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Heron Needs a Killer App

53 replies on 4 pages. Most recent reply: Sep 12, 2005 11:48 PM by Kondwani Mkandawire

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Flat View: This topic has 53 replies on 4 pages [ « | 1 2 3 4 ]

Max Lybbert

Posts: 314
Nickname: mlybbert
Registered: Apr, 2005

Miss a couple of days ...

Posted: Aug 26, 2005 3:12 PM

Boy did I miss out on a good row. And I'm not sure if anybody is paying attention anymore, so this may be wasted effort. Oh well.

/* in terms of the Java teams I've been involved in (even with the Large Scale systems I've been involved with simple code disection and the ocational println statement has done the trick - for all of us on the team).
*/

This is probably more because debuggers for Java are a relatively new thing. At least for most Java programmers.

/* When you set back and look at all of the features of the Java platform, that were developed by 1000's of developers, world wide, it's a humbling experience.
*/

This is true. It's also true of Linux, BSD apps, and several other projects. The question is what caused the contributions to these projects, and why not others that died before getting any traction.

/* I think the best choice the Chris could make would be to create compilation to JVM byte code and compilation to .NET CLR. ... It would be the first language available on both platforms.
*/

Actually I thought C++ and Java were available on both platforms, and that some depraved Java coders had started porting C# to JVM. But I agree with cdiggins that the JVM and .Net are too tied to their respective languages. For instance, once upon a time I was a depraved C++ programmer, and I thought of creating a C++ implementation to compile to the JVM. I didn't look very far before I realized JVM bytecodes are pretty much literal translations of Java code. This works well for Java, but not so well for other languages. Then I discovered that gcj does what I was looking for, so I dropped the project.

/* I have a huge investment in a Java development toolset and mindset.
*/

No offense, but if this is the case, you probably aren't going to be an early adopter. OTOH, making the jump easier for Java programmers is probably a good idea as Heron is probably targeted at the same folks Java is (Java being C++'s successor and all that).

Max Lybbert

Posts: 314
Nickname: mlybbert
Registered: Apr, 2005

Pick on someone else

Posted: Aug 26, 2005 3:12 PM

/* I believe that it shouldn't be cdiggins' job to narrow his focus, particularly this early in the game.
*/

I can't read his mind, but if it were me, I would want to know where to aim my work to avoid waste. That is, as much as possible.

Max Lybbert

Posts: 314
Nickname: mlybbert
Registered: Apr, 2005

Re: Smalltalk

Posted: Aug 26, 2005 3:21 PM

I hate to be mean, but ...

/* GUIs - born in Smalltalk
*/

Actually, Xerox PARC.

/* ... (skip a couple because I simply don't know where they came from) ...

Garbage Collection - Smalltalk/LISP
Virtual Machines - Smalltalk
*/

Lisp is older than C, so throwing it a bone here is a little misguided. But either way, I know Lisp did both of these before Smalltalk, and I think somebody did this before Lisp. B and BCPL (languages that influenced C) were also VM-based.

/* (skip hotspot because I personally don't care where the idea came from)

generics - duck typing makes these unnecessary.
*/

Generics/templates have more uses than getting around static typing. There's a thing called Template Metaprogramming that is available in C++ but not in Java (http://www.boost.org/libs/libraries.htm#Metaprogramming for ideas).

/* In smalltalk, when a fault is encountered, a debugger pops open,
*/

This also happened on Lisp machines.

And, for the record, I think Perl is better than Lisp. But that's the Von Neumann part of my brain talking.

/* I rather think there has been precious little new in CS in the last 15 years. Its all just variations on the buggy whip.
*/

I do have to agree here.

Max Lybbert

Posts: 314
Nickname: mlybbert
Registered: Apr, 2005

And one more ...

Posted: Aug 26, 2005 3:29 PM

/* As far as education goes, most students that I have run into lately (mostly at places like the Harvard Extension School) don't want to learn a language that isn't useable to get a job. Why learn Python when there are so many Java jobs?
*/

Not to be mean, but the people you've run into sound more like capitalists than curious programmers. That's a perfectly fine world view (I'm a capitalist myself, but I'm also a curious programmer), but they aren't likely to be early adopters.

/* I think it is more important to get a useable development system out there, even if it lacks bells and whistles, and let people play with it.
*/

This sounds a lot like Stroustrup's approach to "C with Classes," Wall's approach to Perl (or "Pearl" at the time), or the approaches followed by tcl, Python, PHP, etc.

/* If it is successful at doing the things you are designing it to do, then folks will like it and will write small applications in it to do useful things.
*/

I have to quibble a little here. If it's successful at doing things people actually need doing, then people will like it and use it.

/* As the paradigms get worked out bigger apps will follow,
*/

And then, perhaps, people will start trying the other things you designed Heron to do.

Todd Blanchard

Posts: 316
Nickname: tblanchard
Registered: May, 2003

Re: Smalltalk

Posted: Aug 29, 2005 9:52 AM

> I hate to be mean, but ...
>
> /* GUIs - born in Smalltalk
> */
>
> Actually, Xerox PARC.
>

Uh, where do you think they invented Smalltalk? Xerox Parc.

Max Lybbert

Posts: 314
Nickname: mlybbert
Registered: Apr, 2005

Oops.

Posted: Aug 29, 2005 10:42 AM

(Me): I hate to be mean, but ...
/* GUIs - born in Smalltalk
*/
Actually, Xerox PARC.

(Reply): Uh, where do you think they invented Smalltalk? Xerox Parc.

(Me, again): I have to admit I was "wrong" on this one. A quick Google search does show Smalltalk coming from Xerox PARC. I'll 'fess up now so I don't have to 'fess up later.

Peter Hickman

Posts: 41
Nickname: peterhi
Registered: Mar, 2003

Re: Smalltalk

Posted: Aug 31, 2005 10:06 AM

> B and BCPL (languages that influenced C)
> were also VM-based.

Can't speak for BCPL but if my memory serves me correctly B was one of the first threaded languages, along the lines of forth. I don't believe that any sort of VM was involved, I suspect that the same was true for BCPL.

My B manuals are not to hand at present :-)

Gregg Wonderly

Posts: 317
Nickname: greggwon
Registered: Apr, 2003

Re: Smalltalk

Posted: Aug 31, 2005 10:35 AM

> > B and BCPL (languages that influenced C)
> > were also VM-based.
>
> Can't speak for BCPL but if my memory serves me correctly
> B was one of the first threaded languages, along the lines
> of forth. I don't believe that any sort of VM was
> involved, I suspect that the same was true for BCPL.
>
> My B manuals are not to hand at present :-)

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/kbman.html has a good description of how B worked.

Kondwani Mkandawire

Posts: 530
Nickname: spike
Registered: Aug, 2004

Re: Miss a couple of days ...

Posted: Sep 12, 2005 11:48 PM

> /* in terms of the Java teams I've been involved in (even
> with the Large Scale systems I've been involved with
> simple code disection and the ocational println statement
> has done the trick - for all of us on the team).
> */
>
> This is probably more because debuggers for Java are a
> relatively new thing. At least for most Java
> programmers.
>
Define relatively new!! Java itself is *relatively new*,
JBuilder is one of the earlier Java IDE's that comes with
a debugger and its probably been a while since the first
JBuilder version was built. So if your definition of
relatively new is: "two years after Java was released,
they released the first equivalent debugger" then we
should say debuggers are new to every language that
was developed.

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