And there you have the nub. Your idea of a perfect language is one
that won't always be good for any particular person. This is where
diversity comes to the fore. I'm currently using Google's V8 engine as
my scripting engine, but I need it to be slightly different - so I
modified it. I have offered the patch back to the community, and it
may or may not end up being accepted, but that is immaterial. Right
here, right now, I am running a modified V8, and it works FOR ME.

What you're saying is that "progress" is more important than any individual...

>> Or some dictator (Rick?) declares that such-and-such a set of
>> features is, by definition, the "perfect" language and those who want
>> something else have to miss out.
>
> I have never held myself out as some sort of dictator. These decisions
> must be made in a democratic manner. This is FUD.

... which is exactly what many dictators have said. However, that is immaterial.

Democracy DOES NOT WORK. Plain and simple. You cannot build a
programming language democratically.

Python has a BDFL. Open Office has had a variety of owners, and when
enough people dislike the current owner, the project forks (eg
LibreOffice). Savoynet is run by Marc Shepherd, who took over in 1998.
All the best commanders listen to people, but ultimately, they make
the decisions. Even in USA politics, where people talk proudly of
living in a democracy, what you actually have is a President who
wields a lot of power.

>> Imagine a world where *every* shop was Walmart. That would be good for
>> Walmart, but terrible for everyone else. That's Rick's plan for
>> programming.
>
> You know Steven, wal-mart is a very successful company. And wal-mart
> meets the needs of the many.

They're cheap, ubiquitous, and convenient. They are NOT the ideal for
every situation. Of course they're successful - that's because they
buy and sell things at a profit. Steven never recommended abolishing
Walmart, just said that it would be bad for people if Walmart were the
only shop anywhere.

> Again you fail to see the truth behind
> the curtain. If (as you say) wal-mart really is such a bad company and
> it's existence is hurting "the many"... then explain to the class (if
> you can) why wal mart is the most successful retail chain in the
> history of the world?

Success just means they're able to make money. Fake pharmaceuticals
companies can make money too; they send out roughly twelve million
emails for every sale they get, but it's still a rip-roaring business.
I doubt you would want all businesses in the world to follow THAT
model.

Walmart may and may not be hurting "the many". They certainly are not
serving "the all". Other shops are also able to make a profit, which
strongly suggests that they, too, are wanted.

> Do you realize that without customers buying products that wal-mart
> could never get to this pinnacle of retail success? If you are
> correct, then people buy from wal-mart even though wal-mart is "bad"
> for them. Please explain this reversal of reality Steven because i
> think you are watching too much MTV and it's rotting your brain.

If Steven is correct, then people buy from other shops because they
are better for them than Walmart is. And that means that trying to
unify ALL shopping under the one company name will be a disaster.

I hope I make myself clear?

ChrisA

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#8891 — Microsoft GUIs (was: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come!) (OT)

On 2011.07.05 09:31 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> I've said for a while that Microsoft could do far worse than to turn
> Windows into a GUI that sits on top of a Unix-derived kernel. They
> won't do it, though, because it would be tantamount to admitting both
> that Unix is superior to Windows, AND that Apple got it right.
In my experience, it's been the GUIs that are awful and the backend
stuff that's been good in Windows. Yes, the NT kernel still has some
long standing bugs, but MS has done well with things that matter to
sysadmins. chkdsk, for example, has been around for ages, but I still
don't know of anything that really beats it. It's certainly saved my ass
on several occasions. MS also bought the Sysinternals suite of software,
and those programs continue to be very good. I've only had a small
amount of experience with it so far, but Powershell seems to be an
excellent tool for admin scripting since it interfaces with WMI so well.
When it comes to things that interface with your average idiot, however,
MS consistently drops the ball. The new interface design they've imposed
on their office suite and Explorer is not only just plain bad, but it's
infectious (and it's the reason the Firefox and Thunderbird default GUI
configurations look horrendous). Another area MS fails it is sensible
defaults. They put tons of effort into increasing security in the
kernel, but don't use the security features (I'll try to come up with
more detail on this later). Explorer /still/ hides known extensions by
default, which /still/ makes it easier for bad people to get their
victims to execute malware. What I think is that MS should focus on the
kernel and encourage others to do their GUIs.

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#8892 — Re: Microsoft GUIs (was: The end to all language wars and the great unity API to come!) (OT)

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 2:13 PM, Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2011.07.05 09:31 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> I've said for a while that Microsoft could do far worse than to turn
>> Windows into a GUI that sits on top of a Unix-derived kernel. They
>> won't do it, though, because it would be tantamount to admitting both
>> that Unix is superior to Windows, AND that Apple got it right.
> In my experience, it's been the GUIs that are awful and the backend
> stuff that's been good in Windows.

