Netizen: Languages

Showing posts with label Languages. Show all posts

Thursday, October 07, 2010

Al Wenger Wants To Learn Scala

And so should you.

I came across this post by Al on Tumblr - my idea of TV - not long back and was the first person to reblog it there. Yes!

It is an honest, relatable, inspiring post. And I said so in a comment.

To those of you who might not know - I do have a global audience - Al Wenger is a top notch VC in New York City.

I promptly created a Scala page. This is still early. I first blogged about Scala back in May, and Google still shows only a handful of websites dedicated to Scala. Wow.

Al, I am with you now.

Wait, did I just say a line from The Godfather?

I could hardly call Al a friend, we have met in person but once. And I am strict about using the family metaphor. Some weirdos in Kentucky spoiled it for me.

Al to me is a VC and a blogger, and that is good enough for me.

One small but not unimportant fact I learned about Al during my one meeting with him is that he is Mayor of some horse place upstate.

How My Grandfather Became Mayor The First Time

Scala - Wikipedia: Scala stands for "scalable language", signifying that it is designed to grow with the demands of its users..... Scala code can call Java libraries (or .NET libraries in the .NET implementation). ..... Scala's operational characteristics are the same as Java's. .... Scala is a pure object-oriented language in the sense that every value is an object. .... In April 2009 Twitter announced they had switched large portions of their backend from Ruby to Scala and intended to convert the rest. In addition Foursquare uses Scala and Lift

Sunday, May 30, 2010

One Programming Language

Image via Wikipedia

I was over at Hacker News, and came across this wonderful blog post by Babu Srinivasan: If You Had To Learn Just One Programming Language. He lists all the languages and he lists 13 criteria with which to measure them. Then he starts eliminating languages.

List 1: Common Lisp, Scheme, Fortran, Smalltalk, C, C++, Objective C, Ada, Java, Javascript, C#, D, Prolog, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, Clojure, Lua, Forth, Factor, Erlang, OCaml, F#, Clean, Haskell, Scala.

List 2: Python, Ruby, Groovy, Clojure, Erlang, OCaml, F#, Clean, Haskell and Scala.

List 3: Clojure, Erlang, OCaml, Clean, Haskell and Scala.

List 4: Clojure, OCaml, Haskell/Clean and Scala.

List 5: OCaml, Haskell/Clean and Scala.

Winner: Scala.

Functions are values and values are objects. Therefore functions are objects. Unlike Java which has primitive types int, float etc, Scala is completely object oriented. Numbers, characters, booleans, functions are just objects ..... A big deal is made of duck typing in languages such as Python and Ruby. In Scala you have “Structural typing” which is Duck Typing done right. ..... Scala is a huge language with lots of features: traits, abstract types, higher order functions, closures, native threads, concurrency (Actors), xml processing, implicits, pattern matching, partial functions, monads. You can start using it right away and slowly learn about the more powerful constructs. You can easily write a DSL (Domain Specific Language) using scala...... The extensive set of Java libraries can be put to use...... Scala is much easier to learn for the majority of programmers who have been programming in the imperative style........ With Scala, you can start with imperative or object-oriented style of programming (think of it Java without the verbosity) and migrate slowly to the functional features. ....... Lift is a web framework written in Scala. You can create web apps as easily as you can do with Rails and Django but it will typically run 4 to 6 times faster, use less CPU and it will be lot more scalable.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

C++ plus Python = Google GO

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

Why was this not talked about before Google actually did it? I am surprised Mashable and TechCrunch have the story, but it is not yet out there on the official Google blog.

Let the guessing game begin. What will be the next big thing Google will do? As big as a new programming language, as big as a new operating system.

To launch a new programming language is a big deal. This is like when Sun came up with Java.

Google Open Source Blog: Ho! Ho! Let's Go!

Saturday, July 04, 2009

The Future Is Multilingual

The Internet is the future. And that future is multilingual. This is the Internet century, and this century is multilingual. This world was always multilingual. But in this century, for the first time, we will see that lingual diversity celebrated as the natural order of things instead of a nuisance or worse. America is Europe, the Internet is America. The Internet is the new country. The Internet is the new frontier, the wild wild west. The Internet is the new moon to reach out to.

You could learn new languages if you wanted to but you don't have to. You don't have to wait for all the world's knowledge to get translated from English into your local language by really smart human beings who put out tomes of translated literature. Machines will translate on demand in real time. That changes things.

You should be able to chat with someone in their own language without learning their language, in real time.

All knowledge is local. All local knowledge is global. And that too in real time. That is the Internet way.

