Time for a new programming language paradigm
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My thoughts exactly, except portability part. I work in VB.NET, have weak typing, good descriptive code etc... And recently I had a discussion with a colleague who prefers C# who espouses "real" programming, symbols instead of words for start/end of function etc...until we got to code review and I got to see: while () { ... ... if () { ... ... break; } // end if ... } // end while :-\ I didn't call him on it, really :cool:
I intend to live forever. Or die trying.
I admit I do this nowadays in Delphi (three cycle, a case and a try..except down) - and remember Excel VBA, as it wrote If after End for me, while the Delphi IDE is unable to do it for me :) So long, VB haters...
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Just spent the better part of two weeks trying to find a bug in a Linux bash script (missing ".") and I'm tired of looking for things like a missing equal sign in the middle of an C if statement, missing period in a PHP script, lower case variable name mixed with an upper case variable name, missing brace in a C++ object, undelared function or operator overloading....get my drift?...in other people's code. (Being the perfect programmer, I never make those kinds of mistakes! And I have swamp property if you're interested.) All too many programming errors are occurring because programming languages, like C, C++, java, etc., trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality. Printing a program listing on an ASR 33 teletype at 10 CPS on a single threaded machine made using braces in C if statements instead of a clear if-then-else-endif highly desirable. (Remember the origins of C?) Those extra 9 characters took TIME to read in and to print out. And then there's issues of language diversity. C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL, and other languages--what works where? So, here's a few of my thoughts: (And please don't be too anal about my examples--I really want to hear how programming languages could be advanced so that I can be more productive.) Among other things, a New Programming Language should: 1) Be clear and obvious in describing the functionality of the module. The resulting code should almost be language like. A sentence like "If (A equals 10) then print B as "xx.xx" else B = 0 end". But, that statement might also be written in a more mathematical syntax (like Fortran) as "If (A = 10) then....". Note the "=" in the second statement does NOT have the implied assignment and resulting TRUE logical decision (Spent 6 months chasing THAT bug!). 2) The language should be portable. The language should be executable as an interpreted, compiled, scripted or shell'ed running under most commonly available OS's and browsers. Perhaps Interpreted for testing, Compiled for execution speed, scripted for portability or shell'ed for utility work. Take features from scripting languages like Powershell, bash, incorporate execution speed of C, objectivity of Java or C++ and put them under one roof. Write a module that runs under IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, or anything else. 3) The code should be almost self-documenting. Nothing I hate worse than to have to go looking for the a type declaration, a
Except for the interpreted part, it sounds like C/C++, but you need to use a modern compiler that whines about things like assignments in ifs (or maybe do a lint pass) and a modern IDE for it.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Fire up any text editor, compile the code below as pure C and you have what you asked for ...
#define IF if (
#define THEN ){
#define ELIF } else if (
#define ELSE } else {
#define ENDIF }
#define IS ==
#define EQUALS ==Thanks! Here's a set of C macros I found real useful that's along the same lines. I tripped them across 20 years ago when I had a programmer working for me that couldn't keep his braces balanced. I known I will take heat about these macros from certain types of people on this thread, but, remember, this is a problem some of us have been wrestling with since Day 1. So, for the purists in the group, be thankful for all your experience, but remember back to your early days and, if your were writing bug-free programs back then, you're welcome to comment. /* (e) is any valid C expression */ /* Uppercase is necessary because of the cursive processing of statements like "else" by the C pre-processor */ /* IF-THEN-ELSE-ELSEIF */ #define IF(e) { if (e) #define THEN { #define ELSE_IF(e) } else if (e) { #define ELSE } else { #define END_IF ;}} #define DO_N_TIMES(e) { int __Iii; for (__Iii = 0; __Iii < (e); __Iii++) { #define END_DO ;}} #define DO_UNTIL(e) { for (; !(e); ) { #define END_UNTIL ;}} // END_DO will work also #define DO_WHILE(e) { while (e) { #define END_WHILE ;}} // END_DO will work also #define FOR(e) { for (e) { #define END_FOR ;}} #define CASE(e) { switch (e) { #define CASE_OF(e) case e: { #define DEFCASE default: { #define DEFAULT default: { #define END_COF } break; #define END_CASE }} #define BEGIN { #define END } #define AND && #define OR || #define NOT ! #define EQ == #define NE != #define LT < #define GT > #define LE <= #define GE >= #define BAND & #define BOR | #define BXOR ^ #define BNOT ~ #define LSHF << #define RSHF >> #define INC ++ #define DEC -- #define MOD % #define ADDR(e) &(e) #define PTR(e) *(e) #define BOOLEAN unsigned char #define BYTE unsigned char #define REAL double #define INTEGER int #ifndef TRUE #define TRUE 1 #define FALSE 0 #endif
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Sounds like you really just want a compiler to be more helpful with errors. Tools like Resharper help with this in Visual Studio! Hogan
In a way, yes! What I'm really driving at is more along the lines of psychologically helpful. I read a study not that long ago that the average programmer is now producing 1.2 lines of code per man-day. I don't know if this correct or not, but it causes me to wonder "why?" and what could be done to change it. So my question becomes: What can we do differently?
