There's been a lot of talk about Scala when various new aspects of D have been discussed. I stumbled upon a video where exactly those things are talked about.

http://blog.jaoo.dk/2009/03/09/an-introduction-to-the-scala-programming-language-by-bill-venners/

"Bill Venners, co-author of the Scala book, gave a nice introduction to the Scala programming Language at JAOO last year. "

Actually, he gives a nice introduction to the concepts /we/ have been discussing. And no other crap. :-)

Georg Wrede wrote:
> There's been a lot of talk about Scala when various new aspects of D have been discussed. I stumbled upon a video where exactly those things are talked about.
> 
> http://blog.jaoo.dk/2009/03/09/an-introduction-to-the-scala-programming-language-by-bill-venners/ 
> 
> 
> "Bill Venners, co-author of the Scala book, gave a nice introduction to the Scala programming Language at JAOO last year. "
> 
> Actually, he gives a nice introduction to the concepts /we/ have been discussing. And no other crap. :-)

Bill is a nice guy (I met him), but I don't quite like this talk. Gosh,
he spends like *forever* on the if statement... at some point he asks
people whether they've seen the ?: operator... does JAOO stand for
Conference of Brain Damage Survivors?

And if I see the O(n)-space factorial example once more, I'm going to
throw my shoes at the speaker. Use a loop and get a life.

Also, is that a bug in the Java code at 12:17? I'm seeing a statement line:

BigInt.ONE;

that I think is just an object, so the statement has no effect. Right? If so, well, that's quite bad.


Andrei

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
>>
>> There's been a lot of talk about Scala when various new aspects of D have been discussed. I stumbled upon a video where exactly those things are talked about.
>>
>>
>> http://blog.jaoo.dk/2009/03/09/an-introduction-to-the-scala-programming-language-by-bill-venners/
>>
>> "Bill Venners, co-author of the Scala book, gave a nice introduction to the Scala programming Language at JAOO last year. "
>>
>> Actually, he gives a nice introduction to the concepts /we/ have been discussing. And no other crap. :-)
>
> Bill is a nice guy (I met him), but I don't quite like this talk. Gosh, he spends like *forever* on the if statement... at some point he asks people whether they've seen the ?: operator... does JAOO stand for Conference of Brain Damage Survivors?

The information density is quite low.  I'm regretting having spent 15 minutes on it...  Spot checking the rest, it doesn't appear there's much more there beyond what you could get from a 5-minute intro to Scala on a web page somewhere.


> And if I see the O(n)-space factorial example once more, I'm going to throw my shoes at the speaker. Use a loop and get a life.
>
> Also, is that a bug in the Java code at 12:17? I'm seeing a statement line:
>
> BigInt.ONE;
>
> that I think is just an object, so the statement has no effect. Right? If so, well, that's quite bad.

I think the code on top is also Scala, just written in a Java-esque style.

--bb

Bill Baxter wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
>> Also, is that a bug in the Java code at 12:17? I'm seeing a statement line:
>>
>> BigInt.ONE;
>>
>> that I think is just an object, so the statement has no effect. Right? If
>> so, well, that's quite bad.
> 
> I think the code on top is also Scala, just written in a Java-esque style.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Andrei

> Gosh,
> he spends like *forever* on the if statement... at some point he asks
> people whether they've seen the ?: operator... does JAOO stand for
> Conference of Brain Damage Survivors?
>

Sounds like most of the CS classes I had in college.

Nick Sabalausky:
>Sounds like most of the CS classes I had in college.<

You have to form a little group with few other of the students most interested in those classes (or you can even act alone), and ask the teacher to change the style or way, explaining him/her to slow down or speed up topics. Most teachers if asked kindly are willing to change their speed, especially if there's enough time to slow down.

