Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
Great idea! I always thought Perl in general was quite suited for show casing and learning with different styles and ways of solving problems. It's flexibility is a key element in that. Especially in CS, students need to learn that there is more then one way to do it and be able to compare those different ways. Perl 6 in that line a great asset. w On 19/01/16 16:57, Tom Browder wrote: > Last year I mentioned a letter-to-the-editor in Communications of the > ACM which discussed the short-comings of Python as an introduction to > programming for computer science students. As a response to that > letter, I suggested that the dissatisfied professor consider Perl 6 as > it would meet his requirements. > > My casual look at the programming scene over the last decade seems to > show that Python is regularly chosen as the language for open source > projects and as a teaching language. The Perl community on > seems adamant that there are few, if any, business > reasons for Perl 5 shops to use Perl 6, so the academic community may > be the best place to aim Perl 6 marketing for the growth of a Perl 6 > community among young people. > > I have seen lots of blogs and on-line articles comparing the two > languages, but I have not yet found one truly suitable for college and > high school academic marketing and curriculum development. The only > article on Perl 6 I have found in the ACM archives was a 2007 article > by Audrey Tang. Its citation and access page is found here: > > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1190216.1190218 > > Note the ACM reports that the article has been cited two times in > other ACM articles, and has been downloaded a total of 524 times. > > I also searched the IEEE archives for Perl 6 and found nothing. > > Suggestion > > > I suggest that a good move would be to produce a good, and current, > scholarly article, aiming to be published in a suitable professional > journal, with a detailed, objective comparison between Python and Perl > 6. I'm sure there are properly-qualified people in the Perl 6 > community that could do a very credible job, and it should be worth > support from the Perl Foundation. > > Audrey Tang's article (based on information on the citation page only) > doesn't seem to fit the specific comparison I think is needed, but the > article may be useful background for any new author. > > Of course there may already be such an article in academia, but > apparently not in the computer science education realm. > > Best regards, > > -Tom > -- GPG Key: https://u2m.nl/data/webmind.asc GPG Fingerprint: 0506976E 234653B4 A628EC33 E23D16EE FCF154AE XMPP webm...@puscii.nl: D79970A8 7EC43E29 186D86BA 590F20F6 4C7930B8 XMPP webm...@laglab.org: 11E91112 091881F7 53EF6108 63C48543 C74D035C u2m.nl (exp: 08/04/2016) SHA256: C2:40:67:22:25:52:29:AF:DF:50:4E:2A:6B:32:6D:BC:5B:1E:CA:7D:52:3B:4C:4A:21:5D:C8:E5:AE:7D:1A:09 Puscii (exp: 04/03/2016) SHA256: F9:C7:B1:B7:90:6B:17:BF:84:93:93:7C:0F:B4:FD:BE:E3:C0:71:9D:83:01:ED:3A:96:FE:FC:82:9D:30:51:C9
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:57 AM, Tom Browder wrote: > Last year I mentioned a letter-to-the-editor in Communications of the > ACM which discussed the short-comings of Python as an introduction to > programming for computer science students. As a response to that > letter, I suggested that the dissatisfied professor consider Perl 6 as > it would meet his requirements. > > My casual look at the programming scene over the last decade seems to > show that Python is regularly chosen as the language for open source > projects and as a teaching language. The Perl community on > seems adamant that there are few, if any, business > reasons for Perl 5 shops to use Perl 6, so the academic community may > be the best place to aim Perl 6 marketing for the growth of a Perl 6 > community among young people. > > I have seen lots of blogs and on-line articles comparing the two > languages, but I have not yet found one truly suitable for college and > high school academic marketing and curriculum development. The only > article on Perl 6 I have found in the ACM archives was a 2007 article > by Audrey Tang. Its citation and access page is found here: > > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1190216.1190218 > > Note the ACM reports that the article has been cited two times in > other ACM articles, and has been downloaded a total of 524 times. > > I also searched the IEEE archives for Perl 6 and found nothing. > > Suggestion > > > I suggest that a good move would be to produce a good, and current, > scholarly article, aiming to be published in a suitable professional > journal, with a detailed, objective comparison between Python and Perl > 6. I'm sure there are properly-qualified people in the Perl 6 > community that could do a very credible job, and it should be worth > support from the Perl Foundation. > > Audrey Tang's article (based on information on the citation page only) > doesn't seem to fit the specific comparison I think is needed, but the > article may be useful background for any new author. > > Of course there may already be such an article in academia, but > apparently not in the computer science education realm. > Good luck with your efforts. There is interest in the academic community about Perl/Perl6 as evidenced by Larry Wall's inclusion in the HOPL III round table discussion that I mention here, http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=906901. The video for your pleasure is here; I hope the FBI does't raid me for sharing this, but it's of interest to the community and I pay ACM enough money annually to let me do this once in a while . It's been a while since I watched the video, but I recall