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All of my code is self documenting enough that maintenance well never happens because it was written clear and concise to begin with.
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What you tell a computer to do must be precise. Computers are machines, they have no intelligence or subjectivity, and in the end everything we tell them to do comes down to bit twiddling in particular memory or disk locations. There are whole levels of existing code (OSs and byte code executors, then compilers) between you and that, but in the end that's what it comes down to, and in order to translate your code into those low level instructions for the computer, your code must be entirely unambiguous. Natural language is ambiguous, subjective and often imprecise and confusing. That's why mathematicians use a formal way of writing (equations and carefully phrased theorems/axioms/etc), rather than a normal talking language. And do you really want to be working in a code base where one person has typed
if(a == 5) { DoSomeStuff(); }
... and someone else
if a is 5 then dosomestuff end
?
I think the crux of the problem is that we need Service Pack 1 on the Human OS, but this runs the risk of breaking 'being human'. The alternative is the embedded artificial intelligence into all machines so they know to do what we 'meant', not what we 'said'.
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I've been working on this for a while. First, you may have noticed that all the innovation in software and languages is just really continuous re-invention of minor variations in existing languages and language paradigms. The "new" language is just another language with a not particularly well thought out hodgepodge of features that the author would like to see together in a language. There is no real innovation taking place in software languages today. I've been looking at PhD programs in CS and there's not really any real good movement towards the next generation software environment. Which is unfortunate. Thus, I am working on it. Why is there no forward movement in software? That I need to explain in my Software Innovation Psychology Theory which I am working on right now to produce first a concise booklet, an eBook, and then a video. In a nutshell, it is cause by people mistaking copycat innovation with true innovation (which is very rare). There are also a number of visualization and cognitive factors as well. And also the type of work in software does not really attract true innovators since most of the work is really grunt code work. So there are reasons why the current stasis exists. Now, on to what a next generation programming language will include/be like/encompass: 1. True Object based instead of just Object "oriented". 2. Combines database, software, and transport protocol into one. There will be no impedance mismatch, no dedicated conventional database servers as such, etc. 3. Definition based rather than procedural based. 4. Smart components instead of dumb controls. 5. Replacement of the conventional function argument passing mechanisms with a definition language based approach. This will eliminate function overloading and re-implement dynamic polymorphism and class overriding in more natural approach. 6. The new definition language will be expressible in both terse and verbose modes. Verbose mode is a very human readable (yeah!) while terse mode can be used to save space and bandwidth when necessary. 7. SQL will no longer be necessary. It will be replaced by a universal data definition language that brings software and data persistence together into one unity. 8. XML will be replaced by a human readable data definition form and format. I've built successful prototypes on this and am converting all of my current code to run with it. Fully human readable and writable. BTXML - Better Than XML! 9. The definition scripting language will not need to b
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In a way, yes! What I'm really driving at is more along the lines of psychologically helpful. I read a study not that long ago that the average programmer is now producing 1.2 lines of code per man-day. I don't know if this correct or not, but it causes me to wonder "why?" and what could be done to change it. So my question becomes: What can we do differently?
