1. Vision for the future...
- Posted by Jonas Temple <jktemple at yhti.net> Nov 15, 2002
- 412 views
I've been reading the recent posts regarding Euphoria and it's future with much interest. I will say that some very good points have been brought up by some people in this community that I respect. The person I keep waiting to hear from on this subject is Rob himself and at this point I'm not sure how to interpret the silence. Rob, would it be possible for you to share with the community (your customers) what your vision is for the future of Euphoria? Are you wanting the language to become widespread or just a niche language with a small number of users? What's your 1,3 and 5 year plans? I feel some sort of response on RDS' part would be appropriate. Thanks, Jonas Temple
2. Re: Vision for the future...
- Posted by Kat <kat at kogeijin.com> Nov 15, 2002
- 417 views
On 15 Nov 2002, at 9:09, C. K. Lester wrote: > > > Rob, would it be possible for you to share with the community (your > > customers) what your vision is for the future of Euphoria? Are you > > wanting the language to become widespread or just a niche language with > > a small number of users? What's your 1,3 and 5 year plans? > > I think having a comprehensive "Rob's Views" on the web site would also be > nice. He could update it as time goes on and the community will be kept > informed. But he did that last year on this list. Kat
3. Re: Vision for the future...
- Posted by "C. K. Lester" <cklester at yahoo.com> Nov 15, 2002
- 422 views
> > I think having a comprehensive "Rob's Views" on the web site would also be > > nice. He could update it as time goes on and the community will be kept > > informed. > > But he did that last year on this list. Having it on the website- kinda like a blog maybe!- would let newbies and oldies alike who aren't on the mailing list see at any time what's goin' on at RDS.
4. Re: Vision for the future...
- Posted by jbrown105 at speedymail.org Nov 15, 2002
- 395 views
- Last edited Nov 16, 2002
Actually, if none of you mind, ..... _start forward_ Date: 13 Feb 2002 From: Robert Craig <rds at RapidEuphoria.com> Subject: Re: Version 2.4 and beyond by inmta007.topica.com with SMTP; 13 Feb 2002 21:32:34 -0000 (InterMail vM.4.01.03.23 201-229-121-123-20010418) with SMTP id <20020213213233.XCJR12383.tomts9-srv.bellnexxia.net@Rob> charset="iso-8859-1" Derek Parnell writes: > I, for one, am not 100% sure of what are Euphoria's primary requirements. > I suspect that minimulism, speed, size, and platform choice have a part, > but what I'd really like, Robert, is to see them clearly stated and published > under the RDS banner. I don't have any hard and fast requirements or goals for Euphoria. I'm an opportunist. All I can do is tell you what I like about Euphoria, and what I feel about the current situation. 1. The core language. I'm content with the size of the core language. I reject the notion that it is "incomplete", or must be extended every year with new features. Sure, there could be some dotting of i's and crossing of t's, but any major new extension would have to match the power to weight ratio of the current core. Structures, classes, etc. are tempting, but I've studied them carefully over the years, and decided not to include them. When I look at grandiose languages, with 1000-page manuals describing only the *core* language, I'm appalled. People seem to be building all sorts of exotic, trendy features, just so they can one-up the others. I suspect these features are probably buggy, interact with each other in unpredictable ways, are rarely used and poorly understood by the masses. Python may have a lot of "features", but if it's 34x slower than the Euphoria *interpreter*, do you really care? I'm still waiting to see a fast action game written in Python or Perl. 2. Libraries One of the great strengths of Euphoria, compared to Python, Perl, or other interpreted languages, is that that the standard libraries, and most other important add-on libraries, Win32Lib etc., are all (heaven forbid!) written in Euphoria. In Python they have some kludgy API that lets people write extensions in C, since it's obvious to everyone that Python itself would be far too slow. This means that *all* Euphoria users can potentially write important libraries and tools, where performance matters, whereas in Python, you need to be a C expert and a Python expert, as well as learning the strange API. This bodes well for the future expansion of cool things that you can do in Euphoria. While I think the core should remain small, I'll be very happy to see lots of libraries developed. 