Larry having to fend off a bunch of academics who seem to envy/not-understand the widespread adoption of Perl when their pet language is so nice and pure. http://www.0x743.com/a4-fisher-h.mov (400MB) I would think that while you're going to have a tough time selling Perl6 as a teaching language, it should be (and probably is) of interest to the those in programming language related SIGs. I would target them, but in a more academic way - maybe organize some efforts to discuss the interested/practical features of Perl6 versus some of the more purely academic languages (where mental masturbation seems to thrive). In regards to a teaching language, Python reminds me greatly of the role Fortran used to play, but here wrt scripting languages. It's made great inroads not only as a teaching language, but also as a language that HPC just loves for days. One reason may be that SciPy suite made such an impact on the HPC world when it was first released, but there also seems to be some innate qualities about Python that some science domains prefer. On the other hand, we know when the domains that Perl dominates (bioinformatics, text analysis, PDL, etc). You can also try to impress the folks in communities like LtU - demonstrate the interesting aspects of the language; compare with their lovelies and show that Perl6 excels in practical environments. At the end of the day, what will sell it is not arguing the merits of the language, but overwhelmingly demonstrating them - again and again and again. And even after that, they might still not see. Perl6 would not be the first language to fail at this. Again, I wish you good luck - and not in a sarcastic way. I appreciate any and all efforts to make inroads into the academic world for Perl. Cheers, Brett > > Best regards, > > -Tom >
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote: ... > That said I don't think that those fine folk on Perlmonks are all that correct about the lack of a business case for Perl6, and the degree to > which they are will fall significantly in the next few years. Already ... > Businesses need to keep an eye out for what's next and while I > wouldn't bet the farm on one language, it seems reasonable to bet the > back paddock on v6. Good, uplifting points, Andrew. Thanks. -Tom
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I agree that getting Perl6 into the curricula is a good idea, and comparing it to Python if done reasonably and politely would help the cause of those who want to migrate their course over. That said I don't think that those fine folk on Perlmonks are all that correct about the lack of a business case for Perl6, and the degree to which they are will fall significantly in the next few years. Already its trivial to use most modules on the CPAN with Inline::Perl5 (given a perl5 built with -fPIC) and the NativeCall library makes C libraries easy to use with relatively simple declarations. There are tooling, speed, portability and stability issues to be sorted but in all these cases I think the future looks brighter for v6. Businesses need to keep an eye out for what's next and while I wouldn't bet the farm on one language, it seems reasonable to bet the back paddock on v6. Just my 2c. Don't flame me bro'! On 20 January 2016 at 14:25, vijayvithal jahagirdar wrote: > I agree, perl6 can be the glue language in academics which can be used to > showcase different computing concepts, be it methodologies - functional, > oops,procedural -, parallelism, VM, antlr etc. > > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:29 AM Peter Scott wrote: >> >> I have seen Damian demonstrate how Perl 6 can be the best language for >> teaching functional, procedural, and object-oriented programming. >> >> On 1/19/2016 10:37 AM, Darren Duncan wrote: >> > I very much agree with this idea, of arguing Perl 6 as a teaching >> > language. Academia are the ones that would appreciate what Perl 6 >> > offers the most in the short term, whereas industry would demand a >> > higher standard for it becoming popular. And the first can lead to >> > the second. -- Darren Duncan >> > >> > On 2016-01-19 9:19 AM, Parrot Raiser wrote: >> >> I believe Damian Conway thinks P6 would be a very good CS teaching >> >> language. >> >> >> >> On 1/19/16, Tom Browder wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott >> >>> >> >>> wrote: >> I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea >> as a way of generally promoting use of the language. >> >> But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't >> believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. >> >> Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed >> for teaching purposes. >> >>> >> >>> I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison >> >>> is necessary. >> > >> >
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I agree, perl6 can be the glue language in academics which can be used to showcase different computing concepts, be it methodologies - functional, oops,procedural -, parallelism, VM, antlr etc. On Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:29 AM Peter Scott wrote: > I have seen Damian demonstrate how Perl 6 can be the best language for > teaching functional, procedural, and object-oriented programming. > > On 1/19/2016 10:37 AM, Darren Duncan wrote: > > I very much agree with this idea, of arguing Perl 6 as a teaching > > language. Academia are the ones that would appreciate what Perl 6 > > offers the most in the short term, whereas industry would demand a > > higher standard for it becoming popular. And the first can lead to > > the second. -- Darren Duncan > > > > On 2016-01-19 9:19 AM, Parrot Raiser wrote: > >> I believe Damian Conway thinks P6 would be a very good CS teaching > >> language. > >> > >> On 1/19/16, Tom Browder wrote: > >>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott > > >>> wrote: > I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea > as a way of generally promoting use of the language. > > But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't > believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. > > Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed > for teaching purposes. > >>> > >>> I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison > >>> is necessary. > > > >
