1. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Irv Mullins wrote:
> Why, if Euphoria is so much faster, are there hundreds or thousands of
> people
> who use perl, python, or java, etc. for every person who uses Euphoria.
Perl, Python and Java are free.
This is a huge factor!!!!
Everyone wants a free lunch. Even though the price of Euphoria
is inexpensive it's the concept behind it.
Perl I have heard is very fast at text processing.
I'm sure there would be a large number of programs (text manipulation)
that would run faster in Perl. I haven't seen any action games in
Perl ... but that isn't the aim of the language.
Python and Java have been built from the ground up as OOP languages.
Perl has been adapted to support OOP.
This is another huge factor.
As much as everyone on this list keeps saying they can live without
classes everyone else in the world says they can't.
Classes are a very powerful tool and I'd be very surprised if you
could name one "newly" developed NON OOP language that has been
successful in the last 10 years.
Do you think a couple of dozen people on a mailing list are going to
change the rest of the worlds mind re OOP?
The 3 languages you mention are highly portable.
I know that Java and Python have threads support, exception handling,
many many more libraries available ... most freely downloadable.
> Why do the bookshelves contain dozens of books on perl, python, and
> java,
> etc. but none for Euphoria?
A simple question of user base.
It wasn't that long ago (2 years - probably 3!) that the first
Python book was released.
> Why do computer magazines run articles on these other languages, but
> make no mention of Euphoria?
user base again.
> Could it be that *fast* just isn't the most important criteria for most
> programmers?
Three of the really big selling points for Euphoria are:
"fast",
"simple", and
"small".
With the processing power of pc's these days is speed a real issue?
Except for specialized applications like action games, 3d modelling,
simulations etc speed is almost a non issue.
For these specialised cases you can still write sub routines in C.
Just like we do for Euphoria.
Simple is a great thing to have. Simple doesn't have to mean you
don't have threads, or classes, or exception handling. It just means
when you do have these things they are implemented in a consistant
well structured way.
If they "are" implemented and people don't want to use them ...
then they don't!
Small! - who copies files by floppy disk anymore?
All these other languages have 10mb or more downloads,
no one cares. It takes maybe an hour on a standard modem to download
them.
How much effort do people put into developing applications?
Is an extra hour to setup, and an extra 50MB of disk space going to
stop anyone from using Euphoria? I'd say no.
> I don't buy the argument that marketing makes the difference, either -
> a lot of money has been spent to promote Java, but the rest? Not that
> I know of.
How many of these popular languages are developed by one person?
It's impossible, can't be done.
I don't mean this is an offense way Rob (if your reading!),
but what major software development project has become successful
by the authors just "seeing" what happens and not having any long
term plans or goals? That's Robs way, that's his choice and no one
can judge him and say he's wrong. What I can say is success won't
come knocking on your door!
For the PRO side:
It's a bit harsh to look at some popular languages and say
"why isn't Euphoria like language X!"
Java is a product developed by hundreds of people.
Python has commercial backing and has a number of full time staff
developing as well as a large band of eager users.
You mention 3 popular languages. If you do a web search there are
probably a couple of hundred other languages around all struggling to
find users and developers. You'll also find alot of languages with
"this page last updated" sometime well into the last century!
Everyone's use of Euphoria is there own choice. Personally I would be
very careful depending on it to much for commercial apps.
The rate of change in the IT industry is rapid and integrating with
different systems increases at huge rates.
Where are SOAP, DCOM and and Corba add ons?
If you have an app and your client asked for one of these what do u do?
if you are using Java, Visual Basic C# etc ... you just add the
componant to your project, read the doco and start coding.
You don't have time to invent the wheel at every step, you'll quickly
go broke.
if (like me) use Euphoria as a hobby it doesn't matter if you a SOAP
interface or not. You can still go and write one if you want but if
it takes a year no one cares.
Irv, you have to look at Euphoria for what it is now.
You have to understand it's limitations and strengths.
I think learning Python is great move to make, but you shouldn't
forget Euphoria either. You wouldn't have been here so long if
you didn't enjoy it.
I should know what I'm talking about because I have thought like you
many times before. At one stage I didn't use Euphoria for over a year!
Anyway .. enough rambling. I'm struggling with Latex codes trying
to get the first couple of chapters formatted correctly.
What excellent tools are available, Latex, GhostScript, GhostView,
it's amazing what's out there!
Ray Smith
http://www.geocities.com/ray_223
2. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Hi Irv,
First of all I think it's not really fair towards Rob to ask him why
Euphoria isn't used more than other languages. It's like asking the
author of a good book why his book isn't sold better.
>Why, if Euphoria is so much faster, are there hundreds or thousands >of
>people who use perl, python, or java, etc. for every person who >uses
>Euphoria.
This question is to much simplified. I think it has nothing to do with
the speed of Euphoria. Euphoria isn't a well known language at the
moment which has several reasons not just one. (Take the name for
example, it doesn't realy sounds cool.)
>Why do the bookshelves contain dozens of books on perl, python, and
>>java, etc. but none for Euphoria?
