Have you looked around at other programming languages because many already do what you want. I'm not really aware what progress has been made on the graphical programming front, but declarative languages (e.g. Haskell) go a long way toward removing unnecessary cruft like bounds checking. There is a great deal of information out there on what makes programmers productive, it is only the mainstream (e.g. C/C++/Java/Perl/etc.) that are unaware of it.
As for auto-formatting I think Smalltalk has had this capability for a long time. I think the point of the FONC/COLA/PEPSI/LOLA stuff is to finally free ourselves from the shackles of C. Ian and co. are building a systems programming language to replace the overly complex C/C++ option while actually *gaining* power. But I'm glad your search for something better has lead you here. I too was a C++ programmer who just got sick of the incredible complexity. I liked C++ because it was much more powerful then any other language I knew (at the time: C, Perl and shell). And I had an idea of how to design libraries to make coding easier for "application programmers". But no matter what I tried the nature of C++ always forced the complexity back into view at the highest levels of the application. I got so annoyed with this face that I left the programming field entirely for 2 years. Later on, when looking for work I started getting back into programming because there were more programming jobs then network engineering jobs. This time I luckily stumbled onto Smalltalk and I've been exploring ever since. After learning some of the really amazing languages out there one begins to question why C et al even exist. The answer is the most quoted phrase in computer science: "premature optimization is the root of all evil". :) I.e. better languages were slower and instead of working with them to achieve the needed speed everyone went with the fastest language they could live with: C. I hope this project and the others like it (I seem to find more every time I search on this subject) succeed in bringing systems programming up to the level higher level languages have been for decades. It's time to stop twiddling bits and start building the future. On Nov 20, 2007 11:50 AM, Waldemar Kornewald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > first of all, let me briefly introduce myself. I worked four years on > a medium-sized open-source operating system called Haiku > (http://haiku-os.org), first as a C++ developer for the network stack. > Later I began to hate coding, became responsible for the website (&bug > tracker), other non-coding areas (e.g., usability, Google Summer of > Code, community issues, ...). My main interest is how to make > computers easier to use (I try to learn interaction design and new > interaction concepts in my little spare time). I'm highly frustrated > with software being so complicated to use and my main motivation is to > change that. VPRI sounds like a perfect match. > > Am I correct in my assumption that you want to basically create a much > more powerful Squeak/eToys (at least, the website gave me the > impression)? > > This might seem like a stupid question, but what will this project > offer to make a programmer more productive? I mean, did you study > where code is wasted on "hacking" and what particular concepts will be > provided that make it easy to describe algorithms, formats, etc.? > > I like that you want to integrate parsing into the language because > IMHO a lot of code is wasted on transformations between different > formats. What I didn't see, yet, is a way to create a bijective > description of a data format. For example, it could be possible to > describe a network protocol with a combination of the data format and > a finite state machine (hopefully visually instead of as text) or it > could be possible to describe a file format somehow such that you can > work with a compact and correct code base when describing the > corresponding algorithms. I hope that it's possible to compile > efficient code from such specifications. Is something like that > possible or even planned, at all? > > I have the impression that, in general, a lot of code is wasted on > processing data. There is no direct way to specify intentions. I don't > know how to describe it. There's lots of resource management code > everywhere (add/remove/list/find/lock/unlock) and lots of correctness > checking which is repeated everywhere (instead of specifying that in > an array 0 <= index < length, for example). These contribute almost > nothing to specifying your intentions. Maybe what we need is a simple > way to transform data into different representations such that the > algorithms can always operate on the most appropriate representation. > Something is conceptually wrong and I don't yet have an idea what it > is, but from reading on your website (separating intention from > optimization, etc.) I guess you do. Could you please elaborate? (if > you are allowed to do so :) > > Something else that I think we should finally get rid of: developers > currently have to agree on their code style, but why can't the editor > automatically style their code correctly? Underneath, there would only > be the AST and you can use a plugin to get the code style of your > choice. When you type a line of code it automatically gets wrapped on > multiple lines. Press enter to finish the instruction, so no > instruction terminator (';','.') needed. You just concentrate on the > code, not its look. Time is wasted on removing unnecessary whitespace > and programmers seem to constantly clean up code because it doesn't > comply to the style guidelines (I've seen lots of commits in Haiku ala > "style cleanup"). > > Anything that distracts you from the actual goals is waste, so why > don't we eliminate all waste? > > Anyway, I have a strong desire to make programming and computers > easier and I could definitely need an efficient programming language > to finally implement my ideas without having to code many long years. > That's why I would like to help where and when I can (not with code, > but mostly with creating a good interaction model and UI). Let me know > if you're interested. > > Bye, > Waldemar Kornewald > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