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I have seen Damian demonstrate how Perl 6 can be the best language for teaching functional, procedural, and object-oriented programming. On 1/19/2016 10:37 AM, Darren Duncan wrote: I very much agree with this idea, of arguing Perl 6 as a teaching language. Academia are the ones that would appreciate what Perl 6 offers the most in the short term, whereas industry would demand a higher standard for it becoming popular. And the first can lead to the second. -- Darren Duncan On 2016-01-19 9:19 AM, Parrot Raiser wrote: I believe Damian Conway thinks P6 would be a very good CS teaching language. On 1/19/16, Tom Browder wrote: On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott wrote: I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea as a way of generally promoting use of the language. But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed for teaching purposes. I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison is necessary.
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I very much agree with this idea, of arguing Perl 6 as a teaching language. Academia are the ones that would appreciate what Perl 6 offers the most in the short term, whereas industry would demand a higher standard for it becoming popular. And the first can lead to the second. -- Darren Duncan On 2016-01-19 9:19 AM, Parrot Raiser wrote: I believe Damian Conway thinks P6 would be a very good CS teaching language. On 1/19/16, Tom Browder wrote: On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott wrote: I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea as a way of generally promoting use of the language. But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed for teaching purposes. I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison is necessary.
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I believe Damian Conway thinks P6 would be a very good CS teaching language. On 1/19/16, Tom Browder wrote: > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott > wrote: >> I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea >> as a way of generally promoting use of the language. >> >> But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't >> believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. >> >> Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed >> for teaching purposes. > > I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison > is necessary. > > The article I am referencing is this: > > Python for Beginners > ___ > By Esther Shein > Communications of the ACM, Vol. 58 No. 3, Pages 19-21 > 10.1145/2716560 > > Here is an excerpt detailing some criticisms of Python as a teaching > language > > > Not everyone agrees Python is the be-all-end-all as an introductory > programming language. Shriram Krishnamurthi, a professor of computer > science at Brown University, acknowledges Python has many nice > features. "It offers a pleasant syntax, a large set of libraries, and > an interaction loop ... all of which are very useful for teaching. > Compared to the noise and complexity of Java, it is indeed a very nice > step forward." He agrees Python has made people feel more comfortable > about exposing programming to a much broader audience of students. > > "There are many students I would not dream of teaching Java to that I > would happily show Python." That said, however, it does not take long > to discover Python's weaknesses, Krishnamurthi notes. Among them are > that "Creating non-trivial data structures is onerous, because Python > does not provide straightforward means for creating new structured > data. You have to understand a bunch of unrelated concepts, like > classes, and their onerous syntax and tricky semantics, which greatly > reduces the benefit of simplicity that Python was supposed to offer." > > Because of this, he believes more and more curricula are ditching the > idea of structured data—one of the central concepts in computer > science—and doing one of two things: shaping their curriculum to avoid > them, or pushing students to encode more-structured data in > less-structured formats provided by default in Python. > > "This lack of data structuring and classification has a significant > negative impact on teaching program design," Krishnamurthi says. "The > best program design methods we have right now focus on data-driven > design, which derive from the structure of data." > > > Best, > > -Tom >
