Comment Feed for Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution (Going Deep on Channel 9)

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Ganymede — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:06:54 GMT

it's important to realize that just because we enjoy learning doesn't mean everyone else does. it might even sound preposterous that there's people out there who dislike learning... in which case you have a lot to learn

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Sparky — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:19:34 GMT

I have finally had a chance to see this video. Given some comments, I expected that it would not be good at all but to me, Gilad is damn funny. He is sarcastic in a subtle way - my kind of guy and then throw erik in there, and well its a comedy club for nerds by nerds. Respect all around, I wish I could work with any of those guys. They are some of the best out there and I enjoyed this very much. I hope to learn whatever I can about Newspeak and as soon as I am done F#, I am going to hit Haskell and Erlang. Also thanks to Erik and Beckman, it seems I need to learn VB as well. But I have at least one trait as those guys - I love to learn. Time for some more coffee...

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Christian Liensberger — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:18:25 GMT

Cool interview. Great questions :) I hope you have more of this kind in your pocket, Charles.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Frank Hileman — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:42:08 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:

Frank Hileman wrote: The Singualrity OS proved that inter-process communication, at least, can be faster when using a higher level language, as long as strict contracts are observed. This means drivers are best not written in a language such as c++, since they are a critical part of the OS stack.

Depends. If your operating system trusts the people who are writing the drivers (as has tended to be the case in the past) then languages such as C++ and C will almost invariably be at least as fast as anything written in C# or other high-level pointerless languages.

Correct. But OS hangups and crashes do not promote trust among end users. The interesting thing about higher level languages and formal methods is the promise of static analysis to both improve reliablity and increase performance. Right now the emphasis is on safety, not performance, but that could change.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

irascian — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:11:30 GMT

I didn't think Gilad was arrogant - he just had a very dry sense of humour. And like many that are (to use the American term) "super-intelligent" his "social" skills are perhaps not as developed as they are for most of us who don't have a fraction of his ability or talent.

Good video - beautifully controlled by Charles. A weaker interviewer would have struggled to get as much stuff out of his interviewees or would have taken offence at the perceived "arrogance" on display.

Thanks.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

europria@hotmail.com — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:07:26 GMT

Charles,

It is really nice to see you guys start paying attention to environment, lighthing and sound is definitely is a step up.

It doesn't apply to this interview but a suggestion:

When guests are doing a screen demo, it would be much better if you can just capture the screen into a video rather than pointing the camera to it...

But so far so good. Thanks..

Emre

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Frank Hileman — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:00:43 GMT

aL_ wrote:
(i also think that while the clr isnt perfect, its unfair to say that the its "severly limited")

From the perspective of someone implementing a language on a virtual machine, the CLR, with its baked in notions of types and polymorphism, is more limited than a simpler VM adding only things like garbage collection and object encapsulation, leaving dispatch and other details to the language implementer. From that perspective the CLR is limited. MSIL is essentially C# in a lower level form, not a general purpose VM.

Severely limited from the language implementer point of view, hence the DLR and other VMs since the CLR and JVM.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

DouglasH — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:56:46 GMT

I didn't find Gilad arrogant at all. I did find him to be Blunt and to the point.

Most in the language design world have pointed out the weaknesses in the CLR design. Even MS has acknowledged some of them. And it has been pointed out in earlier Video's.

Even C# was created as a better Java than Java.

The only way a Language improves is when the weakness is pointed out. sometimes the only way that is found is from the outside looking in.

On that point Newspeak is interesting with the "lack of a type system". and here is why.

A formalized type system can never module all the domains all the time.

To further that statement. If the type system in the framework was more flexable we wouldn't have to worry about the different domains that Linq is trying to solve.

On the other matter it does solve most of the common problems with pain points when interfacing into other domains.

douglas

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

evildictaitor — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:08:37 GMT

Frank Hileman wrote:
The Singualrity OS proved that inter-process communication, at least, can be faster when using a higher level language, as long as strict contracts are observed. This means drivers are best not written in a language such as c++, since they are a critical part of the OS stack.

