archives

iPod-compatible SICP

I recently put together video-iPod compatible feed of the classic SICP lectures.
Grab the feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SICP
(video RSS adventures documented here)

By xamdam at 2005-11-04 01:59 | LtU Forum | 7 comments | other blogs | 13094 reads

Slashdot asks: "how would you improve SQL?"

The charming people over at Slashdot are presently discussing how SQL could be improved. The usual trolls and bad jokes are of course present. But there are also a few interesting discussions, as well as references to LINQ and Tutorial D.

By Allan McInnes at 2005-11-04 02:24 | LtU Forum | 8 comments | other blogs | 7916 reads

Tutorial on Good Lisp Programming Style

An outstanding tutorial on Lisp programming style by Peter Norvig and Kent Pitman. This to me is like Strunk & White: I re-read it every year or so and it always makes me cringe at what I've been writing lately.

The material is easy to relate to other higher-order languages. Translate your favourite slides into your language of choice and post them to the mailing list!

By Luke Gorrie at 2005-11-04 04:27 | Teaching & Learning | 5 comments | other blogs | 38512 reads

Programming Language Names

I recently found that the name I had chosen for the language I am creating had already been taken. So now I am in search of a new name. I realized that a number of the LtU readers create and name their own languages in the course of their language tinkering/research. I thought we my enjoy discussing some name related issues.

First, the way I see it there are two schools of names. First there are names for languages that are never meant to be mainstream. Second there are names chosen expressly with the intention that the language be mainstream. Of course language designers often misjudge whether their language will be mainstream or not. I imagine that languages not meant for the mainstream are easier to name because the name isn’t as important.

Some discussion questions:
  1. Do you agree that whether a language is intended for mainstream use at the time of naming affects the name?
  2. What makes a good name? A bad name
  3. What do you think of names which are simple words seemingly unrelated to programming? I.e. Perl, Ruby, Java, Python etc.
  4. What do you think the many gemstone language names? Perl, Ruby, Opal etc
  5. What do you think of the letter names and their variants? C C++ C# etc.
  6. Can you reuse the name of an obscure language for a new mainstream language? (but which languages are obscure enough)
  7. How do you pick a language name?
  8. Does any of this really matter?
By Jeffery Walker at 2005-11-04 21:18 | LtU Forum | 21 comments | other blogs | 21401 reads