There is no one party at fault here... On the employee side, there is personal responsibility. There needs to be a desire to be a better developer and to work hard. On the employer side, they need to be more organized. I've heard and experienced issues with companies (mostly large ones) who hire people but don't utilize them anywhere near a person's capacity. I spent a few weeks waiting to get access to systems and be assigned work to do. I left because the job was not fulfilling. From my perspective, I should strive to be better each day. Secondly, mentor people around me that don't know as much. That was the main way I got up to speed. Hogan
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Just spent the better part of two weeks trying to find a bug in a Linux bash script (missing ".") and I'm tired of looking for things like a missing equal sign in the middle of an C if statement, missing period in a PHP script, lower case variable name mixed with an upper case variable name, missing brace in a C++ object, undelared function or operator overloading....get my drift?...in other people's code. (Being the perfect programmer, I never make those kinds of mistakes! And I have swamp property if you're interested.) All too many programming errors are occurring because programming languages, like C, C++, java, etc., trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality. Printing a program listing on an ASR 33 teletype at 10 CPS on a single threaded machine made using braces in C if statements instead of a clear if-then-else-endif highly desirable. (Remember the origins of C?) Those extra 9 characters took TIME to read in and to print out. And then there's issues of language diversity. C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL, and other languages--what works where? So, here's a few of my thoughts: (And please don't be too anal about my examples--I really want to hear how programming languages could be advanced so that I can be more productive.) Among other things, a New Programming Language should: 1) Be clear and obvious in describing the functionality of the module. The resulting code should almost be language like. A sentence like "If (A equals 10) then print B as "xx.xx" else B = 0 end". But, that statement might also be written in a more mathematical syntax (like Fortran) as "If (A = 10) then....". Note the "=" in the second statement does NOT have the implied assignment and resulting TRUE logical decision (Spent 6 months chasing THAT bug!). 2) The language should be portable. The language should be executable as an interpreted, compiled, scripted or shell'ed running under most commonly available OS's and browsers. Perhaps Interpreted for testing, Compiled for execution speed, scripted for portability or shell'ed for utility work. Take features from scripting languages like Powershell, bash, incorporate execution speed of C, objectivity of Java or C++ and put them under one roof. Write a module that runs under IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, or anything else. 3) The code should be almost self-documenting. Nothing I hate worse than to have to go looking for the a type declaration, a
Whenever I read one of these "desires to fix programming languages", I laugh. I have been programming since the 80's and I too went through that phase right after college. However, I never had to work with all these silly pseudo-languages that come and go. We used ASM and C. Then Byorn Stroustroup (?) comes along and says, "hey, I hate programming, I'll add a bunch of junk to keep myself from making mistakes." I would've suggested he find a new line of work instead. C++ is a mess. It's poorly conceived, coerced and unnatural. It does nothing that a professional programmer can't accomplish in plain old C. As is usually the case, it causes more problems than it fixes, or it fixes one set but creates another set. Considering that most of the world is embedded micro-controllers, those of us who program them don't have gigabytes of memory or gigahertz processors as we need to be more efficient. Over 20 years this has taught me to appreciate C and ASM more. I'm glad I never got my wishes to have a bullet-proof language. I suggest if you're having issue with a particular part of a language, create a preprocessor directive and use it! For example, if your problem is:
if (x = y)
this can be fixed by defining:
#define IS_EQUAL ==
then used everywhere as:
if (x IS_EQUAL y)
No need to suggest the world change, or hope someday this 'gets fixed' for you. The C preprocessor is probably the most overlooked part of C. You can easily invent an entirely new language using the preprocessor. In fact, Linus Torvalds, who is a pretty awful programmer, took to using the preprocessor in ways most professionals would recommend against. But he recognized that it could keep him from repeating certain mistakes he tended to make.
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I think the crux of the problem is that we need Service Pack 1 on the Human OS, but this runs the risk of breaking 'being human'. The alternative is the embedded artificial intelligence into all machines so they know to do what we 'meant', not what we 'said'.
... sorry, being human, meant to say 'is to embed artificial intelligence' ...
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Something is wrong if you're spending 6 months chasing "==" for "=". With the debuggers/IDEs of today I find chasing them (no, they never go away [someone elses code]) to be fairly efficient. As for the rest, well, it's the same old programmer-preference thing. No one thing or set of things will satisfy everyone. I believe Abe Lincoln said that. Personally, I really like braces vs. BEGIN/END. Any anyone who feels the need for "// end of some-block" has written a block that is too long; just break it out into smaller chunks/methods/functions.