Depends. If your operating system trusts the people who are writing the drivers (as has tended to be the case in the past) then languages such as C++ and C will almost invariably be at least as fast as anything written in C# or other high-level pointerless languages.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Allan Lindqvist — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:15:56 GMT

Charles wrote:

My point was also that your view is yours and Gilad's is Gilad's. Neither is the "right" one. They just "are".

indeed :)

Charles wrote:

Keep on thinking!

will do ;)

where there any more vids from lang.net coming btw? i know i asked before but im not sure i got an awnser.. but i might not have looked properly :)

-edit-
no i didnt look properly, i see you replied on another post and said there is more lang.net stuff coming up.
good times :D

-edit2-
hey anotherone is already up :O

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Allan Lindqvist — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:06:01 GMT

Frank Hileman wrote:
Gilad is not arrogant. His comments are right on target. He does not avoid strong opinions.

These videos reach a much larger audience than the people at a programming language conference. While some may react badly to criticisim of their favorite technology (i.e. severe limitations in the CLR), the videos are a wonderful way to spread ideas to the larger audience. It is a great way to do "marketing" for these ideas.

one can have strong oppinions without coming across as arrogant :)
whether gilad "is" arrogant or not, in truth, i cannot say, because i dont know him. but to me some of his comments on other technologies are unfair and exaggerated

i consider unfairness and exaggerated critisism against "other" techs arrogant, but that seems so stir up alot of feelings, so perhaps i should rephrease and say that he was unfair to those technologies instead.

FYI neither java or c++ are my "favorite technology" but i still think gilad was unfair to them. (i also think that while the clr isnt perfect, its unfair to say that the its "severly limited")

but again, as has been stated many times in this thread, all are entitled to their own opinion :)

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Charles — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:55:52 GMT

aL_ wrote:

Charles wrote: In Gilad's defense, I should stress that this was a conversation on perspectives (and therefore opinions) on the history, present and future of general purpose programing languages and associated runtime environments. Like all of us, Gilad is entitled to his opinion and if you disagree with his viewpoints, well, that's fine. Erik defended C++ (as I did), but Gilad has a point here. The fact that a language is successful does not mean that the language, from purely a language perspective, is successful.

I think it's awesome to showcase multiple viewpoints on a big topic like this. Gilad is not arrogant. He's strongly opinionated. This is a very good thing for the field.

you know gilad far better than me so i'll take your word for that
im just saying, thats how he comes across to me in this interview(and others aswell)
other niners disagree and thats fine

it's true that there are diffrent views of what makes a language successful, me beeing a industrial kind of programmer i guess i like pragmatism if i was a language designer, i can see how my views could be diffrent, like linguistic "beauty"

My point was also that your view is yours and Gilad's is Gilad's. Neither is the "right" one. They just "are". :)

Keep on thinking!
C

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Allan Lindqvist — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:46:21 GMT

Charles wrote:
In Gilad's defense, I should stress that this was a conversation on perspectives (and therefore opinions) on the history, present and future of general purpose programing languages and associated runtime environments. Like all of us, Gilad is entitled to his opinion and if you disagree with his viewpoints, well, that's fine. Erik defended C++ (as I did), but Gilad has a point here. The fact that a language is successful does not mean that the language, from purely a language perspective, is successful.

I think it's awesome to showcase multiple viewpoints on a big topic like this. Gilad is not arrogant. He's strongly opinionated. This is a very good thing for the field.

you know gilad far better than me so i'll take your word for that :)
im just saying, thats how he comes across to me in this interview(and others aswell)
other niners disagree and thats fine :)

it's true that there are diffrent views of what makes a language successful, me beeing a industrial kind of programmer i guess i like pragmatism :) if i was a language designer, i can see how my views could be diffrent, like linguistic "beauty" :)

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Frank Hileman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:40:29 GMT

The Singualrity OS proved that inter-process communication, at least, can be faster when using a higher level language, as long as strict contracts are observed. This means drivers are best not written in a language such as c++, since they are a critical part of the OS stack.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Dark_Halmut — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:12:34 GMT

"Drivers are easy"

Also, just a thought... In the boring world of business programming we like rigidity and rules.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Charles — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:50:18 GMT

In Gilad's defense, I should stress that this was a conversation on perspectives (and therefore opinions) on the history, present and future of general purpose programing languages and associated runtime environments. Like all of us, Gilad is entitled to his opinion and if you disagree with his viewpoints, well, that's fine. Erik defended C++ (as I did), but Gilad has a point here. The fact that a language is successful does not mean that the language, from purely a language perspective, is successful.