Communication and creation/consumption will go unhindered. Languages will not get in the way. The idea that the smartest people in every culture need to learn English first, that is passe. That is so 20th century. Many still might, but not because it is demanded of them.

I love the English language, but I love linguistic diversity more. Linguistic diversity is the humanity flowering the way it is meant to flower. Each human being is unique just like each snowflake is unique. Each sentence each human being naturally speaks is unique. Is that something or is that something? Finally we have the technology to map that uniqueness. The Internet is mapping software.

In The News

Firefox 3.5: Excellent, but no 'Web upgrade' CNet.com
Making sense of Windows 7 upgrades

Hard disk or solid-state? Think again
Windows 7 may get a 'Family Pack'
Netbooks and touch screens: A good marriage?
Defending against chemical and biological weapons
Netbooks and touch screens: A good marriage?
Blizzard chooses cloud over LAN for new game
Symantec's Ramzan on solving the antivirus puzzle
Friday Poll: We the ppl--imagining a digital 1776

Week in review: A speedier new Firefox
DOJ opens formal investigation into Google Books settlement

iPhone heat issue much ado about nothing
Report: Acquittal in MySpace suicide case
DJ app for Microsoft Surface
frog design, the book: How design strategies are shaping the future of business
Open-source licensing: Your mileage may vary
Buzz Out Loud 1011: User clips galore
Report: Acquittal in MySpace suicide case
Net neutrality gets a boost from the feds
Fisker's good Karma
Lunar mapping satellite snaps first test images
Successful fueling test sets stage for shuttle launch

Jobs: A Blow to Optimism BusinessWeek
The Bleak U.S. Jobs Picture
Will Tax Breaks Boost Jobs?
Air France Crash: Hunting for Black Boxes
Andreessen Readies a New Venture Capital Firm
Mozilla's Crowdsourcing Mystique
Blog: Wyclef Bails on Ning

Vital Signs: Trade Gap Is Expected to Widen Again
Is Constellation Brands Brewing a Comeback?
Why the Nasdaq Outperformed the Blue Chips
Japan's Real Estate Trusts Rise from the Abyss
Advantage, India: Are Indian CEOs Better than U.S. Execs?
Air India Subsidiary Cancels Some International Routes
Needed: A New Manufacturing Vision
Getting Financially Fit in Recession
Bernard Madoff's Sentencing
Govt. Releases $4 Bln Broadband Stimulus
Upgrading the Computer History Museum
German Banks Cash in on the Crisis
Europe Welcomes Back Imperfect Produce
Volunteer IT Staff Save BA $3.3 Million
Economics Unbound: Guest blogger!
Auto Beat: GM's 2010 Chevrolet Camaro breaks through
Economics Unbound: Four Unfortunate Facts about the Job Market
How to Turn Research into Innovation Gold
Inside Disney's Toy Factory
Using Design to Drive Innovation
PediaVision's David Melnik on Pitching Your Product
The Old Solutions Have Become the New Problems
Career Q&A: The Upside to the Down Economy
'Let Me Tell You a Story'
When Sister Is Your Business Partner
Who Pays a Failed LLC's Debts?

Why Sarah Palin Quit Time

Pakistan Hopes for Answers on Bhutto Murder

Swine Flu in Britain: Nothing to Party About
Does the E.U.'s Airline Blacklist Make Flying Safer?
Canada Spends Big to Save GM, So Why Not Mexico?
What Happened To the Stimulus?
Michael Jackson Gets His Requiem
In Liberia, Sirleaf's Past Sullies her Clean Image
How Should Europe Respond to Iran?
New College-Loan Plan: Pay Back By What You Earn
U.S. and Russia: The Talk Starts Here
Cutting Off a Continent?
Rebuilding Liberia
El Niño Is Changing for the Stormier
Rowe Undecided on Jackson Kids Custody Battle
Inside Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch
10 Questions for Robert Kiyosaki
5 Media Myths Debunked by Michael Jackson's Death
Appreciation: Michael Jackson 1958 - 2009
Why Marriage Matters
The Gaza Strip's Diamond in the Rough
A Taste of Sichuan
Go West, Young Chef

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Google And Languages

And I am not talking Visual Basic and C++ here. I am talking Bengali and Maithili. "The goal is to make the Internet language-independent." Wow. That would be cool, real cool. Google's on it. It also is in news that it will offer something in the PayPal category. Cool. Well, folks, what about MathML! "At the UN, it doesn't matter whether you speak only French and the orator is waxing eloquent in Chinese. The Web will be the same way." Wow.

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