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Just spent the better part of two weeks trying to find a bug in a Linux bash script (missing ".") and I'm tired of looking for things like a missing equal sign in the middle of an C if statement, missing period in a PHP script, lower case variable name mixed with an upper case variable name, missing brace in a C++ object, undelared function or operator overloading....get my drift?...in other people's code. (Being the perfect programmer, I never make those kinds of mistakes! And I have swamp property if you're interested.) All too many programming errors are occurring because programming languages, like C, C++, java, etc., trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality. Printing a program listing on an ASR 33 teletype at 10 CPS on a single threaded machine made using braces in C if statements instead of a clear if-then-else-endif highly desirable. (Remember the origins of C?) Those extra 9 characters took TIME to read in and to print out. And then there's issues of language diversity. C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL, and other languages--what works where? So, here's a few of my thoughts: (And please don't be too anal about my examples--I really want to hear how programming languages could be advanced so that I can be more productive.) Among other things, a New Programming Language should: 1) Be clear and obvious in describing the functionality of the module. The resulting code should almost be language like. A sentence like "If (A equals 10) then print B as "xx.xx" else B = 0 end". But, that statement might also be written in a more mathematical syntax (like Fortran) as "If (A = 10) then....". Note the "=" in the second statement does NOT have the implied assignment and resulting TRUE logical decision (Spent 6 months chasing THAT bug!). 2) The language should be portable. The language should be executable as an interpreted, compiled, scripted or shell'ed running under most commonly available OS's and browsers. Perhaps Interpreted for testing, Compiled for execution speed, scripted for portability or shell'ed for utility work. Take features from scripting languages like Powershell, bash, incorporate execution speed of C, objectivity of Java or C++ and put them under one roof. Write a module that runs under IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, or anything else. 3) The code should be almost self-documenting. Nothing I hate worse than to have to go looking for the a type declaration, a
Smalltalk?
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The bug was embedded deep within an error recovery routine that got invoked maybe once every 2-3 weeks with the result that the system would crash with little evidence as to why. It had been written by a programmer who had moved on to the next project.
Sorry. I was harsh. However, a decent language such as my current favorite, C#, almost always catches such things. Eg,
int i = 9;
int j = 10; // or 9, or 8 or whatever
if (i = j)
{
DoSomething();
}... won't compile. I've been writing code since '81. I cannot find anything to complain about with C#. EVERY other language I've used, not so.
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Just spent the better part of two weeks trying to find a bug in a Linux bash script (missing ".") and I'm tired of looking for things like a missing equal sign in the middle of an C if statement, missing period in a PHP script, lower case variable name mixed with an upper case variable name, missing brace in a C++ object, undelared function or operator overloading....get my drift?...in other people's code. (Being the perfect programmer, I never make those kinds of mistakes! And I have swamp property if you're interested.) All too many programming errors are occurring because programming languages, like C, C++, java, etc., trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality. Printing a program listing on an ASR 33 teletype at 10 CPS on a single threaded machine made using braces in C if statements instead of a clear if-then-else-endif highly desirable. (Remember the origins of C?) Those extra 9 characters took TIME to read in and to print out. And then there's issues of language diversity. C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL, and other languages--what works where? So, here's a few of my thoughts: (And please don't be too anal about my examples--I really want to hear how programming languages could be advanced so that I can be more productive.) Among other things, a New Programming Language should: 1) Be clear and obvious in describing the functionality of the module. The resulting code should almost be language like. A sentence like "If (A equals 10) then print B as "xx.xx" else B = 0 end". But, that statement might also be written in a more mathematical syntax (like Fortran) as "If (A = 10) then....". Note the "=" in the second statement does NOT have the implied assignment and resulting TRUE logical decision (Spent 6 months chasing THAT bug!). 2) The language should be portable. The language should be executable as an interpreted, compiled, scripted or shell'ed running under most commonly available OS's and browsers. Perhaps Interpreted for testing, Compiled for execution speed, scripted for portability or shell'ed for utility work. Take features from scripting languages like Powershell, bash, incorporate execution speed of C, objectivity of Java or C++ and put them under one roof. Write a module that runs under IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, or anything else. 3) The code should be almost self-documenting. Nothing I hate worse than to have to go looking for the a type declaration, a
rjmoses wrote:
trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality.
First, compilers (of which interpreters are just a subset) have deterministic requirements that cannot and should not be circumvented. Thus certain language constructs exist to insure that there is no ambiguity. And this is a feature of compilers (specifically compiler theory) and not just some misunderstanding by the author of the language. Second, terseness serves another need in that communications requires one to transfers thoughts to the computer. Increasing the verbosity would decrease the rate at which that can occur. Third one must be aware that no language can be perfect and no user of that language can be perfect either thus the compiler must strive to report errors to the best of its ability. At least in my experience doing that is one of the hardest parts of writing a compiler. Fourth languages are meant to serve different purposes and no one language can meet the needs of all possible uses without adding complexity that circumvents the original desire for simplicity.
rjmoses wrote:
Among other things, a New Programming Language should:
There are a large number new programming languages created every year and presumably many start with the idea that they are going to be 'better' than what already exists. Many, many, fail to achieve that goal. So many that one can bet that not even one language introduced within one year will ever achieve anymore than a very, very small niche (even that is due to promotion by the author rather than acceptance.) But you could venture forth into that realm yourself. However, if you haven't ever done so or haven't done so recently, you might want to learn a little about compiler theory first. It helps.