The chicken and egg story. Because the're not enough users to make it
commercially interesting to publish books about Euphoria. Because there
are no books and because you can't buy Euphoria in your local
shopping-mall the number of user is growing quit slow.
>Why do computer magazines run articles on these other languages, but
>make no mention of Euphoria?
See the former question.
>Could it be that *fast* just isn't the most important criteria for >most
>programmers?
Yes, ease of use and flexibility for example. Euphoria offers both.
>I don't buy the argument that marketing makes the difference, >either -
>a lot of money has been spent to promote Java, but the >rest? Not that I
>know of.
Maybe marketing doesn't make THE difference but it does make a
difference. I think in the case of Euphoria marketing is the bottleneck.
How can people start using Euphoria when then never heard of it?
Furthermore I think it's much more difficult to go from 1000 to 10,000
users then from 10,000 to 100,000 users. Once you make enough money to
reserve a good amount of money for marketing things really start off.
And once you've got more users people like you are easier to convince
that Euphoria is the #1 language to use for small commercial projects.
Bye,
Jasper.
3. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Irv's questions are good ones. I'd like to toss out some stuff of my
own.
I guess the first question to ask is what is the purpose of the other
languages. Python seems designed to be a glue language - it holds other
components together, many of them written in different languages.
Java seems meant to provide a cross-platform OOPL.
Perl seems most ideal for text processing.
What is Euphoria aimed at? I don't know. I know why I picked it up. I
wanted something simpler than C so I could control bugs. I wanted
something garbage collected, so I didn't have to learn memory
management. And I wanted something fast enough to do some light
simulation.
So speed and simplicity were the primary drivers - for me. Can't speak
for anyone else.
I started off learning Python, but it was taking too long to get to the
point of doing something with it.
Same with Rebol.
Java I spent time with, and actually got to the point of doing some
small tasks, but it was so slow and cluttered it didn't seem worth
continuing.
Guess I'm in the best language for the purpose camp. What is Euphoria
*best* at, better than other languages? I'm not smart enough to know. I
do know it's better at one thing. It's simpler and quicker to pick up,
and in most cases, easier to read.
I don't know if the readability scales, though. I tried reading the
source for a couple of the IDEs, and gave up. It was too much work for
too little reward.
And I don't use Eu for commercial apps, so I can't speak on that. In
fact, I've only actually completed a few projects with it, since I
program in my "spare" time.
Just curious, but what can Eu NOT do that it needs to do to attract more
people? Irv has talked before about the limits of Eu, but I don't recall
anything specific, probably because I'm not a programmer and it just
goes right over my head. What keeps people from building stuff other
than toys with it?
4. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
SR.Williamson wrote:
> I guess the first question to ask is what is the purpose of the other
> languages. Python seems designed to be a glue language - it holds other
> components together, many of them written in different languages.
Python is a general purpose scripting language.
People have written SQL servers, web servers,
I think from memory the old www.onelist.com mailing list was running
Python. It was processing numerous emails every second on a low
end pentium. The statistics where staggering.
Python, as you say is also good for "glueing" other pass together.
> Java seems meant to provide a cross-platform OOPL.
Java's big claim to fame is portability.
> What is Euphoria aimed at? I don't know. I know why I picked it up.
Like Python Euphoria is a general purpose language. I don't think
there is enough of a sales pitch on the eu web site telling
everyone how good it is, and the "vast??" range of areas people are
using Euphoria for.
If you have a look at all these other languages web sites there are
numerous "sales: types of documents telling you how great the
world is. That would be nice for eu.
I
> wanted something simpler than C so I could control bugs. I wanted
> something garbage collected, so I didn't have to learn memory
> management. And I wanted something fast enough to do some light
> simulation.
>
> So speed and simplicity were the primary drivers - for me. Can't speak
> for anyone else.
I agree that this is Euphoria's greatest asset.
Ray Smith
http://www.geocities.com/ray_223
5. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SR.Williamson [mailto:writeneu at hotmail.com]
> Just curious, but what can Eu NOT do that it needs to do to
> attract more
> people? Irv has talked before about the limits of Eu, but I
> don't recall
> anything specific, probably because I'm not a programmer and it just
> goes right over my head. What keeps people from building stuff other
> than toys with it?
I think that Eu has a limited ability to access a lot of tools out there.
Rob's given us a great (IMHO) basic platform, with [most of] the building
blocks we need. A good example is COM. There are an awful lot of things
that use COM, and there's no obvious way to interface with them. It's the
same story regarding C++. I've figured out how to talk to these things, but
it hasn't been easy (hopefully I'll have a new release next week). Even so,
once a tool is developed, it's often somewhat easier to do the same task in
another language (though not necessarily the same language each time :).
The nice thing about Eu is that (as Rob often mentions), the penalty for
developing the 'middleware' in pure Eu is usually less than for other
'non-C' :) languages. Most of the difficulty is in understanding how the
technology (e.g., COM) works. Then it's a matter of design--how do you make
something that's easy for others to reuse? The implementation in Eu is
usually pretty straightforward, once you understand how C uses structures.
