Comments on: Polyglot Programming - is it all Greek to you? http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/ It's too real to be true Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:38:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.1 By: Josh http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-395 Josh Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:41:59 +0000 http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-395 As I messed up my WP-Gatekeeper config (it seems to struggle with its autoconfigure promise), comments weren't working properly for a while. Sorry. Here's some valuable Haskell insights from Rebecca Parsons, my CTO... <blockquote> There's more to Haskell than just its higher order nature, although your reference is about the third I have seen recently to Haskell in the context of either purely functional languages or higher order languages. Another fascinating aspect of Haskell is its lazy semantics, and indeed it is one of the most (if not the most) prominent lazy functional language. Lazy evaluation allows the expression of unbounded data items far more cleanly than strict language, admittedly with some performance penalties. Intelligent compilation and optimization away from a lazy evaluation provides a nice balance between the expressiveness of lazy data types with performance concerns.</blockquote> Thanks Rebecca! Here's a brief intro to Haskell's call-by-need delayed evaluation <a href="http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~collberg/Teaching/372/2005/Html/Html-14/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~collberg/Teaching/372/2005/Html/Html-14/index.html</a> As I messed up my WP-Gatekeeper config (it seems to struggle with its autoconfigure promise), comments weren’t working properly for a while. Sorry.

Here’s some valuable Haskell insights from Rebecca Parsons, my CTO…

There’s more to Haskell than just its higher order nature, although your reference is about the third I have seen recently to Haskell in the context of either purely functional languages or higher order languages.

Another fascinating aspect of Haskell is its lazy semantics, and indeed it is one of the most (if not the most) prominent lazy functional language. Lazy evaluation allows the expression of unbounded data items far more cleanly than strict language, admittedly with some performance penalties.

Intelligent compilation and optimization away from a lazy evaluation provides a nice balance between the expressiveness of lazy data types with performance concerns.

Thanks Rebecca!

Here’s a brief intro to Haskell’s call-by-need delayed evaluation http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~collberg/Teaching/372/2005/Html/Html-14/index.html

]]> By: AF http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-403 AF Fri, 21 Sep 2007 07:07:31 +0000 http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-403 Why Ruby for interacting with Excel and Access? Ruby actually has pretty poor support for stuff like that, and that's one of my main problems with Ruby - a major lack of libraries. Python on the other hand is a very similar language but is much more mature on the library front. Why Ruby for interacting with Excel and Access? Ruby actually has pretty poor support for stuff like that, and that’s one of my main problems with Ruby - a major lack of libraries. Python on the other hand is a very similar language but is much more mature on the library front.

]]> By: Josh http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-404 Josh Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:36:12 +0000 http://grahamis.com/blog/2007/08/21/polyglot-programming-is-it-all-greek-to-you/#comment-404 AF - no, not for interacting with them, for replacing them! Many spreadsheets and Access databases started out as a small but pleasing efficiency boost for the information worker. Perhaps a few others in the team were able to use it too. Soon enough, though, they become vital. So many enterprises have important or near-critical business processes hinging on these things. Usually they're just sitting on one person's PC (or on a shared drive if you're lucky). The dude or dudette goes on holiday or leaves the company and no-one knows how the thing really works. Business value has eroded and been replaced with business risk. The point of my comment is that Ruby gives us something that can provide a low barrier to entry (super-efficient software delivery and a powerfuly simple web/persistence framework like Rails), can be hosted on enterprise infrastructure, and tended by high-performance software delivery teams. At the same time we can still provide the "glue" between the big systems and have lots of little efficiency boosters for those working through the business processes on a day-to-day basis. AF - no, not for interacting with them, for replacing them!

Many spreadsheets and Access databases started out as a small but pleasing efficiency boost for the information worker. Perhaps a few others in the team were able to use it too. Soon enough, though, they become vital. So many enterprises have important or near-critical business processes hinging on these things. Usually they’re just sitting on one person’s PC (or on a shared drive if you’re lucky). The dude or dudette goes on holiday or leaves the company and no-one knows how the thing really works. Business value has eroded and been replaced with business risk.

The point of my comment is that Ruby gives us something that can provide a low barrier to entry (super-efficient software delivery and a powerfuly simple web/persistence framework like Rails), can be hosted on enterprise infrastructure, and tended by high-performance software delivery teams. At the same time we can still provide the “glue” between the big systems and have lots of little efficiency boosters for those working through the business processes on a day-to-day basis.

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