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I just did my 29th update to Firefox the other day. It took me about 3 hours to get it back to where it was. Windows 7 keeps bugging about "New updates are ready to install". And Adobe Acrobat keeps crashing.... My point is: How can the programming process be improved? Such that we don't have 29 versions of FF? Or weekly updates ready to be installed. Or "Should a crash report be sent..."?
rjmoses wrote:
How can the programming process be improved?
First you identify whether you're attacking the right thing; it's not due to the language that Acrobat behaves the way it does.
rjmoses wrote:
How can the programming process be improved?
Seriously?
- Start educating people. No, don't send them to an expensive 5-day course where they learn to parrot the most used words, but educate them.
- Kick marketing and sales out of the IT-room.
- Drop agile ad hoc methods.
- Force the boss to use the product on a daily base just as an end-user would use it.
- Care about your product.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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I think the crux of the problem is that we need Service Pack 1 on the Human OS, but this runs the risk of breaking 'being human'. The alternative is the embedded artificial intelligence into all machines so they know to do what we 'meant', not what we 'said'.
Sould note that when Programming (talking to) humans is much education between Chemists and physicists. Agree we need a pretty good AI to take over the details of creating a program and avoiding the failures of precision (as in missing commas etc.)but the AI needs to be able to learn how we think. And we write math using integer to real and back quite often and only occasionally blow the wad. Think about translating the gibs free energy - from chemistry - to the conservation of energy as in all else. Confuse those two and the barn goes up in a hot one. One damn smart computer to follow us into our thousands of specialties.:cool:
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Just spent the better part of two weeks trying to find a bug in a Linux bash script (missing ".") and I'm tired of looking for things like a missing equal sign in the middle of an C if statement, missing period in a PHP script, lower case variable name mixed with an upper case variable name, missing brace in a C++ object, undelared function or operator overloading....get my drift?...in other people's code. (Being the perfect programmer, I never make those kinds of mistakes! And I have swamp property if you're interested.) All too many programming errors are occurring because programming languages, like C, C++, java, etc., trace their origins back to the days when terseness was a desirable quality. Printing a program listing on an ASR 33 teletype at 10 CPS on a single threaded machine made using braces in C if statements instead of a clear if-then-else-endif highly desirable. (Remember the origins of C?) Those extra 9 characters took TIME to read in and to print out. And then there's issues of language diversity. C, C++, PHP, Java, Javascript, HTML, CSS, SQL, and other languages--what works where? So, here's a few of my thoughts: (And please don't be too anal about my examples--I really want to hear how programming languages could be advanced so that I can be more productive.) Among other things, a New Programming Language should: 1) Be clear and obvious in describing the functionality of the module. The resulting code should almost be language like. A sentence like "If (A equals 10) then print B as "xx.xx" else B = 0 end". But, that statement might also be written in a more mathematical syntax (like Fortran) as "If (A = 10) then....". Note the "=" in the second statement does NOT have the implied assignment and resulting TRUE logical decision (Spent 6 months chasing THAT bug!). 2) The language should be portable. The language should be executable as an interpreted, compiled, scripted or shell'ed running under most commonly available OS's and browsers. Perhaps Interpreted for testing, Compiled for execution speed, scripted for portability or shell'ed for utility work. Take features from scripting languages like Powershell, bash, incorporate execution speed of C, objectivity of Java or C++ and put them under one roof. Write a module that runs under IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, or anything else. 3) The code should be almost self-documenting. Nothing I hate worse than to have to go looking for the a type declaration, a
It's time to scratch all other languages and just leave C++ alone. Honestly, I used to write in many diff languages - about 18 of them. And you know what? I got tired. Every few months there is new, "latest and greatest" mumbo-jumbo that employers jump onto - hey, look, new buzzword. And poor programmers have to "learn", i.e. stuff into their heads that "new" APIs, new language things - just to have them to disappear in another few months for another mumbo-jumbo. Enough for me. I don't want to waste my life permanently studing things that will gone few months down the road. And, even if they stay - sorry, no. I chose C++, get great at it, and keep it that way.
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Colborne_Greg wrote:
All of my code is self documenting enough that maintenance well never happens because it was written clear and concise to begin with.
Okay, here's my challenge: Find the error(s) in your above statement.
I failed English, I started programming before I started highschool, its like I think in code, then have to translate to English
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I failed English, I started programming before I started highschool, its like I think in code, then have to translate to English
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After two decades of cobol I am ready to chuck it out the window
After three decades of COBOL and more languages than I have fingers and toes, COBOL still is the language that comes the closest to the ideal that rjmoses described.