Suppose I gave you a computer that had GNOME ported to Windows, and
used the purplish palette that Ubuntu 10.10 uses, and had a Windows
port of bash as its most convenient terminal. Members of this list
will doubtless have no problem duck-typing that as a Linux box (to the
extent of being quite surprised on seeing something that functions
differently).

What is Microsoft selling? They're a company, which means they need to
keep selling stuff year after year. What's saleable in Windows? Is it
the kernel? Maybe, but only by its specs. Far more saleable is the
user-facing parts of the system. Sell them a pretty new GUI with
transparent windows. Sell 'em a fancy new Office that looks and feels
different. Sell a development package that lets programmers use these
same facilities in their own code.

(And of course, sell them bug fixes, by declaring end-of-life on older
products and forcing everyone to move up. But that's different.)

Since XP, the Windows kernel has been mostly reliable. I've had
programs go wrong, and (eventually) managed to kill the process, upon
which everything cleans up fairly nicely. Not that that's really a
boast-worthy feature; I'd call it mandatory these days.

The main reason I would recommend unifying kernels is simplicity. Let
Microsoft play with, and sell, pretty GUIs and pretty apps. Let
someone else worry about what's underneath. As an advantage, it would
then become possible to buy a copy of Windows, run it *under Linux*,
and treat it like a VMWare window.

But it's not likely to happen, and I'm not 100% convinced it'd really
be a good idea (see DNS root servers argument from earlier). It would
make cross-compilation a lot easier, though!

Chris Angelico

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#8893 — Re: Microsoft GUIs

On 2011.07.05 11:25 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> Suppose I gave you a computer that had GNOME ported to Windows, and
> used the purplish palette that Ubuntu 10.10 uses, and had a Windows
> port of bash as its most convenient terminal. Members of this list
> will doubtless have no problem duck-typing that as a Linux box (to the
> extent of being quite surprised on seeing something that functions
> differently).
I would love to see a fully functional KDE running on Windows (this is
being worked on, but development has been slow and rough). I was talking
about GUI design, though, not just the aesthetics of a window manager
and widgets.
A recent version of bash working on Windows would be nice too, but IMO,
MS should be actively promoting PowerShell. It's not that PowerShell is
a superior scripting language to bash, but that it's integrated with WMI
and is therefore much more convenient for admin stuff.
> What is Microsoft selling? They're a company, which means they need to
> keep selling stuff year after year. What's saleable in Windows? Is it
> the kernel? Maybe, but only by its specs. Far more saleable is the
> user-facing parts of the system. Sell them a pretty new GUI with
> transparent windows. Sell 'em a fancy new Office that looks and feels
> different. Sell a development package that lets programmers use these
> same facilities in their own code.
I think the reason MS has been creating good sysadmin tools lately is
that it's feeling competition from Linux/Unix server solutions. If they
can make a Windows domain admin's job easier, they're more likely to
sell their OS.
As for the end-user side of Windows (and their office suite), AFAICT,
they're still pretty complacent with their market share and only change
things up for the sake of difference. Since the GUI is the most
noticeable part of the software, that's what gets changed.
> Since XP, the Windows kernel has been mostly reliable. I've had
> programs go wrong, and (eventually) managed to kill the process, upon
> which everything cleans up fairly nicely. Not that that's really a
> boast-worthy feature; I'd call it mandatory these days.
I agree.
> Let
> Microsoft play with, and sell, pretty GUIs and pretty apps.
I completely disagree. MS sucks at making GUIs.

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#8895 — Re: Microsoft GUIs

On 2011.07.06 12:03 AM, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> I disagree.  The stuff endusers tend to use is polished to some
> extent, but the backend is verging on hideous.  If a developer
> complains about the ugly internal structure "yeah, but you say that
> just because you're a computer person / geek."
Admittedly, I haven't tried to do a whole lot of development with the
Windows APIs, and I certainly haven't tried to develop any software
that's heavily tied to the kernel, so I could be wrong in this area.
Could you elaborate?
>
>     Yes, the NT kernel still has some
>     long standing bugs, but MS has done well with things that matter to
>     sysadmins. chkdsk, for example, has been around for ages, but I still
>     don't know of anything that really beats it.
>
>
> How about FreeBSD's ability to check a filesystem while it's in use?
Actually, I meant in Windows, as in there aren't any 3rd-party tools
that really trump chkdsk for repairing NTFS volumes. I should've
clarified that. However, that sounds like an awesome feature (though I'm
not going to switch to FreeBSD just for that).
>
>     I've only had a small
>     amount of experience with it so far, but Powershell seems to be an
>     excellent tool for admin scripting since it interfaces with WMI so
>     well.
>
>
> I worked with PowerShell for about a year (after an acquisition by
> Microsoft), before eagerly diving back to Python.  Here are some of my
> notes about the problems in PowerShell:
Did you encounter these issues with PowerShell 2? I know MS put a lot of
work into fixing and adding features to PowerShell 1, but like I said, I
haven't had much experience with it.

