On 3 January 2011 18:42, Alexey Zinger <[email protected]> wrote:
> Indeed. That's why I said "spreadsheet-like". As an author and heavy user > of a Java spreadsheet app, I've been thinking about the next step for it and > extra dimensions does seem appealing. > By "spreadsheet-like" you, presumably, mean "declarative" SQL has been doing this for more years than I've been alive, though applications less tied to a specific domain will generally use a subset of declarative programming known as "functional" programming, which is also older than me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_programming To really put things into perspective; most FP languages are based on lamba calculus, which predates the transistor by about 30 years... > > Alexey > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* ScottHK <[email protected]> > > *To:* The Java Posse <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Thu, December 30, 2010 9:16:26 PM > *Subject:* [The Java Posse] Re: programming theory: Quantum physics...to > Java....to Scala? > > yes, spreadsheets are great. I work 1000x faster in Excel than in > Java. > 'declarative' programming is the best solution when it works... > again the limitation with Excel is it can only handle a 1 or 2 > dimensional problem. work on a list of orders,etc... it can't handle > more than a list of data easily, relational data doesn't work. > > > > On Dec 31, 2:21 am, Alexey Zinger <[email protected]> wrote: > > I predict in 30 years we'll be doing most of the programming in > spreadsheet-like > > visualizations of data structures. Yes, I love me some spreadsheets. > > > > Alexey > > > > ________________________________ > > From: ScottHK <[email protected]> > > To: The Java Posse <[email protected]> > > Sent: Thu, December 30, 2010 4:36:24 AM > > Subject: [The Java Posse] programming theory: Quantum physics...to > Java....to > > Scala? > > > > Over the past 30 years we have been moving up from Assembly code...to > > Scala. > > > > Do programmers need to understand quantum mechanics to program? I > > don't think so, programmers don't need to know assembly either. > > > > In computer science history, each new language development helped us > > do more by forcing us to do less. In the lowest level, 'the heap', > > all data as Global and the only data type is 'byte'. So with assembly > > languages you can do anything.. Procedural languages such as C added > > simple data types and encouraged us to package state changes into > > functions. Object oriented languages encouraged us to limit the > > number of states by chunking data into objects. Ruby and Java helped > > object oriented programming by adding a lot of 'context' to the > > language and cutting back on boiler plate code vs C++. > > > > Now 'functional programming' further encourages us to package chunks > > of states that go into and out of functions and reduce immutable > > state. > > > > Is the long run, will we reduce all mutable state accessible by the > > programmer? I'm guessing in the future I think programmers will be > > moving abstract concepts around around in 3d and a Google App engine > > will turn it into gigabytes of assembly code. > > > > What do people think is needed most right now for the next generation > > of languages? All my current programming problems involve dependent > > states...such as keeping track of the sum of a list of orders, and > > doing this with 3 or 4 levels of dependancy. Also working with > > vertical problems, getting a simple function result normally, but > > having some objects reach up much higher in the dependency stack when > > errors occur. Some of the really cool Scala features help out with > > these types of problems, list functions like .foldLeft and .foreach > > and take a layer of complexity out of some problems. I think us > > human programmers can only think efficiently in 2D and the more the > > languages takes out the multi-dimensional complexity out the more we > > can do. > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The > > Java Posse" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]. > > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to javaposse+ > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > -- Kevin Wright gtalk / msn : [email protected] <[email protected]>mail: [email protected] vibe / skype: kev.lee.wright twitter: @thecoda -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
