1. The Euphoria Community (long)
- Posted by budmeister1 at JUNO.COM Mar 28, 2000
- 503 views
Hello everyone, I've been following the various "offtopic" threads very closely, and although I usually try to stay away from non-programming topics on this list, I feel that I should toss my 2 cents into the incinerator on this one ;) (Note: most of this is directed in the general direction of Everett) [Lack of Documentation] Robert designed Euphoria to be a simple, easy to learn language. I think the manual reflects that, and he's done a fine job of not making it so convoluted that non-programmers can't read it, but still being fairly clear. The whole point of the manual is to be a reference and a starting point for beginners. It is by no means *complete*, because it's not supposed to be. Have you read the manuals published by the authors of other languages like Python, Perl or PHP? None of these languages had a perfectly concise manual in their first few years of existence (and some still don't). In fact, if you go to their respective websites, you'll see that the actual language manuals lack alot of information, which in turn was picked up in other tutorials and FAQs written by part of that language's community. This same thing has happened in the Euphoria community - A Beginner's Guide to Euphoria by David Gay, probably the best Euphoria tutorial I've seen, along with other guides by various authors. I think Martin is right on in saying that we should pick up some of the slack in the documentation. How can you expect Rob to do everything? RDS is not a large company, and Euphoria is *not* a commercial level language. I think Chris had the right idea when he said that Euphoria is more shareware than purely commercial. Shareware/open source/pd languages have historically been developed and documented by their own communities. Look at Perl - how much of the docs were written by Larry Wall? Very few of them actually; only the original manpages were. Others like Tom Christiansen wrote much of the later documentation and guides that we know today. Finally, if you're not happy with the docs, or they're not clear enough for your liking, then hack at it. Do you expect to be spoon fed exactly how to use peek() and poke()!? If you're as intelligent as you seem to be, then why don't you just figure it out for yourself? Are you afraid the computer is going to call you mean names for screwing up? ;) [Euphoria vs Other Languages] There has been much ado about nothing on this list when it comes to comparing Euphoria to other languages. "Why doesn't it have this feature?" "Why can't we use this? Java has it" "Why aren't there structures?" A long time ago, I was looking for "the perfect language". When I found Euphoria (back at v1.4), I immediately fell in love with it. Its simplicity and lack of strong typing drew me to it like a magnet. From the first time I read the manual, I knew that Rob had created it with something different in mind than other languages had. I believe that most of you on this list were attracted by many of the same ideals: simplicity, easy to learn, easy to code, fast, and powerful. Euphoria is *different*. Why would you want to make it like these other languages that all of you profess to dislike so much? In response to the complaints about it not having all these features, and the livelihood of the language resting on the backs of the users' contributions, my response is: so what? When designing a language, there are tradeoffs between speed and features. If you want speed, you have to lose some features. Euphoria has always been fast - there's no argument about that. And when it comes to features, if there weren't enough, all of these incredible libraries we've been blessed with wouldn't exist. In trying to keep the speed up, Rob has made a decision to keep the interpreter slim and trim, and he's done a wonderful job of it. Whether Rob originally intended for the language's advancement to rely on users' contributions, I don't know, but I don't think it's important. The fact is, we are all on this list and coding in Euphoria because we **like doing it**. If we didn't, we wouldn't be here. And because we like Euphoria, we want to contribute to its success, and help others to do the same. It's the spirit of community that exists here that drive us on to do it, not because Rob is making us :) Note the kind of software that Euphoria is: SHAREWARE. Everett, I think your problem is that you just want to get, get, get, and not give. Have you sent any code fragments to help another guy on the list out when he needed help? Have you contributed to the archives, so others can use your work and learn from it? Not that I've seen. In fact, if you look through the archives looking for anything written by "Everett Williams", you'll come up with nothing. You complain about Euphoria not having enough features, and this and that, but have you contributed to *add* those features? Nope. It seems to me that you needn't bother building it in to the language and bog it down if it's doable in library form. If it's done that way, then the work of debugging it is handed off to community members, and not focused on Rob. On that note, I want to give a huge BRAVO! to David Cuny, Pete Eberlein, Irv Mullins, and all the other distinguished members of this list that