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#8897

On Wed, 6 Jul 2011 12:31:02 +1000, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:


> Democracy DOES NOT WORK. Plain and simple. You cannot build a
> programming language democratically.
>
	Uhm... COBOL and Ada may be close... They were committee/competition
where the best (compromise) aspect was selected for inclusion...
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
        wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#8900 — Re: Microsoft GUIs

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 2:53 PM, Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Let Microsoft play with, and sell, pretty GUIs and pretty apps.
> I completely disagree. MS sucks at making GUIs.
>

I never said they were good at making GUIs. I said they were good at
selling GUIs.

Dan is right about the ugliness of the Windows APIs. There are
innumerable anomalies between otherwise-similar functions, weird
behaviours that may and may not have historical precedent, and enough
hair-pulling fuel to turn you bald in a week. Also, and possibly more
serious, the security features that Windows has mostly seem to have
been monkey-patched in; and there are ridiculous vulnerabilities just
waiting to be exploited. The WM_TIMER message can be sent by any
process to any process, and one of its parameters is the address of a
callback - and voila, other process starts executing code at that
address. And this works even if the program doesn't use timers.

ChrisA

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#8901

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Jul 2011 12:31:02 +1000, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
> declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:
>> Democracy DOES NOT WORK. Plain and simple. You cannot build a
>> programming language democratically.
>>
>        Uhm... COBOL and Ada may be close... They were committee/competition
> where the best (compromise) aspect was selected for inclusion...

And are they what you would call good languages?

A committee isn't the same as democracy, although it is related. If
you have two people making a decision, you potentially pull things in
two directions. If you have two million people making a decision, you
tear it to pieces.

Vision for a language (or any other project) cannot come from a
mandate from the masses. I'm waiting for my aquatic ceremony before I
start building a language.

ChrisA

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#8912

rantingrick wrote:
> Something to replace Python, Ruby, Perl,
> JavaScript, etc, etc not some "pie-in-the-sky",  "single-answer-to-all-
> our-problems" pipe dream language.

So it's just a "single-answer-to-all-our-glue-programming"
pipe dream language, then? :-)

-- 
Greg

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#8931

rantingrick wrote:

>> Define "best for all", and try not to make it "what Rick wants".
> 
> You want features? And remember i am talking about scripting/glue
> level languages here. Something to replace Python, Ruby, Perl,
> JavaScript, etc, etc not some "pie-in-the-sky",  "single-answer-to-all-
> our-problems" pipe dream language.
> 
>  * Intuitive syntax.

Intuitive to who? 

Newbies? Then you get a language like Hypertalk, that experienced
programmers hate.

Experienced C programmers? Then you get something like Java.

Forth programmers? Then you get something like Arc, that nobody except Paul
Graham uses. (Not literally, no offence to anyone who likes Arc.)

System administrators? They you get something like Perl. ("It's like bash
scripting only better!")

Mathematicians? Then you get something like Haskell.

Non-programmers? Then you could get anything from Inform7, to Applescript,
to Resolver's Python-in-a-spreadsheet, to Pascal, to FoxPro, to Flash, to
Javascript, to Mathematica... depending on *which* non-programmers you are
aiming at.


>  * Productivity friendly.

That covers everything from Excel to Lisp, depending on who you ask.


>  * Complex enough to solve large problems but simple enough for simple
> problems (that does include extending into C when needed)

But if you are designing the "perfect language", what do you need C for? C
will no longer exist, except in museums, because Rick's perfect language
will be used for everything.

>  * Multi paradigm (problem

Which is guaranteed to annoy those who believe that paradigms A, C, D and E
are harmful and should be avoided... the only problem is that there is no
broad agreement on which paradigm B is non-harmful.


>  * Promotes a culture of code readability (because people read source;
> not just machines!).

Define readability.

Hypertalk, Python, Inform7 and Pascal are all readable, in radically
different ways.


>> No, Python is not a monoculture. There are the Stackless, Jython, PyPy
>> and IronPython sub-cultures, all with their own needs, wants and desires.
>> There are sub-cultures for embedded devices and smart phones,
>> sub-cultures for those who use Python as a teaching language, for web
>> development, for GUI development, and for system administration. There
>> are the Numpy and Scipy sub-cultures, sub-cultures in the fields of
>> linguistics and biology.
> 
> Hmm. Just think how far ahead we would be if these folks would stop
> trying to support petty differences and focus on a singular Python
> language?