I think it's awesome to showcase multiple viewpoints on a big topic like this. Gilad is not arrogant. He's strongly opinionated. :) This is a very good thing for the field. Newspeak is an attempt to solve a hard problem: a programming language that suports many different scenarios and is easily modified to adapt to new scenarios (this is a side effect of it being so deeply virtual).

There's nothing wrong with expressing your opinions either, of course. I'm thrilled that this conversation has evoked strong responses in you.

So.....

Keep on posting! :)
C

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Frank Hileman — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:49:47 GMT

Thank you to all in the interview, and the interviewer. Gilad is not arrogant. His comments are right on target. He does not avoid strong opinions.

These videos reach a much larger audience than the people at a programming language conference. While some may react badly to criticisim of their favorite technology (i.e. severe limitations in the CLR), the videos are a wonderful way to spread ideas to the larger audience. It is a great way to do "marketing" for these ideas.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Allan Lindqvist — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:49:56 GMT

esoteric wrote:
I think Gilad was *absolutely spot on* about moving the industry forward and somebody is bound to feel "hit" by what he's saying, but it's not arrogance, it's just stating how things are (or at the very least an oppinion of how things are, agree with it or not)... I really enjoy his sense of humor and point of view.

i agree that the industry should move forward but im not sure smalltalk/newspeak is that way forward.. i guess i require more concrete stuff, not comments about how bad everything else is :)

i deffinietly do not agree that things are they way he says they are (that c/c++ is evil and that the clr is funamentally flawed among other things). i dont think the clr is perfect but its not worthless either. making highly categorical claims like that does not make one more convincing in my book (rather the opposite).

but again, he is ofcourse entiteld to his oppinion, but in order for me to acept his view and correct i need more proof :)

show me a completly virtual/dynamic vm that is "better" (more usefull and atleast as fast) than the clr and i'll gladly use it, but until then i'll stick with the clr :) again, just saying "its possible" is not good enough for the real world programmer, you gotta put your money where your mouth is, so to speak :)

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

gaurav.net — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:48:19 GMT

Charles does he have any with Anders Hejlsberg...?
Cheers for this one, it was awesome and great..

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

gaurav.net — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:43:56 GMT

aL_ wrote:

gaurav.net wrote:
Also, Gilad had his viewpoints and is nothing wrong or arrogant..

well ofcourse he is entitled to his own oppinion
but i think he is definitly wrong about people not wanting to learn.. its very hard not to learn as a programmer.. its a creative process. i think that if you dont like learning you will fail as a programmer and end up doing other work. also, as previously stated, real world programmers does have a job to do. they dont always have the time to stroke their beards and bury themselvs in theory, but that doesnt mean they dont want to, i whould certinaly like to have time to do that (as long as its useful atleast).

what i find arrogant is his blatant disses of far more successful technoligis like c#, java, the clr and c++ as crap (compared to newspeak and smalltalk), and that he attribute their success to programmer ignorance rather than quality of the respective systems..

its like its never the fault of smalltalk or erlang or haskell or whatever that they are not widly accepted, because they have no flaws (according to their inventors/proponents). its just that everone else is to stupid to understand their greatness. i know im exaggerating but you get my point

to me, thats the same kind of rethoric that mac and linux fanbois (that do not make up the entirety of those communities) use against windows. "its crap and people only use it because they're stupid, if they where smart (like me) the whould use the system im using"

i know he doesnt say that but to me, he(and many others) comes across like meaning that.. it doesnt really sound like hes making a joke, but charles tells me his sense of humor is complex.. i think "jokes" like are very ofputting to the programmer comunities he whould want to use stuff like newspeak. if youre reading this gilad, please consider this constructive feedback.

a great example of someone who does not come across as arrogant and make "his" technique sound very appealing and approachable is erik meijer. he does a great job explaining the concepts of fp without make it uncessecary complicated. so major bigup on erik. i think Gilad whould have a far easier time getting smalltalk and newspeak widely accepted if he took a page from erik

and another thing, saying that you can make dynamic systems fast and efficient is not good enough. you have to actually do it. like what microsoft has done with the dlr.. twice as fast as cpython last year, and its built on the clr with its static type system

but again, a very interesting video, just because i disagree with some stuff doesnt make it bad

I Completely agree with you .., with every single line indeed, specially that about the windows-linux thing...
Erik Meijer is great, & he makes us feel even more great that is what the most important part is...
DLR seems quite interesting to me now..., it will play a major role in future versions of .NET...
Once again thx to Charles for such an awesome video...