have given much of their time, energy, and knowledge in their contributions to the Euphoria community. There's alot more I can say on this topic, but I think that's enough brainfood for now ;) [Offtopic Posts and Flames] I've been reading this list in digest form for a few years now, and it has happened that the level of aggressiveness on this list has grown tremendously. If I look back through digests from a year ago, there was only positive encouragement, helpfulness, and a feeling of excitement over where the language is headed. No one seemed to be concerned about what Euphoria was missing - we were excited about what it had that was different from other languages. People were developing very cool applications and tossing code left and right. Now that the base set of libraries has been solidified, and thousands of lines of user code have been archived, people seem to be more concerned with what Euphoria is missing. "It's missing this feature" "The docs are lousy" "Where's my GUI IDE!" But the sad thing is, people are no longer willing to develop these things themselves. It is possible my friends - we could write some of these things ourselves, and we have in the past. Look at VEL, and Win32Lib, and WinsockLib, and ExoticaX, and MightMouse, and the many Font libraries. Remeber when we all complained to Rob about how he needs to "build those in"? It ended up he didn't need to after all :) It just ends up that we need to be more helpful, and be happy with what we have, not what we're missing. Flaming has been a huge problem lately. Certain people (no names) have made the list a very unenjoyable place to be. You say that the masses have not accepted Euphoria because of its lack of support for <item>, but it has to start on this list, and your attitudes are driving them away. The bottom line is: please keep things ON TOPIC. If things get worse, I agree that we should get a moderator. And my sympathy for whoever that turns out to be :) Thus ends my rantings for today. ----->Buddy budmeister1 at juno.com http://tenbux.iwarp.com/ PS: As mentioned before, I'm in digest mode, so please direct any replies/flames/thank yous to me privately, and not to the list. Also, thanx to Lucius Hilley for the CSV help :)
2. Re: The Euphoria Community (long)
- Posted by Kat <gertie at ZEBRA.NET> Mar 28, 2000
- 552 views
----- Original Message ----- From: <budmeister1 at JUNO.COM> To: <EUPHORIA at LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2000 7:16 AM Subject: The Euphoria Community (long) <snip> > Finally, if you're not happy with the docs, or they're not clear enough > for your liking, then hack at it. Do you expect to be spoon fed exactly > how to use peek() and poke()!? If you're as intelligent as you seem to > be, then why don't you just figure it out for yourself? Are you afraid > the computer is going to call you mean names for screwing up? ;) Not call me mean names exactly, but if poke() takes off when i feed it a sequence and trashed vital system areas, the poor puter would be real upset! Better safe than sorry. :) > [Euphoria vs Other Languages] > > There has been much ado about nothing on this list when it comes to > comparing Euphoria to other languages. "Why doesn't it have this > feature?" > "Why can't we use this? Java has it" "Why aren't there structures?" I like sequences and lack of typing too. Think about it, if i put a integer into a var, then i put it there, i know it's there, and if i want to be *sure* it's an integer before i use it, i'll verify it myself. Otherwise, i may wish to access it as a char or a memory pointer or a "goto" target, and i may wish to use %temp as all of those at different time, or load whatever i want into a sequence. But, imo, Eu still needs a "goto" within functions/procedures. I'll take Rob's word for it that me writing a function to build C-type strings will be as fast as native Eu code, but that it's not native still bugs me some, seems to me he could piggyback it on the existing code that does sequence storage. > I believe that most of you on this list were attracted by many of the > same ideals: simplicity, easy to learn, easy to code, fast, and powerful. > Euphoria is *different*. Why would you want to make it like these other > languages that all of you profess to dislike so much? Just because i hate strong var typing doesn't mean i don't want to use a "goto"! > > When designing a language, there are tradeoffs between speed and > features. > If you want speed, you have to lose some features. A "goto" might make it faster, not slower. And i'm sure nested sequences are slower than a static record, but for *my* use in this one application, i need sequences, and will use Eu for it. It sure beats constantly fighting types and pointers in variable records and trying to to make a compiler not do what it was designed to do (in pascal, for instance). > Everett, I think your problem is that you just want to get, get, get, > and not give. Have you sent any code fragments to help another guy > on the list out when he needed help? Or women? > On that note, I want to give a huge BRAVO! to David Cuny, Pete Eberlein, > Irv Mullins, and all the other distinguished members of this list that > have given much of their time, energy, and knowledge in their > contributions > to the Euphoria community. Ditto. Kat