Pre-relational database models' influence on "theoreticians"
Quote from dandl on August 6, 2019, 4:44 amTo be clear, I don't hate Lisp. However I do regard it as (a) a religion, with its own subjective reality and (b) the founding member of a small number of write only languages.
All paradigms have their own subjective (better, intersubjective) reality, as do religions. The terms are almost interchangeable. It's no accident that OO programmers talk about "ceremony".
All the criticisms in the linked article apply. Every significant chunk of Lisp code I've seen created its own new language (or more than one),
The same is true of mathematics papers, at least ones which break new ground. And like any feature, abstraction can be used poorly or tastelessly. See "The Tale of Professor Simpleton and Dr. Hardcase"; beyond that, see generally Google's "Common Lisp Style Guide".
It's just the Wild West forever more.
It can be. Or it can be the Canadian Not-So-Wild West, where the lawman, the church, and the women (all strong influences toward civilized behavior) arrived right around the time of settlement instead of after years of chaos.
No one suggested that polymorphism, first-class functions, etc., are unique to object orientation, which is typically characterised by the presence of all three of encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism. These three may be found in other paradigms too. What was notable was that adding these to bare C (C++ and Objective C) made C so much better.
In C++ they're not too low-level to be reliable as abstractions but the assumption is you're using generics and templates, though C++ without these is still much superior to C. Yes, C++ is potentially brittle and requires more diligence than, say, Java or Smalltalk or C# to "get it right", but it is what it is.
I'm not really sure what that means, but capable multi-paradigm programmers are almost inevitably appreciative of functional programming and object oriented programming, and tend to blend the best features of both -- as applicable, and where possible -- in their object oriented code. For example, I don't know any good "true" object oriented programmer who doesn't try to minimise and encapsulate statefulness.
I was going to respond, but you said it all.
Maybe modern OO is like the English language: a bit of a mish-mash, happy to steal bits from all over if it gets the job done.
Quote from AntC on August 6, 2019, 11:26 amAside: eh? Spreadsheets are the toolset for ensuring the mediocre do foul things up, and even the very able can barely avoid fouling up.
See Lotus Improv and its current successor, Quantrix Modeler, for spreadsheets done right. A precis:
- An OLAP hypercube masquerading as a spreadsheet.
- No hidden formulas, no accidental overwriting.
- Rows and columns have business names, not A and 1
- Up to 12 dimensions with clever display techniques
- Rules are stored completely outside the cells and are of the form PROFIT = EARNED - SPENT, but of course can be far more complex.
Unfortunately, Quantrix products cost an arm and a leg.
I'm confused: I do not count C++ as a HLL, any more than C is. In particular, no Garbage Collection; no protecting pointers from dreferencing abuse.
It's easy to confuse C, the language, with the gcc/clang implementation. Vacietis is a compiler that provides garbage collection and pointer checking among other things. I have (re)written an interpreter for Joy in C + BDW (a conservative garbage collector) and found it a very pleasant experience.
Quote from johnwcowan on August 6, 2019, 2:27 pmQuote from AntC on August 6, 2019, 11:26 amAside: eh? Spreadsheets are the toolset for ensuring the mediocre do foul things up, and even the very able can barely avoid fouling up.
See Lotus Improv and its current successor, Quantrix Modeler, for spreadsheets done right. A precis:
- An OLAP hypercube masquerading as a spreadsheet.
- No hidden formulas, no accidental overwriting.
- Rows and columns have business names, not A and 1
- Up to 12 dimensions with clever display techniques
- Rules are stored completely outside the cells and are of the form PROFIT = EARNED - SPENT, but of course can be far more complex.
Unfortunately, Quantrix products cost an arm and a leg.
Yes, MS Excel and its progenitors (Lotus 1-2-3, Visicalc) and main general-purpose competitors (Google Docs Spreadsheet, Open Office spreadsheet, Numbers for MacOS, etc.) demonstrate an awful lot of unpleasant "we've always done it that way" baggage. Alternatives pop up every so often and either carve out a specialist niche -- like Quantrix in finance -- or vanish without a trace. I've been pointed to a number of them over the years -- all touted as being the next big thing since Excel; some touted as being poised to replace Excel -- and then... Nothing.
Of course, that doesn't stop me from trying -- my post-Rel product-in-progress draws some inspiration from spreadsheets (but don't read too much into that), at least in terms of their intuitive agility, but (like Quantrix) without some of the obvious flaws. Hopefully, once it's further along the development cycle it will find a niche rather than vanishing without a trace.
Quote from Dave Voorhis on August 6, 2019, 2:47 pmQuote from johnwcowan on August 6, 2019, 2:27 pmQuote from AntC on August 6, 2019, 11:26 amAside: eh? Spreadsheets are the toolset for ensuring the mediocre do foul things up, and even the very able can barely avoid fouling up.
