[ANN] Pharo 1.0 released!

yes sounds good

Stef
>>>>
> Anyway, couldn't we just link the first occurrence of "Smalltalk" to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk?

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Sig,

Lack of precedence *is* a weakness of the language and ridiculing someone who cites it won't help anything.  IMHO, the best response we have is that consistency is among Smalltalk's great strengths, and arithmetic precedence was and remains a deliberate casualty of that design goal.  I am not saying we should change the situation, but grant the point.

If the other side is not willing to accept an extra set of parentheses here and there in the name of consistency, you might subsequently try pointing out that a nice mix is to do logic, memory management and GUI implementation in Smalltalk and to do number crunching in C++ with the functions exposed as extern "C".  Not only is it faster than a pure-Smalltalk solution, the equations translate much as one exects, and C's memory management woes are largely irrelevant.

Precedence was indeed a pain to learn as a child, but we all did learn it, and the best of us will at times get bitten when the compter does not "know" those same rules.  The trick, is to respectfully challenge people to try this wonderful system that is nice enough on balance to get people to re-think arithmetic - or at least pitch it that way.

Bill



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From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Igor Stasenko
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2010 11:07 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [Pharo-users] [ANN] Pharo 1.0 released!

On 16 April 2010 13:10, Henrik Johansen <[hidden email]> wrote: Oh yeah.. there are two guys battling to the death, each defending own point..
The guy who claims that precedence rules is a must, must be forgot, how much pain it was took to learn them in a childhood :)



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On 19 April 2010 15:20, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sig,
>
> Lack of precedence *is* a weakness of the language and ridiculing someone who cites it won't help anything.  IMHO, the best response we have is that consistency is among Smalltalk's great strengths, and arithmetic precedence was and remains a deliberate casualty of that design goal.  I am not saying we should change the situation, but grant the point.
>
> If the other side is not willing to accept an extra set of parentheses here and there in the name of consistency, you might subsequently try pointing out that a nice mix is to do logic, memory management and GUI implementation in Smalltalk and to do number crunching in C++ with the functions exposed as extern "C".  Not only is it faster than a pure-Smalltalk solution, the equations translate much as one exects, and C's memory management woes are largely irrelevant.
>
> Precedence was indeed a pain to learn as a child, but we all did learn it, and the best of us will at times get bitten when the compter does not "know" those same rules.  The trick, is to respectfully challenge people to try this wonderful system that is nice enough on balance to get people to re-think arithmetic - or at least pitch it that way.
>

the thing is, that smalltalk expression a+b*c not necessary related to
arithmetics.
I could create own class with #+ and #* selectors which can do
anything i want, doing things way different to be any kind of math.
Also, in a school terms, a precedence rules is defined for very small
set of operators, while in smalltalk we could define a new one
at any time using binary selector syntax. Now imagine, that each time
you creating a new operator, you must
a) define its precedence
b) remember how to use it.
Now think, how hard it would be for someone to read your code and
understand the semantics, since he doesn't knows what precedence you
are defined for new operator(s).
Another problem that if you defining a new operator and its
precedence, a precedence tends to be globally applied. Now what you
would do, if you filing in the code, in which a precedence for some
operators doesn't matching the precedence of those, which already in
image?
Also, mathematicians using different kinds of algebras for different
domains, and defining different and weird looking operators in that
algebras.

So, that's why i think its completely pointless to even think about
supporting precedence rules in smalltalk, by breaking its uniform and
_simple_ syntax rules.

> Bill
>
>
>
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Sig,

You are missing the point: I *agree* that supporting precedence rules would very likely be bad and I would probably argue against any such change.  Where you are doing damage to us all is by ridiculing someone who is raising a valid concern rather than debating that person with reasoned arguments.

Bill



-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Igor Stasenko
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 8:41 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [Pharo-users] [ANN] Pharo 1.0 released!

On 19 April 2010 15:20, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sig,
>
> Lack of precedence *is* a weakness of the language and ridiculing someone who cites it won't help anything.  IMHO, the best response we have is that consistency is among Smalltalk's great strengths, and arithmetic precedence was and remains a deliberate casualty of that design goal.  I am not saying we should change the situation, but grant the point.
>
> If the other side is not willing to accept an extra set of parentheses here and there in the name of consistency, you might subsequently try pointing out that a nice mix is to do logic, memory management and GUI implementation in Smalltalk and to do number crunching in C++ with the functions exposed as extern "C".  Not only is it faster than a pure-Smalltalk solution, the equations translate much as one exects, and C's memory management woes are largely irrelevant.
>
> Precedence was indeed a pain to learn as a child, but we all did learn it, and the best of us will at times get bitten when the compter does not "know" those same rules.  The trick, is to respectfully challenge people to try this wonderful system that is nice enough on balance to get people to re-think arithmetic - or at least pitch it that way.
>

