patterns

5 ms·

1.
by patterns 2mo ago
While I (think) understand the sentiment (ergonomics and practicality), it is still worth studying Lisp for a number of reasons. In particular, I would recommend to everyone to study Lisp 1.5 [1] to appreciate how an entire universe of prog
2.
by patterns 2y ago
I picture clusters of information as they move through the computer. Sometimes they look like ships or motorcycles. :-) Usually, I don't visualize anything in particular. I use tools for visualization, but I prefer to think algebraical
3.
by patterns 2y ago
I have been pondering about this issue for a while. Maybe it is inevitable that successful systems turn into big balls of mud eventually once the "inflection" point has been reached and (slow) deterioration begins. It is somewhat
4.
by patterns 3y ago
I think this is a fair assessment. I agree that Smalltalk is by far not a complete solution to the problem of building and maintaining complex system but "only" an attempt. I found that message passing is an elegant approach to ha
5.
by patterns 3y ago
Related to this is I watched a fairly recent talk by David May who worked on the implemention of the transputer in the late 80s together with Tony Hoare: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXUWmHgLiyU At the end of the talk, he
6.
by patterns 3y ago
>I picture three docs, A, B, and C which is a summary composite of things pulled from A & B - C will still need its own manual curation and updating if A and B are changed to remain legible, flowing, and meaningful, and I'd rath
7.
by patterns 3y ago
I understand. I think your last objection is very valid and perhaps needs far more consideration. Anyway, I have limited computer access at the moment, but maybe you find the following response I wrote in the meanwhile useful. Ill get back
8.
by patterns 3y ago
Yes, I agree a demo would be good. I have to catch some sleep, but I will address your questions as good as I can later. In the meanwhile, you might want to take a look at how Xanadu addresses the problems of stale links, and maybe some of
9.
by patterns 3y ago
The old guy in the video is Ted Nelson, the man who coined the term hypertext, made significant contributions to computer science, inspired two generations of researchers and continues to inspire as his works are being rediscovered. There h
10.
by patterns 3y ago
Since Smalltalk was mentioned, please consider following points: 1. Smalltalk has first class, live activation records (instances of the class Context). Smalltalk offers the special "variable" thisContext to obtain the current s
11.
by patterns 3y ago
But Racket and Clojure are very different from Lisps such as Common Lisp that embrace the idea of a lively, malleable and explorable environment , which is arguably the biggest idea.
12.
by patterns 3y ago
and Smalltalk ;-)!
13.
by patterns 3y ago
If done right, a macro system allows you to make your language modular and experiment with new language features without having to change the core language and the compiler. With the macro approach, languages become libraries. The Racket pe
14.
by patterns 3y ago
That's interesting. Thanks for the paper. I skimmed through it, but I did not get every detail, since it's been a long time I worked with languages like ML or Haskell and my formal background is a bit rusty at the moment. I do lik
15.
by patterns 3y ago
Nice to see Red getting attention. I have been playing with Rebol a while ago and I really liked how easy it is to do program manipulation and writing small DSLs. However, I found debugging to be very difficult, once I wrote a more complex
16.
by patterns 3y ago
Interesting. If I may ask: What made you switch "sides"? And what do you miss in Smalltalks coming from Scheme?
17.
by patterns 3y ago
I see. Thanks for the clarification!
18.
by patterns 3y ago
My pleasure! I found it to be a refreshing read. Thank you very much for your response. I will study your examples and read up the parts in your dissertation.
19.
by patterns 3y ago
Another question, Smalltalk related. What I noticed in various Smalltalk systems is that there is a lot of code duplication for handling UI interactions (such as dragging or selecting objects in various kinds of views). Garnet, for instance
20.
by patterns 3y ago
In your dissertation you mention that "program" internals such as Exceptions should not be asserted as facts and pollute the data-space; only relevant facts/knowledge about the domain should be shared. I understand this point
21.
A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks [pdf](db.dobo.sk)
2 points by patterns 5y ago|1 comments
22.
by patterns 5y ago
"Future users of large data banks must be protected from having to know how the data is organized in the machine (the internal representation). A prompting service which supplies such information is not a satisfactory solution. Activit
23.
by patterns 5y ago
I agree. One gripe that I have with functions like map is that it returns a generator, so you have to be careful when reusing results. I fell into this trap a few times. I'd also like a simpler syntax for closures, it would make writin
24.
by patterns 5y ago
Oh, this is great. I especially like the fire torch analogy and the animation you came up with ( https://divan.dev/images/torch.gif ). That's exactly how I feel when reading code. Recently, I explained the problem t
25.
by patterns 6y ago
This reminds of Robert Pike's "Systems Research is Irrelevant" speech [1]. Now, 20 years after his speech, we are still stuck with the same notions (such as everything being a string). It's not that there are not plenty
26.
by patterns 6y ago
If I remember correctly, Adele Goldberg once remarked that "in Smalltalk everything happens somewhere else". Although there has been ongoing work to collapse the many layers of indirection you find in message-passing systems, I am
27.
by patterns 6y ago
I wonder whether the migration to Chez Scheme will improve the performance of Dr. Racket which consumes a lot of memory and feels very sluggish. I have been experimenting with Racket for quite a while and I appreciate the effort that went i
28.
by patterns 6y ago
Yes, I had the same experience and I use it in the same way. It's a great book to have on your bookshelf as it covers a lot of topics and the chapters are, iirc, fairly self-contained; but I never read it from cover to cover.
29.
by patterns 6y ago
I recommend having a look at "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk. The book offers a very good introduction about the basics of electricity with many helpful illustrations, written in a down-to-earth