Andrew Condon 2021-12-06 07:43:33 This definitely feels like a glimpse of (some sort of) future of programming: (video linked with timestamp to particular bit, where streamer is using Copilot and Haskell Language Server features to streamline Advent of Code programming exercise) https://youtu.be/cFTUy31Z0Wk?t=422
Andrew Condon 2021-12-06 07:44:40 That’s both amazing and terrifying...in the sense that people are going to write some seriously only-a-machine-would-write-it-that-way code with copilot but OTOH Haskell is all about re-factoring and maybe it will get better
Deepak Karki 2021-12-06 21:28:43 Didn’t realise that JetBrains had a research wing : https://research.jetbrains.org/
The Programming Languages and Software Engineering group might be of interest to folks here!
Fundamental research into new programming languages and software development tools. - > Concurrent Computing> , > Cyber-Physical Systems Lab> , > Intelligent Collaboration Tools Lab> , > Machine Learning Methods in Software Engineering> , > Programming Languages and Tools Lab> & > Verification or Program Analysis Lab> .
Shon Feder 2021-12-06 22:37:48 I found this interview really inspiring: https://signalsandthreads.com/what-is-an-operating-system/
Gives a depiction of what can be achieved with by pursuing a vision and solid principles over decades of steady work. The focus on sustainability and driving modularity all the way down until it makes OS architecture evaporates is really exciting to me. Even tho unlike ranks aren’t new, I still find the prospect very exciting!
Daniel Krasner 2021-12-07 16:19:46 makes me think of Dan Ingalls’s definition of an OS: “An operating system is a collection of things that don’t fit into a language. There shouldn’t be one.”
Jimmy Miller 2021-12-07 15:00:05
🐦 Laurence Diver: When we let programmers structure the world through code, the strictures of the code's language frame what's possible, and therefore also the world they create and impose upon us
Jack Rusher 2021-12-07 17:13:27 Tbh, I don't think the problem with programmers structuring the world is the programming languages they use! 😊
Konrad Hinsen 2021-12-07 17:36:23 The author working in "computational law", I guess he considers any programming language (perhaps even any formal language) too constraining for structuring the world. And with that I'd agree.
Jimmy Miller 2021-12-07 18:23:45 Yeah, definitely not the only problem. But a small problem that is part of this larger problem.
Imagine if for example McCarthy's elephant 2000 existed. Now we have a language involving speech acts. A different conceptual framework than I think many of us programmers are familiar with.
As we structure the world more and more through code, we do have to ask what sorts of assumptions are pre-baked into our languages. What things are easy to express? What things are hard? Does that fact that most of our programming languages today are fairly similar have any impact on that?
Denny Vrandečić 2021-12-07 18:55:03 The languages are rarely the problem (unless we go Sapir-Whorf here), but the problem is the models we express in those language and how we stick to them or not.
Put differently, the problem is not that your language has Booleans, it's when you use Boolean to model gender when you create a problem.
Konrad Hinsen 2021-12-07 19:26:33 Exactly. Inappropriate and/or premature formalization. Which happens not only in code. The numerical targets so loved by managers are quite similar.
Jimmy Miller 2021-12-07 20:19:11 Completely agree that models are the problem. I do think I'd just add to that that what models are easy or difficult to work with and express depends on our language.
Simple examples, Nats vs u32 vs integer vs floats. Some problems are better modeled with these various types. But it I'm in J's I'm probably modeling them with floats (the only real number type).
How many things do we not do or choose to not even consider because our languages make it difficult to express?
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:12:45 If we compare computing systems to the actual concepts of language (natural) and writing, we can immediately see the shortcoming of talking solely about "programming languages"
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:13:45 Programming "languages" are not very good on their own and lack the most important feature of true natural language, which is that you get it for free no matter what
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:14:28 In this sense, programming languages are more like writing, which has to be learned over a sustained period of time, and which is the symbolic representation of language and linguistic thought.
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:14:57 All of this exists within an environment that gives it context and which enables its use, in standard or novel ways
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:15:27 What I'm saying is that it's not enough to talk of programming languages on their own. It will get you nowhere. You have to talk about computing environments
Eric Gade 2021-12-08 14:16:21 Doing most of your computing in a system that still uses a teletype metaphor at its core is going to be more restrictive to your potential mental models than whether or not language X uses floats as its number type
Christopher Galtenberg 2021-12-09 16:18:02
🐦 DeeKay: Curious about how I make animations? Watch this.
Jean-Louis Villecroze 2021-12-09 21:12:23 ... reminds me of the interaction between an AI character on a computer UI in 'Godzilla Singular Point' (anime show on Netflix)
Scott Anderson 2021-12-11 05:28:14 Scott Anderson 2021-12-11 05:29:36 Gave me an idea to make a 3D spreadsheet with a Minecraft style interface
Andrew F 2021-12-11 07:12:55 I can't believe they actually did it. This is pure comedy so skirting the edges of relevancy, but I'm compelled to link this video from two years ago. https://youtu.be/xubbVvKbUfY There's another one with "tournament footage" that's really good too.