These are not "petty differences", but real differences that are important
to people who have actually work to do.

A sushi chef needs a different sort of knife to a brain surgeon, both of
which are different to that needed by a special forces soldier deep in
enemy territory, which is different again to the sort of knife is needed by
some guy working in a warehouse unpacking boxes. Different jobs need
different tools.

There is no perfect language because different tasks need different tools,
and any compromise tool that tries to do everything will be weaker than a
specialist tool.


-- 
Steven

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#8956

On Wed, 6 Jul 2011 15:47:05 +1000, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
declaimed the following in gmane.comp.python.general:

> 
> And are they what you would call good languages?
>
	In their original target domains, yes.

	Doing an FFT in COBOL, however? <shudder>
-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
        wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

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#8809

rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I believe (unlike most people) that nature is striving for perfection

Your belief is wrong. "Nature" doesn't "strive" for _anything_. Things
in the world are either fit enough to continue their existence or not.
As circumstances change, some things that were once suitably fit for
the environment are no longer so and are replaced. Same with ideas.
There is no "perfection", there is only "what works best now".

> What do you think will be the eventual outcome of the human existence
> Alex? Since you have no imagination i will tell you, a singular
> intelligence.

Firstly: cite some kind of evidence that this "will be the eventual
outcome" or admit you're talking shit.

Secondly: I can imagine humanity evolving into a great many things and
something as limited as a 'botnet' is certainly nothing to be proud of
as a species.

> It is selflessness on a grand scale.

I don't really know if you're a troll, have no self-reflective
capability, delusionally believe what you're spouting, or are on or
off medication, but sometimes your hypocrisy is just funny as hell.

>> Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
>> different implementations.
> Why can they not explore within the hive mind? Why must they hide
> their explorations from the greater group. SELFISHNESS

You mean like how Guido hid the Python code base and never let anyone
else touch or influence it in any way?

Rick, you remind me a lot of Bill Hicks yelling, "You are free to do
as we tell you! YOU ARE FREE TO DO AS WE TELL YOU!!" Using terms like
"hive mind" kinda shows that I'm wasting my time pushing the value of
diversity to you.

> * What syntax is most widely intuitive?
> * What semantics are the best for productivity?

You're inability to recognise the importance of the context in which a
language is used explains your misguided position a lot.

What if a particular language syntax is the best fit for the way 52%
of the population think? What about the other 48%? What if it's a
80/20 split? 90/10? 99/1? At what point are you prepared to sacrifice
the needs and best interests of others for your quest for mythical
perfection?

No need to answer that last one, we already know the answer: from the
very beginning.

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#8848

On Jul 4, 10:31 pm, alex23 <wuwe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I believe (unlike most people) that nature is striving for perfection
>
> Your belief is wrong. "Nature" doesn't "strive" for _anything_. Things
> in the world are either fit enough to continue their existence or not.
> As circumstances change, some things that were once suitably fit for
> the environment are no longer so and are replaced. Same with ideas.
> There is no "perfection", there is only "what works best now".

How could a belief be wrong?

> > What do you think will be the eventual outcome of the human existence
> > Alex? Since you have no imagination i will tell you, a singular
> > intelligence.

All from the land of creationism.

> Firstly: cite some kind of evidence that this "will be the eventual
> outcome" or admit you're talking shit.
>
> Secondly: I can imagine humanity evolving into a great many things and
> something as limited as a 'botnet' is certainly nothing to be proud of
> as a species.
>
> > It is selflessness on a grand scale.
>
> I don't really know if you're a troll,

Beats me... I think everybody else does..

> have no self-reflective
> capability, delusionally believe what you're spouting, or are on or
> off medication, but sometimes your hypocrisy is just funny as hell.
>
> >> Because the people who ACTUALLY WROTE THE LANGUAGES wanted to explore
> >> different implementations.
> > Why can they not explore within the hive mind? Why must they hide
> > their explorations from the greater group. SELFISHNESS
>
> You mean like how Guido hid the Python code base and never let anyone
> else touch or influence it in any way?
>
> Rick, you remind me a lot of Bill Hicks yelling, "You are free to do
> as we tell you! YOU ARE FREE TO DO AS WE TELL YOU!!" Using terms like
> "hive mind" kinda shows that I'm wasting my time pushing the value of
> diversity to you.

Now you're taking a troll as an excuse for your own trolling.

<snip>

> No need to answer that last one, we already know the answer: from the
> very beginning.

In the beginning was a singularity... and Albert Einstein was a chain-
smoker.

Sal.

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