[ale] Ale Inc.? - Let's stop the war... please.

[Geoffrey]

Thompson Freeman wrote:

> I'm not sure I'd call it a war - but if it is, this is one of the politest
> language wars I've seen yet. 
> 
> Now if there is an academic psychologist lurking around, or somebody with
> similar inclinations, I'd like to suggest research looking for
> correlations between chosen computer languages and character traits and
> skills. Not easy I'm sure, but possibly enlightening.


I would probably drive him/her crazy.  I still use various tools 
depending on the problem, which is the way it should be.  I enjoy 
writing C, Perl, AWK, and shell scripting.  Java's going to be 
interesting, now that I'll be doing it for a living.  I also enjoyed 
Fortran.

I will say, that I found C++ too much like COBOL in that you have to do 
so much bloody work up.  All those classes.  Multiple inheritance looks 
like an opportunity to code yourself into class extension infinite 
loops.  Whatever, I never picked it up, just took a couple classes many 
moons ago.  I would never write COBOL for a living, looks like a 
language created by an anal retentive cpa.


> 
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2002, Christopher Bergeron wrote:
> 
> 
>>Guys, I didn't want to start a language war here.  I think we can all agree
>>that every language has it's pluses and minuses.  I vote that we stop this
>>war.  Please.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>CB
>>
>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Geoffrey [mailto:esoteric at 3times25.net]
>>>Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 9:36 PM
>>>To: ale at ale.org
>>>Subject: Re: [ale] Ale Inc.? (was RE: [ale] surviving sans work
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Kevin Krumwiede wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>       I'd disagree.  It is meaningful to point out that if you're
>>>>>doing Java, you do it OOP and you're not given a choice (even Python
>>>>>(*shudder* :) will let you get away with being somewhat procedural for
>>>>>the main body of your program; at least for things on the order of
>>>>>`hello world').  It's meaningful that Java enforces strong typing
>>>>>(with all the benefits and hindrances that brings with it).
>>>>>
>>> >
>>>
>>>>I agree that being forced to use OOP is annoying.
>>>>
>>>
>>>You really don't want a language designed to do both OOP and structured.
>>>  If you do, some schmuck will toggle between the two and put us all in
>>>the loony bin.
>>>
>>>
>>>>I the main body of my
>>>>programs usually resides in a class where everything is static, or else
>>>>simply local to the main method.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Would that be a reasonable approach to programming?
>>>
>>>
>>>>The weirdest thing in the world is a
>>>>program that creates an instance of itself in its own main method.  The
>>>>first time I saw that, it just twisted my brain in little knots and I
>>>>resolved never to do it. :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Methinks my Javaless brain would call that recursion???
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Joseph is right, too, about the need for something akin to C++
>>>>
>>>templates.
>>>
>>>>There's something in the works being pushed by a few for
>>>>
>>>inclusion into Java
>>>
>>>>1.5, but that's a long way off.  As it is, Java's container
>>>>
>>>classes store
>>>
>>>>everything as Objects -- the equivalent of void pointers.  As
>>>>
>>>he said, this
>>>
>>>>can render Java's supposedly strong type-safety all but useless.
>>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net
>>>
>>>"...the system (Microsoft passport) carries significant risks to
>>>users that
>>>are not made adequately clear in the technical documentation available."
>>>- David P. Kormann and Aviel D. Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research
>>>- http://www.avirubin.com/passport.html
>>>
>>>
>>>---
>>>This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
>>>See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info.
>>>Problems should be
>>>sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>---
>>This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
>>See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
>>sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
>>
>>
>>
> 


-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

"...the system (Microsoft passport) carries significant risks to users that
are not made adequately clear in the technical documentation available."
- David P. Kormann and Aviel D. Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research
- http://www.avirubin.com/passport.html


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