Ted Leung on the air
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Mon, 12 Jul 2004
Who's going forward?
After reading Sunday's post on Croquet, kbm wants to know my take on
[22:54] |
[computers/programming/python] |
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TB |
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4 Comments |
where Python sits in this ? Can't the Python community (or Ruby, ....) push computer science forwards?Here it is: Different communities (whether language centric or not) have their own reasons for forming. These reasons dictate the kinds of problems that they tend to work on and the kind of people that they tend to attract. My apologies if this seems self evident. The Smalltalk community has its roots in the PARC Learning Research Group, and I think that this has provided a center for it. The most comparable thing that I can think of in the Lisp community would be the Lisp Machine project, which turned into the LMI/Symbolics war, and was decapitated by the "failure" of commercial AI systems. As far as the Python and Ruby communities are concerned, I'm not aware of any large vision that is driving them. Python and Ruby are also dogged by the "scripting language" label, which causes many people to turn up their noses at the merits of what these languages have to offer. Part of the answer is to look at a community and look at the problems they are trying to solve, and look for the projects that you think are pushing the state of the art forward. Kay said that it is hard to find people who want to argue about what's important in a way that produces forward motion. Look at the arguments the people are having, and what they are about. See if the way that the arguments take place is producing better ideas. I think that one or more of the open source communities could/should evolve into such a place, but I don't believe that this has happened yet. I've haven't taken a close look at what the Squeak folks are up to, but I definitely plan to.
Two days ago I strongly felt that tech drivers should increasingly come from outside, non-computing communities. What paradigms do other subjects have?
An example might come from those railroad yards; frequently cited as an inspirational force by those who developed algorithms, like Knuth and perhaps Floyd.
Someone mentioned to me, "Objects are so 19th century." Long-term, I want tech to drive an inter-subject sharing of ideas. In a sense, you can try out ideas without necessarily having detailed knowledge of them, because the computer can encapsulate that knowledge.
An example might come from Dave Robert's blog which you mentioned. Baking in support for state machines in a language, as a natural construct, so programmers can think in terms of them rather than just sequential code.
Posted by Tayssir John Gabbour at Tue Jul 13 03:07:58 2004
An example might come from those railroad yards; frequently cited as an inspirational force by those who developed algorithms, like Knuth and perhaps Floyd.
Someone mentioned to me, "Objects are so 19th century." Long-term, I want tech to drive an inter-subject sharing of ideas. In a sense, you can try out ideas without necessarily having detailed knowledge of them, because the computer can encapsulate that knowledge.
An example might come from Dave Robert's blog which you mentioned. Baking in support for state machines in a language, as a natural construct, so programmers can think in terms of them rather than just sequential code.
Posted by Tayssir John Gabbour at Tue Jul 13 03:07:58 2004
Is there even any "there", there? What I mean is, where is the "Python community"? The set of people who are enthusiastic about the language does not a community make - it's just a set of people.
In other words, I'm agreeing with Ted - there's no huge driving goal or ambition that defines a Python community, and I'd contend it's the better for that very absence.
ben
Posted by Ben at Tue Jul 13 12:36:23 2004
In other words, I'm agreeing with Ted - there's no huge driving goal or ambition that defines a Python community, and I'd contend it's the better for that very absence.
ben
Posted by Ben at Tue Jul 13 12:36:23 2004
Is there even any "there", there? What I mean is, where is the "Python community"? The set of people who are enthusiastic about the language does not a community make - it's just a set of people.
In other words, I'm agreeing with Ted - there's no huge driving goal or ambition that defines a Python community, and I'd contend it's the better for that very absence.
ben
Posted by Ben at Tue Jul 13 23:56:13 2004
In other words, I'm agreeing with Ted - there's no huge driving goal or ambition that defines a Python community, and I'd contend it's the better for that very absence.
ben
Posted by Ben at Tue Jul 13 23:56:13 2004
Ben,
From the time that I spent at PyCon this year, I'd say that there definitely is at least one Python community, possibly two if you count the Twisted team. It doesn't consist of every person who's interested in Python, but it does include a large number of people who have contributed to Python and have some actual say in its direction.
Just to be clear, I do think that having some big picture goals or visions is important. It's not as clear to me that language based communities are necessarily the groups that need to have them. The overlap of the PARC LRG and Smalltalk did produce a number of ideas which we continue to use today.
Posted by Ted Leung at Wed Jul 14 00:05:14 2004
From the time that I spent at PyCon this year, I'd say that there definitely is at least one Python community, possibly two if you count the Twisted team. It doesn't consist of every person who's interested in Python, but it does include a large number of people who have contributed to Python and have some actual say in its direction.
Just to be clear, I do think that having some big picture goals or visions is important. It's not as clear to me that language based communities are necessarily the groups that need to have them. The overlap of the PARC LRG and Smalltalk did produce a number of ideas which we continue to use today.
Posted by Ted Leung at Wed Jul 14 00:05:14 2004
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