the thing is, that smalltalk expression a+b*c not necessary related to arithmetics.
I could create own class with #+ and #* selectors which can do anything i want, doing things way different to be any kind of math.
Also, in a school terms, a precedence rules is defined for very small set of operators, while in smalltalk we could define a new one at any time using binary selector syntax. Now imagine, that each time you creating a new operator, you must
a) define its precedence
b) remember how to use it.
Now think, how hard it would be for someone to read your code and understand the semantics, since he doesn't knows what precedence you are defined for new operator(s).
Another problem that if you defining a new operator and its precedence, a precedence tends to be globally applied. Now what you would do, if you filing in the code, in which a precedence for some operators doesn't matching the precedence of those, which already in image?
Also, mathematicians using different kinds of algebras for different domains, and defining different and weird looking operators in that algebras.

So, that's why i think its completely pointless to even think about supporting precedence rules in smalltalk, by breaking its uniform and _simple_ syntax rules.

> Bill
>
>
>
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Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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>>>>> "Schwab,Wilhelm" == Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> writes:

Wilhelm> Lack of precedence *is* a weakness of the language and
Wilhelm> ridiculing someone who cites it won't help anything.

Until you're able to reframe it as a problem of familiarity.  Sure,
most people learned programming (and algebra) with precedence rules.

But precedence is not inherently the most natural thing.  And this is
what you must make clear.

Look at the contortions that happen when you have a language that has
either user-defined operators (prolog comes to mind) or just a hella
lotta levels (Perl has 40 levels of precedence).  The point is that you
*cannot*, even as a reasonably intelligent human being, parse such
languages *locally* to tell what the order of ops are.  You *must*
consult something external, which can be pretty crazy if it means
hunting through source code instead of just looking it up on a ref card.

Smalltalk's way is very simple.  Sure, it's not optimized for the most
common case (multiplication over addition), but it's optimized for *all*
the other cases.

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On 19 April 2010 16:53, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sig,
>
> You are missing the point: I *agree* that supporting precedence rules would very likely be bad and I would probably argue against any such change.  Where you are doing damage to us all is by ridiculing someone who is raising a valid concern rather than debating that person with reasoned arguments.
>

I am serious. If you can't learn the simplest syntax rules, you can't
learn anything else.
And i don't care about what such people thinking, because they will
never try to think different.
They are found that moving in direction where crowd moves, is a best
way. Its not interesting to them, if there are other directions, and
some even doesn't interesting in what direction they are currently
moving. They are told to move in that way and they moving.

Fine. Let this mindless crowd go its way. I don't feel a loss.

> Bill
>
>


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Sig,

Never argue with an idiot - others might not be able to tell the difference.  I beg you to raise the level of your arguments beyond name calling.  Whether you see it that way or not, you mention "childhood" and it's over.

Bill



-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Igor Stasenko
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 9:27 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [Pharo-users] [ANN] Pharo 1.0 released!

On 19 April 2010 16:53, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sig,
>
> You are missing the point: I *agree* that supporting precedence rules would very likely be bad and I would probably argue against any such change.  Where you are doing damage to us all is by ridiculing someone who is raising a valid concern rather than debating that person with reasoned arguments.
>

I am serious. If you can't learn the simplest syntax rules, you can't learn anything else.
And i don't care about what such people thinking, because they will never try to think different.
They are found that moving in direction where crowd moves, is a best way. Its not interesting to them, if there are other directions, and some even doesn't interesting in what direction they are currently moving. They are told to move in that way and they moving.

Fine. Let this mindless crowd go its way. I don't feel a loss.

> Bill
>
>


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On 19 April 2010 18:10, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sig,
>
> Never argue with an idiot - others might not be able to tell the difference.  I beg you to raise the level of your arguments beyond name calling.  Whether you see it that way or not, you mention "childhood" and it's over.
>

I am not using reddit. And indeed, a flame wars it a least interesting
thing i wanna be part of.
The point is, that smalltalk gives a clear answer (as to me), why it
has such syntax: uniformity, simplicity and consistency.
While in many other languages such answer could be depicted as:
because others do.

So, a central question in such discussions should be _why_ some
language having such rules, and those who don't bother asking it, but
instead, from a very start saying that its awfully bad, not worth my
attention :)



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Hi,

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 4:26 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I am serious. If you can't learn the simplest syntax rules, you can't
> learn anything else.

but Syntax, dearest Igor, is key! And Note The Capital "S"!