3. Interpreter Source Code Releasing the source code was a bit of a two-edged sword. Although I'm giving away a few secrets, and there will be several different versions of Euphoria created, I think this is a powerful way to inject a blast of creativity into the Euphoria world, and some source holders have said that they will port to some interesting platforms. (nothing to announce yet). Ray Smith writes: > I also think RDS should have an official documented plan for the > future of Euphoria. "planning" stifles creativity. People should not focus so much on what I'm going to do. My job is to stimulate, and harness the creativity of the Euphoria community. I can't predict what's going to happen. Think of a big pot of boiling, bubbling chemicals and DNA. Things will either explode, or else some creature from the "X Files" is going to crawl out. Regards, Rob Craig Rapid Deployment Software http://www.RapidEuphoria.com _end forward_ On 0, Brian Broker <bkb at cnw.com> wrote: > > Just search for "planning stifles creativity" by Robert Craig in Feb. of > 2002... > > http://www.listfilter.com/cgi-bin/esearch.exu?fromMonth=2&fromYear=7&toMonth =2&toYear=7&postedBy=Robert+Craig&keywords=planning+stifles+creativity > > > -- Brian > > Jonas Temple wrote: > > Kat wrote: > > > > > But he did that last year on this list. > > > > I must have missed it. Rob, if you still have this could you repost or > > reproduce? I would be very interested to read... > > > > Jonas > > > > jbrown, _Linux_ Lover, _Linux_ User 190064 running on _Linux_ Machine 84163 --
5. Re: Vision for the future...
- Posted by Robert Craig <rds at RapidEuphoria.com> Nov 16, 2002
- 415 views
Jonas Temple writes: > Rob, would it be possible for you to share with the > community (your customers) what your vision is for the > future of Euphoria? Are you wanting the language to become > widespread or just a niche language with a small number > of users? What's your 1,3 and 5 year plans? Of course I want to see Euphoria widely used by lots of people. I've never had a 1, 3 or a 5 year plan, (didn't they disappear with the collapse of the former Soviet Union?). I enjoy doing this kind of work, and I enjoy trying to make money at it. I realize that some people believe that programmers should not be allowed to make money - they should be required to donate their life's work for the good of society. All I can tell you, is that I plan to have a 2.4 alpha-test release within a couple of months. There probably won't be any major new features, but there will be a lot of important small improvements and speed-ups. And there will be around 20 or so bug fixes. Eventually more big features will come. People who judge the progress of Euphoria by the number of features added to the core language with each release, are probably the same people who judge the progress of an airplane design by the number of tons of weight added with each revision. I'm working full-time on Euphoria, minus a tiny amount of time for ListFilter. I did work mainly on ListFilter for a couple of months to get it up and running. Unfortunately most of my time does not (and never did) go into adding new features. e.g. Web advertising, tech support, answering e-mail enquiries and suggestions, reading the huge number of messages posted on this list and answering some of them, updating Recent User Contributions, acquiring resources - I recently secured a couple of hundred additional Mb and 15Gb more bandwidth for Euphoria. I also recently moved all the .zips on AOL over to RapidEuphoria, and all the 45000 mailing list messages over to ListFilter. Then there are the real and imagined bug reports to investigate, packages to ship, business license to renew, tax forms etc. etc. You also shouldn't judge the size of the Euphoria community just by the number of people on this list. Not many people can tolerate the number of messages per day that this list generates. I've found that most people who register aren't on this list. Imagine a parallel universe in which there's another Euphoria list of equal size (say 400). Now imagine combining the two universes, so that instead of 70 messages per day we have 140 per day for 800 people. How many of those 800 people would continue to subscribe via e-mail? So you see, it isn't a linear thing, and a lot depends on how boring the messages are. We also lost a bunch of Hotmail and AOL people because of SPAM detection that people didn't know how to turn off. Regards, Rob Craig Rapid Deployment Software http://www.RapidEuphoria.com
