What’s neat about elegant languages (by alaric)

Most people who like to use "unusual" non-mainstream language have to have a motivation for doing so. After all, there are reasons not to - a smaller user community, although that can be a good thing, means less libraries, less support for more unusual platforms, and less likelihood of your programming in that language ever earning you money.

When asked, most will say that they find programming in their chosen language easier, but it can be hard to explain why.

However, in a discussion in IRC recently, I think I may have captured part of it:

• alaricsp: I do a lot of programming in various languages, and I tend to find that the amount of coolness I can do per line in Scheme is higher, and I get less bugs
• alaricsp: As in, I decide to do something complex, sit down and write a hundred lines of scheme, try to run it and get lots of syntax errors due to typos, fix those, then it's semantically bug free about 75% of the time; and in the remaining 25% there's usually just one simple bug (last one was due to me getting confused with some boolean algebra over lists, doing an any? instead of an every? or something like that)
• alaricsp: I start in implementation space and build up in thin layers to get to problem space
• alaricsp: Cheap easy-to-use abstraction means it's cost-effective to have lots of thin layers
• alaricsp: And thin layers are easier to think about, so less buggy

To which somebody else followed up:

• sjamaan: Aye
• sjamaan: I find the barrier to creating an abstraction in OO languages to be very high, for example
• sjamaan: I actually sigh everytime I have to create a new class file!
• sjamaan: Whereas I don't even think about creating a lambda
• sjamaan: I just do it

Memory management (by alaric)

A lot of the core infrastructure in a computer system - such as memory management - is somewhat overlooked for opportunities to improve things, because a vicious circle of conservatism sets in: we tune memory manages for systems that work like POSIX, and then stick with systems that work like POSIX since the memory management is so well-tuned...

So I set myself the task of designing, from scratch, an approach to memory management that's appropriate to an event-driven system based around a purely functional language with mutation expressed via unique typing.

It's far from complete, but here's a brain dump:

Read more »

The workshop’s getting there (by alaric)

My good friend and colleague Andy came over to stay for a while, which meant I had 'entertaining a guest' as an excuse to do some of the fun stuff I've wanted to do for ages.

So we finished making the welding bench! I'd made the top and gotten part way through cutting the legs to length, so we finished cutting them and welded them in place, then welded extra flat strips around the bottom to make it reasonably rigid. It's all just tack welds, and it'll almost certainly need some diagonal struts added, but it stands upright and is surprisingly sturdy; I'm going to experiment with it a bit to see just how many more struts it needs. I'd also like to drill holes so I can mount my vice on it, too.

Then we cleared a space and moved my electronics workbench down into the workshop! This is great news, as it clears up space in the office (albeit revealing the piles of junk that were lurking beneath the bench), means all my tools are in one place (which is most convenient, as things were always in the wrong places), and creates more storage space in the little garage, meaning less stuff on the floor.

I've since reincarnated my power distribution rail, which I had when we lived in Ealing, but haven't used since; the idea being that it'd be good to do my electronics experiments on the end of a dedicated RCD so I don't trip the one in the house. It also splits the output into four circuits, each with a six amp circuit breaker (the smallest I could obtain easily).

I still need to get rid of a lot of waste cardboard that's sitting around, and we're still looking after Seth's motorbike, and there's still junk to be sorted - many things need to be elsewhere; the little garage isn't a place to store things we only use a few times a year, as we have the Big Yellow for that!

Although the lighting's not really good enough when I'm explaining the power rail, here's a quick video tour:

For my next trick, I'll stop procrastinating by building infrastructure, and get on with actually making myself a digital watch with an embedded ARM processor and colour dot-matrix LCD. Watch this space.

And Dead People! (by sarah)

A conversation we had with Jean concerning eating meat:

Jean "look cows daddy - I like cows!'

Alaric "I like cows too Jean, but you like them in a slightly different way to me."

Jean enquiring look

Alaric "You eat them as well"

Jean "No I don't"

Alaric "Yes you do Jean"

Jean "I don't! Do I mummy?"

Sarah "Yes you do Jeany, thats what burgers are - remember its like the cats? When those cows die they are made into burgers"

Jean "No their not silly mummy!"

Alaric "Yes they are"

Sarah "Its like the vegitables in the garden Jean - we water and feed them and then when they are big enough we dig them up and chop them into cassaroles and stuff. Well thats what happens with the animals and thats what burgers and suasages are."

Jean "I eat cows!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And Piggies?!"

US "Yes Jean"

Jean "And sheeps?!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And chick chicks?!"

Us "Yes Jean"

Jean "And dead people?!"

Us "No Jean!" LAUGHTER

Sarah "Not in our society anyway"

Jean "Why?"

Alaric "Well for several reasons - firstly there is disease - what ever the person dies of might be passed onto you if you eat them, secondly all the freinds and relatives of the person might get a bit upset as they wouldn't like the idea of their friend being eaten."

Sarah "Thirdly it would be against some peoples beliefs"

Jean "Oh ok"

Alaric "Well thats the sort of comment they are bound to come out with whilst talking to a teatcher or social working and perants go - argggKKK!"

All I can say is Soylent Green anybody?

A talk on giving talks (by sarah)

I went into college on Monday and met up with my friend David for a coffee before the lecture which was nice even if I was being a bit a flake - and his supervisor appeared and he felt too guilty and went back to work :/

It was odd being around the IC campus once more it was like being transported back in time about five years but into a parrallel universe where everything was just slightly wronge - like the walkways gone and is now in the libarary and there is a cafe in the the libary - why oh why couldnt they have had that when I was there - thats what me and Ella always said it needed - that and 24 hr access!

Anyway I then headed over to the UCL campus and turned up to the lecture room and panicked that there where undergraduates in there with microscopes and the like doing some petrology.

But then Martin turned up and we went in anyway - talking loudly and scaring all the little UG's away 🙂

Then Franky turned up and a girl from another course (Chemistry related I think) - the lecture was on how to give our 15 minute talks next week - first off eeeek eek eek - what do you mean next week? Panic! - then - wow they actually managed to give an hour lecture on giving a fifteen minute talk :/

At the end we found out that we really are down to 3 - the other moon girl has left and one of the other guys has changed to a PhD.

That is one hell of a drop out rate - maybe its the part time thing - we all have other lives and this is the thing we 'fit-in' when it is really a full time thing in itself.

I feel abit said that we are down to three - and I'm still not properlly registered :/