Time to change back to white.

The style of this blog is supposed to change back now. (43 days.) Done.

Science Publishing and RSS

If TBL had jumped directly to RSS and HTTP for science publishing, could the mechanism have launched the World Wide Web the way HTML and HTTP have?

Would this approach have launched World Wide Anything, or would it still be used in isolation within some smaller community? Maybe the result would be even better. I guess we'll never know. Oh well, back to whatever you were doing before this thought.

Programming Language and Trust

Ian Bicking writes about trust...

In general, Python requires you trust your programmers. People give Java grief about its restricted environment and static typing, but if you don't trust the programmer to do a good job, at least with Java they (maybe) can't mess things up as badly for everyone else working on a project. You can mess things up royally with Python...

Python is not the language for companies who expect mediocrity in their programmers, and I think that outsourcing is for companies that expect mediocrity.

Having programmed serious systems (each with multiple developers) in several languages (at least six), I can say without a doubt that you can mess things up royally in *any* of these languages, whether the languages are rigid or agile.

Ian comes around to this by the end of the piece...

...shitty code is always shitty (even in Java)

OOPSLA => PSLA

"Pee Slaw"? Is that the new name for OOPSLA ("Oops Lah")?

I like the concept, though.

Our vision is for OOPSLA to become a conference that we affectionately call “PSLA”: Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications. OO(PSLA) will be one of the themes of the conference, which would welcome everything about programming qua programming. But we cannot move there right away nor in large steps. So we start slowly and see how it goes.

Two Remarkable JVM Dynamic Languages

Sean McGrath points to a poll on JVM dynamic languages.

Two problems. No JScheme and no SISC! These are remarkable gaps for a several reasons.

JScheme has an innovative and exceedingly easy to use integration with the Java language (Javadot notation). The dialect is not full Scheme, but represents a sufficient choice of useful features. Other innovations include support for easy web applications and easy GUI applications.

SISC is remarkable at almost the other end of the spectrum, a complete and efficient implementation of Scheme. This is a *better* than most textbook case of how to implement an interpreter (via an intermediate form, not byte code). You'd probably have to stick with one essential textbook to receive this level of education.

If you are unfamiliar with the rich differences between Java, the JVM, and full Scheme, then appreciating the feat of this implementation. SISC also includes generic methods and an object system.