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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 783. Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London Hosted by King's Digital Lab www.dhhumanist.org Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org Date: 2020-04-19 13:11:43+00:00 From: peter jonesSubject: the 'secret' of a programming language Dear Willard and All, I enjoyed reading Michael's reply. Perhaps additional perspectives might be useful (as ever)? Even distinguishing between the 'secret' of a programming language and the way programming languages differentiated may be useful. The way, that is they hybridized through relational database management systems and the rise of expert systems through to more recent domain specific languages. Central then to the secret is the purpose(?) - for example, Forth and control of mechanical systems and resort to reverse Polish notation: "The philosophy of Forth is to keep things simple and that is one reason why the system uses Reverse Polish Notation or RPN for equations as that eliminates the need for parentheses and order of operator precedence." https://www.forthlang.org/ Forth programming language, history and evolution https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-programming-language/ There were many articles on the 'silver bullet' for programming at the commercial level (databases) which led to "The Last One": The Last One (software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_%28software%29 A wise Matron / Senior Nursing Officer once told me things go round in circles so it is good to see that Smalltalk is still very much alive, especially on the Continent, in the form of Pharo. Pharo - Welcome to Pharo! http://pharo.org/web - and with a 50th Anniversary when 'secrets' ('the sauce'?) will no doubt be deliberated upon through keynote speakers and guests: 50th Anniversary of Smalltalk https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/04/01/50th-anniversary-of-smalltalk/ Some related videos ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaKZBr0ga4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=137&v=AnrlSqtpOkw As in Biology, taking purpose (functionality) into account with the evolutionary development of programming languages may be another theme to reflect upon? Family Trees ... (Developmental history ... Who started afresh? Why? Who picked up someone else's work?) Modular, Erlang ... Python, ... Rust ... Programming A-Z ('Z' testing - proof*) I recall Tony Durham in former Computing magazines writing on programming languages and logic amid the need for 'clean' and 'fuzzy' thinkers. Plus, Compiled Vs Interpreted? Speed Security Safety Critical Systems As a former BASIC (microcomputer) programmer I still seek a 'home' (Drupal Content Management System - use the 'secrets' to do the heavy lifting?; Ruby, Pharo?) and the skills! Today more than ever, the (basic) ;-) ingredients, if not the 'secrets', are today often obscured / obfuscated by what has become the 'developmental stack'. https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2019/07/my-moon-mission-stack.html Be Well, Be Safe, Peter Jones Community Mental Health Nurse, Tutor & Researcher Blogging at "Welcome to the QUAD" http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/h2cm _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted List posts to: humanist@dhhumanist.org List info and archives at at: http://dhhumanist.org Listmember interface at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted/ Subscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/membership_form.php
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