I think I picked up Eu because it allowed me to think more about the problem
I was trying to solve than how to frame a problem in the language. This
seems to mainly be an offshoot of sequences. But overall, Eu is pretty easy
to understand. Since programing is really a hobby for me, this makes it
more fun--I'm able to spend more time thinking about the problem at hand.
Matt Lewis
6. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
I think for what it is, Euphoria is incredibly successful.
There are two roads to widespread popularity: open-source or corporate
backing. It's either gotta be totally free and extensible by anyone, or
its gotta have money behind it.
This factor dwarfs all others, I believe. And anything users find
lacking in Euphoria would also magically be fixed in short order if Eu
took either of these two paths. There is *no way* a "one-man" language
existing as a commercial entity will ever be huge.
I hate to say it, but probably the best thing that could happen to
*Euphoria* (not Rob) is for it to be a financial failure for Rob, and
for him to say, "Oh, well, I guess I'll make it open source." On the
other hand, he could probably make a good chunk of change writing books
on it as the inventor...
7. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Andy Serpa wrote:
>
> There is *no way* a "one-man" language
> existing as a commercial entity will ever be huge.
Not without given a lot of time? Even slow growth is growth, and as long
as that doesn't stop, the language is very popular in, say, 10 years? 15
years? :)
> On the other hand, he could probably make a good chunk of
> change writing books on it as the inventor...
He indicates at times that he has secret and proprietary code...
Probably valuable to other C coders.
8. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Robert Craig wrote:
> > Why do the bookshelves contain dozens of books
> > on perl, python, and java, etc. but none for Euphoria?
>
> Of course they have more users, and
> maybe things have changed, but the free, on-line documentation
> for Perl and Python, as of a couple of years ago, was terrible
> (probably to promote books sales)
Oh, come on, Robert. That's a cheap shot. It is obvious why the
documentation was terrible. Programmers don't like to write
documentation!
-J. Kenneth Riviere
9. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
> Any programmer with 6 months' experience can find something to
> laugh about in Euphoria.
This can be said of any language, especially your new fave Python. ;)
> I prefer a slower language which is taken seriously.
Irv, by sticking with EUPHORIA, you stand to help make it better.
I don't think Rob will let EUPHORIA die; in fact, he'll do what it takes
to make sure people who use EUPHORIA can be most productive in the
environments for which it was created. Right Rob?
10. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Robert Craig wrote:
> Ray Smith writes:
> > With the processing power of pc's these days is speed a real issue?
> > Except for specialized applications like action games, 3d modelling,
> > simulations etc speed is almost a non issue.
>
> I just finished crunching 17 Mb of log data from RapidEuphoria.com
> The log records each page hit, each .zip downloaded, etc, along with
> the referring URL, IP address etc. etc.
>
> My Euphoria program took 1 minute to give me lots of interesting
> highly customized information. Would I want to wait half an hour
> for Python or Perl? (My ISP has a free log analyzer. It provides lots of
>
> data, but little useful information that I need to evaluate sources of
> advertising.)
>
> Speed will always be valuable.
Two Points:
* I don't think anyone is saying use a slower langauge just for the
sake of it. I'm also sure everyone would agree that if by adding
enhancement "x" to Euphoria it would make it twice as slow then
don't add "x" to Euphoria.
Like was mentioned before ... if new features are added to Euphoria
that people don't choose to use I find it difficult to beleive it
would drasticly effect the speed.
* I agree that Euphoria is the "right" tool for many jobs ... number
crunching is a good example. Why aren't we trying to make Euphoria
the "right" tool for a broader range of problems????
As a new issue
* has (or will) the "Translater" stifle the developemnt
of Euphoria as any "offical" feature will need twice as much work?
Anyone with the source can add features to the interpreter but Rob
still has to add these to the translater if it is used as an official
enhancement.
Ray Smith
http://www.geocities.com/ray_223
11. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
Irv Mullins wrote:
> > You should go to Salt Lake City and tell all the athletes
> > who didn't get a medal that they've wasted their time
> > and should quit too.
>
> Other than the 2 or 3 who will get TV contracts from this, yes,
> I'd say the majority have wasted years of their time.
> But that's another subject.
!!!
Well, I can't say I agree with your mindset Irv, but I will say that
this finally explains a lot of your thinking.
I hope Python/Perl/whatever winds up suiting your needs; *some*
community should continue to gain from your contributions.
Rod Jackson
12. RE: Challenge for speed freaks
There are arguments for and against adding 'enhancements' to the language.
Adding functionality will usually come at a cost to speed. However, if you
don't use that particular function in the program, then you will (probably)
still be taxed by it.
Well, if we look at exw.exe, why isn't win32lib integrated? Because not
everyone needs to use it, and it would slow people down.
Not everyone wants warnings in their program for unused variables, so the
interpreter allows 'without warning' so that it can a:run faster b:not warn
the programmer.
In the same way Rob, I think that you should add these 'extensions' to the
interpreter, if you can do it in such a way that if a user wants OOP in
their program, then they type 'with oop' at the top. Or 'without oop' if
they don't...
Responses, anyone?
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