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Bent Rasmussen — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:11:29 GMT

I think Gilad was *absolutely spot on* about moving the industry forward and somebody is bound to feel "hit" by what he's saying, but it's not arrogance, it's just stating how things are (or at the very least an oppinion of how things are, agree with it or not)... I really enjoy his sense of humor and point of view.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Allan Lindqvist — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:57:03 GMT

gaurav.net wrote:

Also, Gilad had his viewpoints and is nothing wrong or arrogant..

well ofcourse he is entitled to his own oppinion :)
but i think he is definitly wrong about people not wanting to learn.. its very hard not to learn as a programmer.. its a creative process. i think that if you dont like learning you will fail as a programmer and end up doing other work. also, as previously stated, real world programmers does have a job to do. they dont always have the time to stroke their beards and bury themselvs in theory, but that doesnt mean they dont want to, i whould certinaly like to have time to do that (as long as its useful atleast).

what i find arrogant is his blatant disses of far more successful technoligis like c#, java, the clr and c++ as crap (compared to newspeak and smalltalk), and that he attribute their success to programmer ignorance rather than quality of the respective systems..

its like its never the fault of smalltalk or erlang or haskell or whatever that they are not widly accepted, because they have no flaws (according to their inventors/proponents). its just that everone else is to stupid to understand their greatness. i know im exaggerating but you get my point

to me, thats the same kind of rethoric that mac and linux fanbois (that do not make up the entirety of those communities) use against windows. "its crap and people only use it because they're stupid, if they where smart (like me) the whould use the system im using"

i know he doesnt say that but to me, he(and many others) comes across like meaning that.. it doesnt really sound like hes making a joke, but charles tells me his sense of humor is complex.. i think "jokes" like are very ofputting to the programmer comunities he whould want to use stuff like newspeak. if youre reading this gilad, please consider this constructive feedback.

a great example of someone who does not come across as arrogant and make "his" technique sound very appealing and approachable is erik meijer. he does a great job explaining the concepts of fp without make it uncessecary complicated. so major bigup on erik. i think Gilad whould have a far easier time getting smalltalk and newspeak widely accepted if he took a page from erik

and another thing, saying that you can make dynamic systems fast and efficient is not good enough. you have to actually do it. like what microsoft has done with the dlr.. twice as fast as cpython last year, and its built on the clr with its static type system :)

but again, a very interesting video, just because i disagree with some stuff doesnt make it bad :)

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Chadk — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:53:41 GMT

Dark_Halmut wrote:
alot of stuff.

I didnt really read your post. But your avatar is hysterical. I have thought about using that picture myself..

But it isnt exactly.. Politically correct:(

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

Dark_Halmut — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:09:39 GMT

This is great stuff. I think the idea of a pluggable type system is interesting(seems cleaner to me), but would it really add to the power of a type system say of the CLR.

My meaning here is, at some level all types are comprised of some other basic types. For example, you could say have a variable of type bmp... but at a basic level it can be expressed as a byte array.

Unless we start doing things like var x = new SQLserver(), wouldn't a pluggable type system just allow us to more easily work with this super set of types? But then again, couldn't the same be accomplished by creating the class and doing a lot of operator overloading? Or, would this be a way to dynamically type these complex object types?

Or, and this very well could be the case, am I just missing the point?

edit: just an after thought. its mentioned that a built in type system can limit the ability of a language to adapt over time... but the first thing that pops to mind is... Fortran had ints an strings and arrays... and so does the CLR(albeit a little smarter). Theres nearly 50 years between now and when fortran came out.. Just for a chuckle.

Re: Erik Meijer, Gilad Bracha, Mads Torgersen: Perspectives on Programming Language Design and Evolution

GiladBracha — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 04:13:28 GMT

That's exactly it. Cheers, Gilad