Bye,
bearophile

Bill Baxter wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:38 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu
> <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
>> Georg Wrede wrote:
>>> There's been a lot of talk about Scala when various new aspects of D have
>>> been discussed. I stumbled upon a video where exactly those things are
>>> talked about.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://blog.jaoo.dk/2009/03/09/an-introduction-to-the-scala-programming-language-by-bill-venners/
>>>
>>> "Bill Venners, co-author of the Scala book, gave a nice introduction to
>>> the Scala programming Language at JAOO last year. "
>>>
>>> Actually, he gives a nice introduction to the concepts /we/ have been
>>> discussing. And no other crap. :-)
>> Bill is a nice guy (I met him), but I don't quite like this talk. Gosh,
>> he spends like *forever* on the if statement... at some point he asks
>> people whether they've seen the ?: operator... does JAOO stand for
>> Conference of Brain Damage Survivors?
> 
> The information density is quite low.  I'm regretting having spent 15
> minutes on it...  Spot checking the rest, it doesn't appear there's
> much more there beyond what you could get from a 5-minute intro to
> Scala on a web page somewhere.

Heh, forgot to mention, I wasn't thinking of you with this post. ;-)

One thing that looked nice was the use of var/val instead of final vs. the default. Short and neat, and easy to remember.

>> And if I see the O(n)-space factorial example once more, I'm going to
>> throw my shoes at the speaker. Use a loop and get a life.
>>
>> Also, is that a bug in the Java code at 12:17? I'm seeing a statement line:
>>
>> BigInt.ONE;
>>
>> that I think is just an object, so the statement has no effect. Right? If
>> so, well, that's quite bad.
> 
> I think the code on top is also Scala, just written in a Java-esque style.
> 
> --bb

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote in message news:gr1l57$vu5$1@digitalmars.com...
> Nick Sabalausky:
>>Sounds like most of the CS classes I had in college.<
>
> You have to form a little group with few other of the students most interested in those classes (or you can even act alone), and ask the teacher to change the style or way, explaining him/her to slow down or speed up topics. Most teachers if asked kindly are willing to change their speed, especially if there's enough time to slow down.
>

Heh, it's much too late for that. Been out of college for awhile now ;)

Besides, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Most of my classmates had practically zero experience outside of class, so they probably did need that (and don't get me started on the complete ineptitude of the CS *grad* students I met. Hell, even some of the cs phd profs didn't know what the hell they were doing, I have stories about all of that...), whereas I've been coding practically since I learned to read. If there's one thing my school experience taught me, it's that teachers are only interested in focusing on the low-to-mid-range students. The advanced ones are only there to shell out tuition money and act as cheap tutors. They would be far better off saving their time and money by not even going, but they almost *have* to go anyway just because the rest of society (and HR drones in particular) are brainwashed into thinking that there's a direct correlation between academics and competence (if anything, it's slightly inverse - one of the smartest people I know had so much trouble with school he ended up a high school dropout).

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> If there's one thing my school experience taught me, it's that teachers are only interested in focusing on the low-to-mid-range students.

That wasn't my college experience at all (Caltech). I was a low-to-mid-range student there, and the profs were always ready to help me, but I would get the impression they thought the material they were teaching was basic and they wanted more advanced students to they could teach the fun stuff instead.


> The advanced ones are only there to shell out tuition money and act as cheap tutors.

That role was filled by grad students.


> They would be far better off saving their time and money by not even going, but they almost *have* to go anyway just because the rest of society (and HR drones in particular) are brainwashed into thinking that there's a direct correlation between academics and competence (if anything, it's slightly inverse - one of the smartest people I know had so much trouble with school he ended up a high school dropout). 

My 4 years at Caltech were transformative to me, particularly in my problem solving skills.

Certainly, you can be very successful without a university degree, but there can be a lot of value in a degree. It kinda also depends on how one goes about getting that degree. If one picked courses solely for the purpose of getting the degree, well, probably it won't be of much value in the end. I picked courses on the basis of thinking they'd be fundamental to the kind of career I wanted. The degree itself was not of much interest to me. It's forgotten in the bottom of a moldy box somewhere :-)

== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1@digitalmars.com)'s article
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > If there's one thing my
> > school experience taught me, it's that teachers are only interested in
> > focusing on the low-to-mid-range students.
> That wasn't my college experience at all (Caltech). I was a
> low-to-mid-range student there

...Which kind of proves the point that the way knowledge/learning in college is measured is pretty flawed in that it doesn't predict who will be successful afterword.  I just finished undergrad a couple years ago and I feel that the kinds of multiple choice exams you get in huge lecture-based classes are good at testing rote memorization and superficial understanding and the ability to get inside the professor's head, where as what's important is the ability to take your knowledge and apply it to something useful or use it to create more knowledge.