obermd wrote:
I do know that early garbage collection schemes such as those found in Symbolics Lisp Machines and early versions of SmallTalk could consume up to 30% of the CPU.
Ironically, while initially awful, the Smalltalk community, and especially the Self language also pioneered many of the techniques now used in runtimes like .NET, JVM and JavaScript.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
That can be an issue under a data protection regime, where developers generally shouldn't have access to real data except in the context of resolving issues. In such environments, great care must be taken to scramble any data that may include personally identifiable information or commercial information.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Taking a leaf from JavaScript's clarity of definition for equality, in [Span<T>.Inequality(Span<T>, Span<T>) Operator (System) | Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.span-1.op\_inequality?view=net-7.0) , the following definition of equality seems a bit suspect... "Two Span objects are equal if they have different lengths or if the corresponding elements of left and right do not point to the same memory."
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
In a similar vein, the ClubMember type in particular made me wish (again) that C# supported enum types with methods.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
There is a (much better and less hyperbolic) talk by Simon Peyton Jones on Verse here: [Beyond Functional Programming: The Verse Programming Language (Simon Peyton Jones) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=832JF1o7Ck8). SPJ is well known for his other language, Haskell, and given the influence that has had, it may be worth paying attention to Verse. I doubt very much he shares the view that it will "soon topple C and C++".
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
I'd really hope that contractors aren't mixing projects from different clients in the same solution.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
CSS most definitely is a language, just one designed for styling not programming. (End pedant mode)
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Natural intelligence has been doing a pretty good job at screwing us, no need for assistance from AI.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Sorry, you can classify this like that, but sending your own drivers into potentially violent situations, with attitude of "if it kicks off, it will help our cause" is beyond despicable. "In one exchange, Kalanick dismissed concerns from other executives that sending Uber drivers to a protest in France put them at risk of violence from angry opponents in the taxi industry. “I think it’s worth it,” he shot back. “Violence guarantee[s] success.”" They're undercutting taxis by avoiding all the rules that cover taxis, putting passengers at more risk. It's disruptive, but in all the wrong ways.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
An enormous cache of documents have been leaked from Uber, that don't exactly paint them in a good light... [The Uber files | The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/uber-files)
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
It has nothing to do with inheritance or OO at all. The code is in LISP, a functional language. From the sound of it, it called a lower-level function, implemented as native code, that didn't provide the safety guarantees. More like calling a C API from a managed language.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
I'd argue that programming languages *are* used to communicate between humans. A well-written program should be readable by other humans.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
To be fair, it's hard to see AI making worse political decisions than humans.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
"But as time went on, the state of the art for runtimes improved dramatically, and today, it takes a lot of skill to write a complex program in C++ that outperforms a similar program in Javascript running on a highly optimized engine like v8." Really? I'd like to see some actual evidence of that.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
I'm not sure I'd call JS the "champion" of duck typed languages. Certainly the most widely used. Also probably the worst implementation of it. Having used Smalltalk, better implementations were available decades before the abomination that is JavaScript.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Most of the other professions listed there involve significant risk to health or life if the practitioner gets it wrong. This is true of some software projects, but not at all to others. People had been building for millenia before practice was standardised and regulated. Engineering had a few hundred years. Software has been around for around 70 years in total its still a very new area. I'm not convinced we yet know what good practice really is, and premature regulation could impede establishing that. However, where the results of mistakes can involve significant harm, we should probably be moving towards some form of regulation. In the UK, government contracts have requirements of the methodology for development, and they seem to have got it utterly wrong, as government IT projects are notorious for being late, buggy and expensive. So much so that I will no longer accept work in these fields. Incorrect regulation can be more harmful than none.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Wow, that article is sparse on details or real suggestions!
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
VS Code seems to be hitting, for me, the same sweet spot as Brief used to back in the day.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Now we just need one other Windows tablet user to pipe up to prove Kent wrong.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
Having bothered to follow the link to the paper, and scan that, I'm unsurprised to note that the paper in way makes the suggestion that Octopuses came from space. Rather, that organic material from space (such as viruses) may have affected the DNA of hosts to result in the mutations that became Octopuses and related species. And the reviews summarised of the papers point out that there is insufficient evidence as yet to support even that claim. Sounds like Science continues to function as intended to me. Science journalism on the other hand...
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.