Welcome to the pub! Pleasure to have you here!
Hey everyone, its a little early, but how's the night going.
My name is Collin, or Bravotic, or whatever you prefer. I've been to these parts before, but never really settled in for a drink.
As for my introduction, I like to think of myself as a computer historian. I am in academia, with a focus in both computer science as well as history. As you can tell, a quaint little pub like this place is right up my alley! Most of my work involves research on programming languages, and implementation of old protocols. I just came off the heels of writing a basic USENET implementation, and am planning on writing a paper on it soon.
I look forward to meeting you all and seeing what you're all up to!
So, ~bartender, your hoppiest local IPA please! In fact, make it two!
Welcome, bravotic!
FWIW, my heart is automatically warmed whenever seeing the character sequence 'USENET'.
Also, I can't help but ask what your top few programming languages are.
Hey inquiry,
I'm also a big USENET fan. I hung out in the SeaMonkey group for a while before the Mozilla news server got shut down prematurely. I really would love to see a small net sort of like gemini emerge on USENET again, but the protocols that USENET uses are absolutely abysmal! Maybe someone can do what gemini did to gopher ;).
Anyway, to answer your real question, my top few programming languages are extremely stereotypical of someone in my interest group. My most used language is C (preferably ANSI 89, but sometimes up to 99). Apart from that, Java has always been a comfort language for me, since everything and the kitchen sink is included by default. Its always nice to have a cross platform GUI toolkit just built directly into the runtime, then you don't have to "instruct" your users on how to install libraries. I am also a massive scheme fan. I currently am at the school where one of the developers of Racket works, so being here, you either have to learn to love lisp, or learn to get the hell out :).
Anyway, its nice to meet you. I look forward to interacting with this fun little community!
(Sorry about the "mis-replies"... I've been trying to post via script, and am apparently still not escape special shell characters correctly, which leads to a partial posting that seemingly can't be deleted....)
> I'm also a big USENET fan. I hung out in the SeaMonkey > group for a while before the Mozilla news server got > shut down prematurely. I really would love to see a small > net sort of like gemini emerge on USENET again, but the > protocols that USENET uses are absolutely abysmal! Maybe > someone can do what gemini did to gopher ;).
I'm to the point where I don't care about protocol details anymore. What matters to me most is longer-form interactions unfolding from posts. I'll take that anywhere I can get it. But it seems rare regardless where I go (which I realize might mean I'm the problem....).
> Anyway, to answer your real question, my top few > programming languages are extremely stereotypical of > someone in my interest group. My most used language is C > (preferably ANSI 89, but sometimes up to 99). Apart from > that, Java has always been a comfort language for me, > since everything and the kitchen sink is included by > default. Its always nice to have a cross platform GUI > toolkit just built directly into the runtime, then you > don't have to "instruct" your users on how to install > libraries. I am also a massive scheme fan. I currently am > at the school where one of the developers of Racket works, > so being here, you either have to learn to love lisp, > or learn to get the hell out :).
Ah, good 'ole C. I remember playing with Scheme way back. The word 'Racket' sounds familiar.
I loved lisp-y in theory, but I had trouble seeing what was going on in too much parentheses nesting. Sure, one can format such in more readable ways, but then the parentheses start to look like unnecessary typing/clutter.
I wound up settling on Lua as my go to scripting language, and honestly have no need for compiled languages anymore.
I'm to the point where I don't care about protocol details anymore. What matters to me
most is longer-form interactions unfolding from posts. I'll take that anywhere I can get it.
But it seems rare regardless where I go (which I realize might mean I'm the problem....).
The issue with USENET's protocol is that its split across like 5 RFCs, and references multiple USENET discussions lost to time. It promotes fun discussions, but unfortunately I can't see anyone actually wanting to maintain or run a server for it (unless they're insane like me).
I loved lisp-y in theory, but I had trouble seeing what was going on in too much parentheses
nesting. Sure, one can format such in more readable ways, but then the parentheses start to
look like unnecessary typing/clutter.
I have to say, the thing I love/hate about lisp is the parentheses. They are really helpful for making the parser fast and efficient, but they do get very cluttered (especially if you use Scheme how it is intended to be used, without using a single variable).
I wound up settling on Lua as my go to scripting language, and honestly have no need for
compiled languages anymore.
I love Lua. Lua is a seriously powerful little beast. A while back, I was loosely affiliated with a group experimenting by running Lua at the UEFI level (the lowest level of a modern computer if you aren't familiar) specifically to make drivers. No idea how far they got with it, but what they had only showed how Lua is pretty much a complete replacement for everything. Especially with LuaJIT, you're golden.
> The issue with USENET's protocol is that its split > across like 5 RFCs, and references multiple USENET > discussions lost to time. It promotes fun discussions, > but unfortunately I can't see anyone actually wanting to > maintain or run a server for it (unless they're insane > like me).
Well, RMS bless you! ;-)
> I have to say, the thing I love/hate about lisp is > the parentheses. They are really helpful for making the > parser fast and efficient, but they do get very cluttered > (especially if you use Scheme how it is intended to be > used, without using a single variable).
I should clarify. I love the parentheses given how vim (and other editors, I imagine) can quickly move the cursor between matching parens/braces/brackets. There are times I add commented-out curly braces in more gnarly Lua code when block nesting isn't visually obvious.
That has me wondering if others have already solved that in vim to jump between 'end' statements and the variety of things that can begin blocks in Lua...?
> I'm also a big USENET fan. I hung out in the SeaMonkey > group for a while before the Mozilla news server got > shut down prematurely. I really would love to see a small > net sort of like gemini emerge on USENET again, but the > protocols that USENET uses are absolutely abysmal! Maybe > someone can do what gemini did to gopher