See Lotus Improv and its current successor, Quantrix Modeler, for spreadsheets done right. A precis:
- An OLAP hypercube masquerading as a spreadsheet.
- No hidden formulas, no accidental overwriting.
- Rows and columns have business names, not A and 1
- Up to 12 dimensions with clever display techniques
- Rules are stored completely outside the cells and are of the form PROFIT = EARNED - SPENT, but of course can be far more complex.
Unfortunately, Quantrix products cost an arm and a leg.
Yes, MS Excel and its progenitors (Lotus 1-2-3, Visicalc) and main general-purpose competitors (Google Docs Spreadsheet, Open Office spreadsheet, Numbers for MacOS, etc.) demonstrate an awful lot of unpleasant "we've always done it that way" baggage. Alternatives pop up every so often and either carve out a specialist niche -- like Quantrix in finance -- or vanish without a trace. I've been pointed to a number of them over the years -- all touted as being the next big thing since Excel; some touted as being poised to replace Excel -- and then... Nothing.
Of course, that doesn't stop me from trying -- my post-Rel product-in-progress draws some inspiration from spreadsheets (but don't read too much into that), at least in terms of their intuitive agility, but (like Quantrix) without some of the obvious flaws. Hopefully, once it's further along the development cycle it will find a niche rather than vanishing without a trace.
More teasers? I confess this has been a long-term goal of mine too. From time to time I've invested quite a bit of time into it, and always run across barriers I couldn't get past. Simplicity turns out to be really complicated to do well.
One of the barriers is the choice of implementation technology. There is something to be said for the no install, instant gratification of JavaScript. See Evolutility for example. But then there is symphytum or SIEUFERD. No shortage of contenders, no end of different ways to do it (or get it wrong). So is your poison still Java?
Quote from dandl on August 8, 2019, 2:17 amQuote from Dave Voorhis on August 6, 2019, 2:47 pmQuote from johnwcowan on August 6, 2019, 2:27 pmQuote from AntC on August 6, 2019, 11:26 amAside: eh? Spreadsheets are the toolset for ensuring the mediocre do foul things up, and even the very able can barely avoid fouling up.
See Lotus Improv and its current successor, Quantrix Modeler, for spreadsheets done right. A precis:
- An OLAP hypercube masquerading as a spreadsheet.
- No hidden formulas, no accidental overwriting.
- Rows and columns have business names, not A and 1
- Up to 12 dimensions with clever display techniques
- Rules are stored completely outside the cells and are of the form PROFIT = EARNED - SPENT, but of course can be far more complex.
Unfortunately, Quantrix products cost an arm and a leg.
Yes, MS Excel and its progenitors (Lotus 1-2-3, Visicalc) and main general-purpose competitors (Google Docs Spreadsheet, Open Office spreadsheet, Numbers for MacOS, etc.) demonstrate an awful lot of unpleasant "we've always done it that way" baggage. Alternatives pop up every so often and either carve out a specialist niche -- like Quantrix in finance -- or vanish without a trace. I've been pointed to a number of them over the years -- all touted as being the next big thing since Excel; some touted as being poised to replace Excel -- and then... Nothing.
Of course, that doesn't stop me from trying -- my post-Rel product-in-progress draws some inspiration from spreadsheets (but don't read too much into that), at least in terms of their intuitive agility, but (like Quantrix) without some of the obvious flaws. Hopefully, once it's further along the development cycle it will find a niche rather than vanishing without a trace.
More teasers? I confess this has been a long-term goal of mine too. From time to time I've invested quite a bit of time into it, and always run across barriers I couldn't get past. Simplicity turns out to be really complicated to do well.
One of the barriers is the choice of implementation technology. There is something to be said for the no install, instant gratification of JavaScript. See Evolutility for example. But then there is symphytum or SIEUFERD. No shortage of contenders, no end of different ways to do it (or get it wrong). So is your poison still Java?
Yes, more teasers. Sorry. Progress is being made, though.
And, yes, no shortage of contenders. I've seen about five a year since I developed an interest in this in the early 1980's. Some in this area take off -- Lotus 1-2-3, MS Excel, Jim Button's PCFile, HyperCard (sort of the same idea, also sort of not), dBase III, (more recently) Tableau. Excel ate the world; Tableau is growing, the others are essentially gone. Some find niches. Many wind up in eternal pre-release limbo (e.g., http://www.ultorg.com/, SIEUFERD's successor.)
My poison is still Java. Indeed, I intend it as an amplification of Java, a facilitation of Java development with closely-integrated, agile griddy, databasey things. Java for data.