6. Re: Vision for the future...
- Posted by jbrown105 at speedymail.org Nov 16, 2002
- 406 views
On 0, Robert Craig <rds at RapidEuphoria.com> wrote: > Jonas Temple writes: > > Rob, would it be possible for you to share with the > > community (your customers) what your vision is for the > > future of Euphoria? Are you wanting the language to become > > widespread or just a niche language with a small number > > of users? What's your 1,3 and 5 year plans? > > Of course I want to see Euphoria widely used by > lots of people. Many of us do. > > I've never had a 1, 3 or a 5 year plan, (didn't they > disappear with the collapse of the former Soviet Union?). Planning isn't silly really, but thats personal percpective, really. > > I enjoy doing this kind of work, and I enjoy trying > to make money at it. I realize that some people > believe that programmers should not be allowed > to make money - they should be required to > donate their life's work for the good of society. If you're refering to my open-source Euphoria thing, its not about the money issue. Its the fact that some of us DO want to see a version of Eu with all the fancy features. I've tried to work with the core, using preproc, but that was not valued greatly. And I saw as you opened up the source (which I thought was a good move at the time BTW, IMHO anyways) but watched as few users tried out the features on the alt interpreters. Worse, they are all for windows, and thus I CANT try them out on my Linux system (unless I use something like Wine). An open-source euphoria is better because there is a good chance it will gain more support, and can be ported faster. I am not asking you to make Euphoria open-source (I did ask to have the source released, but the price and NDA I found acceptable, however I didnt forsee the lack of enthusiasm for modified interpreters), I'm just trying to give those of us a way to coordinate an effort to get the features we want in Eu (even if they aren't really in Eu). Also, just in case anyone thinks my project will put RDS out of business, (of course, Rob himself knows that this is not the case at all) pexu is unlikely to become a threat because, aside from trying to add new features, it will also have to keep playing catchup with the mainstream Eu, hence pexu will not be a threat. (I could do something mean and place the code under the GPL, but instead tis going under the LGPL, so that if Rob decides to take some code out of this project and place it into mainstream Eu, he will be very welcome to.) > > All I can tell you, is that I plan to have a 2.4 alpha-test > release within a couple of months. There probably > won't be any major new features, but there will be > a lot of important small improvements and speed-ups. > And there will be around 20 or so bug fixes. > Eventually more big features will come. Really? Pray tell, what "big features" ? Or does even you not know yet what is to come? > > People who judge the progress of Euphoria by the > number of features added to the core language > with each release, are probably the same > people who judge the progress of an airplane design > by the number of tons of weight added with each revision. You have to admit, some of the requests are reasonable. Structures, for example, or evals and gotos. Its your call to not add them, but this leaves some users unhappy, naturally. > > I'm working full-time on Euphoria, minus a tiny > amount of time for ListFilter. I did work mainly > on ListFilter for a couple of months to get it up > and running. Unfortunately most of > my time does not (and never did) go into adding new features. > e.g. Web advertising, tech support, answering > e-mail enquiries and suggestions, reading the > huge number of messages posted on this list and > answering some of them, updating Recent User > Contributions, acquiring resources - I recently secured > a couple of hundred additional Mb and 15Gb > more bandwidth for Euphoria. I also recently moved > all the .zips on AOL over to RapidEuphoria, and all > the 45000 mailing list messages over to ListFilter. > Then there are the real and imagined bug reports > to investigate, packages to ship, business license > to renew, tax forms etc. etc. Heh, no wonder you don't add much new stuff to it, seeing how busy you are. > > You also shouldn't judge the size of the Euphoria > community just by the number of people on this list. > Not many people can tolerate the number of messages > per day that this list generates. I've found that most > people who register aren't on this list. Imagine a > parallel universe in which there's another Euphoria > list of equal size (say 400). Now imagine combining > the two universes, so that instead of 70 messages > per day we have 140 per day for 800 people. > How many of those 800 people would continue to > subscribe via e-mail? > So you see, it isn't a linear thing, and a lot depends > on how boring the messages are. We also lost a bunch > of Hotmail and AOL people because of SPAM detection > that people didn't know how to turn off. > > Regards, > Rob Craig > Rapid Deployment Software > http://www.RapidEuphoria.com > jbrown Linux User:190064 Linux Machine:84163 --