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Steve Mynott wrote: > I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea > as a way of generally promoting use of the language. > > But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't > believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. > > Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed > for teaching purposes. I'm not suggesting bashing Python, Steve, I just think some comparison is necessary. The article I am referencing is this: Python for Beginners ___ By Esther Shein Communications of the ACM, Vol. 58 No. 3, Pages 19-21 10.1145/2716560 Here is an excerpt detailing some criticisms of Python as a teaching language Not everyone agrees Python is the be-all-end-all as an introductory programming language. Shriram Krishnamurthi, a professor of computer science at Brown University, acknowledges Python has many nice features. "It offers a pleasant syntax, a large set of libraries, and an interaction loop ... all of which are very useful for teaching. Compared to the noise and complexity of Java, it is indeed a very nice step forward." He agrees Python has made people feel more comfortable about exposing programming to a much broader audience of students. "There are many students I would not dream of teaching Java to that I would happily show Python." That said, however, it does not take long to discover Python's weaknesses, Krishnamurthi notes. Among them are that "Creating non-trivial data structures is onerous, because Python does not provide straightforward means for creating new structured data. You have to understand a bunch of unrelated concepts, like classes, and their onerous syntax and tricky semantics, which greatly reduces the benefit of simplicity that Python was supposed to offer." Because of this, he believes more and more curricula are ditching the idea of structured data—one of the central concepts in computer science—and doing one of two things: shaping their curriculum to avoid them, or pushing students to encode more-structured data in less-structured formats provided by default in Python. "This lack of data structuring and classification has a significant negative impact on teaching program design," Krishnamurthi says. "The best program design methods we have right now focus on data-driven design, which derive from the structure of data." Best, -Tom
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
I think targeting Perl 6 at CS academic teachers is an excellent idea as a way of generally promoting use of the language. But I'd be wary of "bashing" current choices such as Python and don't believe any objective comparison of the two languages is possible. Python is in any case derived from ABC which was explicitly designed for teaching purposes. Presenting Perl 6 advantages such as concurrency and grammars would be more positive. S On 19 January 2016 at 15:57, Tom Browder wrote: > Last year I mentioned a letter-to-the-editor in Communications of the > ACM which discussed the short-comings of Python as an introduction to > programming for computer science students. As a response to that > letter, I suggested that the dissatisfied professor consider Perl 6 as > it would meet his requirements. > > My casual look at the programming scene over the last decade seems to > show that Python is regularly chosen as the language for open source > projects and as a teaching language. The Perl community on > seems adamant that there are few, if any, business > reasons for Perl 5 shops to use Perl 6, so the academic community may > be the best place to aim Perl 6 marketing for the growth of a Perl 6 > community among young people. > > I have seen lots of blogs and on-line articles comparing the two > languages, but I have not yet found one truly suitable for college and > high school academic marketing and curriculum development. The only > article on Perl 6 I have found in the ACM archives was a 2007 article > by Audrey Tang. Its citation and access page is found here: > > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1190216.1190218 > > Note the ACM reports that the article has been cited two times in > other ACM articles, and has been downloaded a total of 524 times. > > I also searched the IEEE archives for Perl 6 and found nothing. > > Suggestion > > > I suggest that a good move would be to produce a good, and current, > scholarly article, aiming to be published in a suitable professional > journal, with a detailed, objective comparison between Python and Perl > 6. I'm sure there are properly-qualified people in the Perl 6 > community that could do a very credible job, and it should be worth > support from the Perl Foundation. > > Audrey Tang's article (based on information on the citation page only) > doesn't seem to fit the specific comparison I think is needed, but the > article may be useful background for any new author. > > Of course there may already be such an article in academia, but > apparently not in the computer science education realm. > > Best regards, > > -Tom -- 4096R/EA75174B Steve Mynott
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:06 AM, yary wrote: > Good idea. Not sure if it needs to compare with Python explicitly. The > message is that it's a great language for learning programming on its > own; the reader can see that from the positive examples given and make > any comparisons to other languages while reading. No need to give > space away to any other language, that's a distraction. Thanks, Yary. I was trying to suggest that at least the major shortcomings of Python need to be addressed specifically to bolster the argument for schools to change their current practices to use Perl 6 which will provide the needed attributes the CS professor feels are needed. I believe I can find the original letter in the ACM article if that would help. . Best, -Tom
Re: Perl 6 Advocacy Suggestion
Good idea. Not sure if it needs to compare with Python explicitly. The message is that it's a great language for learning programming on its own; the reader can see that from the positive examples given and make any comparisons to other languages while reading. No need to give space away to any other language, that's a distraction. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail"; target="_blank">https://ipmcdn.avast.com/images/logo-avast-v1.png"; style="width: 90px; height:33px;"/> This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail"; target="_blank" style="color: #4453ea;">www.avast.com