Ary Borenszweig Wrote:

> retard wrote:
> > Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:19:25 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
> > 
> >> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> >>> "Walter Bright" <newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:hhgvqk$8cj$2@digitalmars.com...
> >>>> An interesting counterpoint to the usual FP hype:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://prog21.dadgum.com/55.html
> >>> Didn't read the original article, but the one being linked to is completely in line with how I feel about not just FP, but all programming paradigms, for example, OO: It's great as long as you don't pull a Java or (worse yet) a Smalltalk and try to cram *everything* into the paradigm.
> >> I agree, the old programming-language-as-religion problem. I first ran into this when I read the original Pascal book, and became enamored with it. I tried doing a modest project in Pascal using a pure Pascal compiler.
> >>
> >> 80% went smoothly, the other 20% spent wrestling with the nanny language tsk-tsking consumed nearly 100% of the time spend on the project. I just couldn't get things that had to be done, done, as the language would shut off all the avenues.
> >>
> >> When I then picked up K+R C, I never wrote another line of Pascal. It so soured me on Pascal that I never got on the later bandwagons of Modula II, Delphi, TurboPascal, etc. Never even looked at them.
> > 
> > The programming-language-as-religion problem exists only in your imagination.
> 
> You don't have an idea how many times I heard the phrase "Please, please, let this work" out of a programmer's mouth in front of a computer.

But thats not to the God of Languages, thats to the God of Demonstrations...

"retard" <re@tard.com.invalid> wrote in message news:hhsmop$1aev$5@digitalmars.com...
> Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:50:12 -0200, Ary Borenszweig wrote:
>
>> retard wrote:
>>> Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:19:25 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>>>> "Walter Bright" <newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:hhgvqk$8cj$2@digitalmars.com...
>>>>>> An interesting counterpoint to the usual FP hype:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://prog21.dadgum.com/55.html
>>>>> Didn't read the original article, but the one being linked to is completely in line with how I feel about not just FP, but all programming paradigms, for example, OO: It's great as long as you don't pull a Java or (worse yet) a Smalltalk and try to cram *everything* into the paradigm.
>>>> I agree, the old programming-language-as-religion problem. I first ran into this when I read the original Pascal book, and became enamored with it. I tried doing a modest project in Pascal using a pure Pascal compiler.
>>>>
>>>> 80% went smoothly, the other 20% spent wrestling with the nanny language tsk-tsking consumed nearly 100% of the time spend on the project. I just couldn't get things that had to be done, done, as the language would shut off all the avenues.
>>>>
>>>> When I then picked up K+R C, I never wrote another line of Pascal. It so soured me on Pascal that I never got on the later bandwagons of Modula II, Delphi, TurboPascal, etc. Never even looked at them.
>>>
>>> The programming-language-as-religion problem exists only in your imagination.
>>
>> You don't have an idea how many times I heard the phrase "Please, please, let this work" out of a programmer's mouth in front of a computer.
>
> Now what does that prove? That the person has religious beliefs or that programming languages are religions? My point was, it's just stupid to claim that some languages like ML or Iswim are religions. They were originally built for scientific use, namely for proving mathematical properties of some systems and as a proof of concept. I guess lolcode isn't a religion in your book because not only is it useless, it's fun unlike most functional languages.

Aren't there people who swear by those languages for normal software development purposes? And even if not, there are certainly languages out there that are "cram everything into this paradigm, yay purity!" and *are* either intended for everyday use or used by people for everyday use.

On 2010-01-04 19:15:39 +0100, "Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> said:
> Aren't there people who swear by those languages for normal software
> development purposes? And even if not, there are certainly languages out
> there that are "cram everything into this paradigm, yay purity!" and *are*
> either intended for everyday use or used by people for everyday use.

Yes, just like some people swear by 'everything is impure' languages, and go lengths to achieve immutability (e.g. Java). Why are those prefering purity called religious, and those using completely 'impure' languages practical?

Pure, partially pure, impure. All regimes can be religious or practical, or both.

-- Daniel

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:04:13 +0100, Daniel de Kok wrote:

> On 2010-01-04 19:15:39 +0100, "Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> said:
>> Aren't there people who swear by those languages for normal software development purposes? And even if not, there are certainly languages out there that are "cram everything into this paradigm, yay purity!" and *are* either intended for everyday use or used by people for everyday use.
> 
> Yes, just like some people swear by 'everything is impure' languages, and go lengths to achieve immutability (e.g. Java). Why are those prefering purity called religious, and those using completely 'impure' languages practical?
> 
> Pure, partially pure, impure. All regimes can be religious or practical, or both.

I think quite often the desire for practicality follows the principles of
fundamentalism. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings with this OT talk,
but even as an atheist I admit that some religions are quite ok. But the
fundamentalists are almost always dangerous to the persons near them.
It's quite common to hear things like
 - "Everything must be modeled in UML 2.0"
 - "This development process solves all problems, even the ones
introduced on the language level"
 - "C++ and template metaprogramming provides extreme optimal performance
on this problem domain"
 - "Large doses of REST, AJAX, XML, and Web 2.0 cloud will so totally
save this crappy project"
 - "100% coverage in unit tests is integral part of our process. It
guarantees delivery of high quality end products"
 - "In clean code functions should accept only one parameter"

Most of the fundamentalist technologies exist - surprise, surprise - only in the imperative mainstream programmer world. That world is so full of all kinds of pseudo-science that it often makes me vomit. But it's often nicer than unemployment..

retard wrote:
> Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:04:13 +0100, Daniel de Kok wrote:
> 
>> On 2010-01-04 19:15:39 +0100, "Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> said:
>>> Aren't there people who swear by those languages for normal software
>>> development purposes? And even if not, there are certainly languages
>>> out there that are "cram everything into this paradigm, yay purity!"
>>> and *are* either intended for everyday use or used by people for
>>> everyday use.
>> Yes, just like some people swear by 'everything is impure' languages,
>> and go lengths to achieve immutability (e.g. Java). Why are those
>> prefering purity called religious, and those using completely 'impure'
>> languages practical?
>>
>> Pure, partially pure, impure. All regimes can be religious or practical,
>> or both.
> 
> I think quite often the desire for practicality follows the principles of fundamentalism. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings with this OT talk, but even as an atheist I admit that some religions are quite ok. But the fundamentalists are almost always dangerous to the persons near them. It's quite common to hear things like
>  - "Everything must be modeled in UML 2.0"
>  - "This development process solves all problems, even the ones introduced on the language level"
>  - "C++ and template metaprogramming provides extreme optimal performance on this problem domain"
>  - "Large doses of REST, AJAX, XML, and Web 2.0 cloud will so totally save this crappy project"
>  - "100% coverage in unit tests is integral part of our process. It guarantees delivery of high quality end products"
>  - "In clean code functions should accept only one parameter"
> 
> Most of the fundamentalist technologies exist - surprise, surprise - only in the imperative mainstream programmer world.

Meh. Most of the fundamentalist technologies exist in environments that are being used and need improvement.

Andrei