You see, Lisp clearly sucks because it has too many brackets. Python
and Haskell are most unfavourable because they have whitespace with
semantics. Pascal, Modula-2, and Ada are way too verbose. Forth
organises programs in pages - now *that* is bureaucratic and
old-fashioned, aye? Smalltalk obviously doesn't know how to compute
with natural numbers properly. Smalltalk, Self, and Io share the
indignity of not even having proper keywords. Java, Scala, C, and C++
... don't even get me started, man: curly braces are sooooo 80s.
Erlang does not end sentences with an exclamation mark, it puts it in
their midst - how messy, bah. In Prolog, you have to write your own
rules, which makes it seem as if the language didn't have any: yuck!

If you consider all these points wisely, you will inevitably come to
the conclusion that the only language with a proper, clear, civilised,
and tidy syntax out there is brainfuck. Some argue it's unacceptable
due to its name, but that is not a syntactical argument and hence
invalid. I win.

Best,

Michael

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On Monday, April 19, 2010, Adrian Lienhard <[hidden email]> wrote:

I already did that ;-) Cheers
mike


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On 19 April 2010 19:40, Michael Haupt <[hidden email]> wrote:
I agree. all languages having bright and dark sides.
And people free to choose what they like (or not).

I wonder, how a computer languages would look like for europeans, if
they are first were invented
by Chinese or Japanes cultures. ( you know, they would use glyphs in it ;).
Still, there are an univestal laws and concepts which come from
mathematics, and will not change
depending on cultural/educational nuances: computers are finite state
machines with strictly defined order of operations.
Computer always 'knows' what next operation it going to perform, and
don't need to use any precedence.

If we ever will meet aliens, then to start communicating we, no doubt,
should use an universal rules & semantics, which can be interpreted
without any chances to be ambiguous. And precedence, obviously is not
a univesal :)

> Best,
>
> Michael
>
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Hi Igor,

On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Computer always 'knows' what next operation it going to perform, and
> don't need to use any precedence.

... enter quantum computers. :-P

> If we ever will meet aliens, then to start communicating we, no doubt,
> should use an universal rules & semantics, which can be interpreted
> without any chances to be ambiguous. And precedence, obviously is not
> a univesal :)

Hear, hear!

Best,

Michael

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On 19 April 2010 20:29, Michael Haupt <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi Igor,
>
> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Igor Stasenko <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Computer always 'knows' what next operation it going to perform, and
>> don't need to use any precedence.
>
> ... enter quantum computers. :-P
>
let me rephrase that:
by building any machine, we using a certain set of principles, on
which it will function.
So then, we could _predict_ how it will behave, if we provide a set of
instructions.
That's why i put 'knows'. Computers, obviously don't know anything.
Knowledge comes from the fact, on which principles you built a machine,
so you can predict what will happen if you instruct it to do one or
another operation.



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Em 19/04/2010 14:21, Igor Stasenko < [hidden email] > escreveu:

I could not be totally positive on this, but I think  the better proxy
we have for that is APL which used some special symbols and even needed
a special keyboard for it!

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Em 19/04/2010 14:53, Igor Stasenko < [hidden email] > escreveu:

> On 19 April 2010 20:29, Michael Haupt wrote:
> > Hi Igor,
> > On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Igor Stasenko wrote:
> >> Computer always 'knows' what  next operation it going to perform,
> >> and don't need to use any precedence.
> > ... enter quantum computers. :-P
> > let me rephrase that: by  building any machine, we using a certain
> set of  principles, on  which it will  function.  So then,  we could
> _predict_ how it  will behave, if we provide  a set of instructions.

NO. As historical counter examples there are the Neural net based computer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptrons which was built as a machine,
or the homeostat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostat (ditto).

my 0.019999...

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On 19 April 2010 22:04,  <[hidden email]> wrote:
And where is a contradiction?
A first two paragraphs on that page describing a principles on which it built.
And then, you saying that you can't predict how it behaves after you
built it using these principles?



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Igor Stasenko wrote:

> Fine. Let this mindless crowd go its way. I don't feel a loss.

I do. I would prefer the "mindless crowd" as you call them to be on our
side.



              Steve



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I subscribe :).

Doru

On 20 Apr 2010, at 00:55, Stephen Taylor wrote:

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"Beauty is where we see it."




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Em 19/04/2010 16:13, Igor Stasenko < [hidden email] > escreveu:
Igor your post makes me believe you read only the paragraphs you quoted
(and are rightfully entitled to) and aren't  willing to drill down into
perceptrons or homeostats.

So to avoid a lengthy detour from the essential argument, let's think of
a simple device, say a non loaded (a.k.a. 'honest') die or a roulette
built to Monte Carlo standards:

You build any of them according to very well known principles, can you
predict the outcomes except for the platitude that the dice can come from
one to six each trow or similar for the roulette?
 
>
> > which    was   built    as   a    machine,   or    the   homeostat
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostat (ditto).
> > my 0.019999...

I tried to use computing devices to be in the realm...

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