That is pretty +1 Funny, but I wonder how the pioneers of programming languages like Grace Hopper [wikipedia.org] would feel about today's tribal silliness seemingly infesting almost everything these days, including something like programming languages?
I wonder how the pioneers of programming languages . . . would feel about today's tribal silliness seemingly infesting almost everything these days
I think they would weep for the future.
They would wonder what could possibly have gone wrong?
How could people (1) become unteatherd from reality and (2) others make fun of this condition.
They would wonder how could we go from debating public policy such as taxes, size of government, etc to talking about secret Jewish space lasers or having self proclaimed 'patriots' try to overthrow the government while their supporters both cheer them on yet deny the obvious reality of what they were actually doing.
-- To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
I always considered this a silly holy war because I don't think there's as sharp a line between functional, OOP, and procedural as some of the partisans think.
You can write C and LISP that is very similar to object-oriented code, with a carefully defined data structure and associated functions that operate on that structure. You can write C and Java that is very similar to functional programming, with a strong emphasis on recursion, data moving up and down the call stack, list-like data structures, and function references that operate kinda like lambdas. You can write Java and LISP that is very similar to procedural code, with a hunk of data that's stored separate from the functions, and a collection of functions that each contain a sequence of instructions to manipulate that hunk of data. You even have languages that try to allow a combination of some or all of these approaches, like Python.
And they're all good for solving the kinds of problems they were designed to solve. So if you know how to coax the language you're using (either by choice or by demand) into using that approach, you can use the way of thinking best-suited for explaining what you're doing clearly.
-- The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday March 23 2022, @05:09PM (2 children)
That is pretty +1 Funny, but I wonder how the pioneers of programming languages like Grace Hopper [wikipedia.org] would feel about today's tribal silliness seemingly infesting almost everything these days, including something like programming languages?
She didn't invent programming languages, but "Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and the FLOW-MATIC programming language she created using this theory was later extended to create COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today." [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 23 2022, @05:22PM
I think they would weep for the future.
They would wonder what could possibly have gone wrong?
How could people (1) become unteatherd from reality and (2) others make fun of this condition.
They would wonder how could we go from debating public policy such as taxes, size of government, etc to talking about secret Jewish space lasers or having self proclaimed 'patriots' try to overthrow the government while their supporters both cheer them on yet deny the obvious reality of what they were actually doing.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday March 25 2022, @07:52PM
I always considered this a silly holy war because I don't think there's as sharp a line between functional, OOP, and procedural as some of the partisans think.
You can write C and LISP that is very similar to object-oriented code, with a carefully defined data structure and associated functions that operate on that structure.
You can write C and Java that is very similar to functional programming, with a strong emphasis on recursion, data moving up and down the call stack, list-like data structures, and function references that operate kinda like lambdas.
You can write Java and LISP that is very similar to procedural code, with a hunk of data that's stored separate from the functions, and a collection of functions that each contain a sequence of instructions to manipulate that hunk of data.
You even have languages that try to allow a combination of some or all of these approaches, like Python.
And they're all good for solving the kinds of problems they were designed to solve. So if you know how to coax the language you're using (either by choice or by demand) into using that approach, you can use the way of thinking best-suited for explaining what you're doing clearly.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.