1. Thanks and goodbye!
- Posted by doc at edgetap.net
Feb 15, 2002
First, thanks to those of you replied to my "Fresh Perspective" post,
whether you agreed with me or not. Unfortunately the thread got
highjacked so quickly that I fear the point of putting the programmer
before the language was probably lost. A few parting shots...
1) If the language was sufficient then most of the posts here would be
of the type "Look at my latest application!" rather than the "I've got a
way around that!" variety.
2) Regarding the recent and oh so boring language comparisons and
especially in terms of speed: not once have I seen mentioned
"speed-of-coding" which is far more important to real-life when you
either just need to prove a concept or, more likely, have to implement a
solution to a deadline. Again the programmer comes last, pity.
3) Karl (you star!) makes the heroic effort to provide some features
which people have been requesting and for his effort, and probably to
the constenation of others, gets as thanks... "These features are not
expected to become part of Euphoria". There's encouragement for
user-base... not!
4) Looking at the release history, Eu2.2 was released January 14, 2000
and over two years later comes 2.3. Back to the speed issue again but
not of the interpreter itself, rather the responsiveness of Rapid
Euphoria to it's user-base. There is no chicken-and-egg problem here
regarding the popularity of Eu. It's simply a case of not having made
the evolutionary leap into the mindset that puts the programmer before
the language. Worse still it is mainly about relatively simple requests
like GoTo, Select Case, DLL calling convention, etc, that are causing
this problem (more below).
5) From what I can tell Rob *is* Rapid Euphoria so it begs the question
if Rob wrote it for his own use and, possibly for financial reasons,
only reluctantly offer's it to the rest of us. I think there is some
truth in this considering the lack of enthusiasm to respond to repeated
requests for features-of-convenience. I apologise in advance if I am
completely off the mark here but that's the impression I and no doubt
others get. If there is any truth in it then Rob first needs to decide
exactly who he is serving, himself or his customers, and if the latter
then ditch his principles a little to better accommodate users wishes.
6) I denounce all arguments against new features based on the impact
they will have on the interpreters speed. In some cases I simply don't
believe there has to be any impact at all but more specifically if speed
was a real issue you simply would not be using Euphoria to begin with.
Neither do I believe that they would necessarily "bloat" the
interpreters size, contrary to the extremist arguments put forward
elsewhere.
7) I don't consider myself unique in my requirements such that if I can
arrive at the conclusion that Eu is good but needs a) more features of
convenience and b) a more customer oriented attitude from RE, then it's
a certainty that 1000's of others have also come to the same conclusion.
I do wonder how many could be bothered to stop and comment on their
conclusions though, as one brief glance at some of the topics under
discussion, as intelligent as some them are, would be enough to put
people off.
8) This is a question of clarification: having added your own features
to the interpreter can or can't they be compiled? Recent posts suggest
not.
In closing ("finally!" I hear you cry 
, the attraction of Euphoria to
me was a single package in which I could do advanced prototyping, low
level programming if need be, quick turn-around production releases and
then, only if required, conversion to C for the odd cases where speed
really is critical. Why am I not buying it then? Well, if you don't know
then you haven't read this and the original post properly, but ok I'll
point it out one more time, just for you: IT'S THE PROGRAMMERS THAT
COUNT! There, that clear enough for you?
OK, I lied, one final point... Rob, you should try harder to accommodate
user's wishes if for no other reason than to ensure you keep the
interest of THE most intelligent bunch of people I have come across in a
long long time. That's it, farewell.
PS: I nearly forgot... Rob, if you change your mind/approach, email me,
there'll be a cheque waiting to show I'm not all mouth.
2. Re: Thanks and goodbye!
On 15 Feb 2002, at 23:16, doc at edgetap.net wrote:
>
> First, thanks to those of you replied to my "Fresh Perspective" post,
> whether you agreed with me or not. Unfortunately the thread got
> highjacked so quickly that I fear the point of putting the programmer
> before the language was probably lost. A few parting shots...
Thanks for a well-worded email, doc.
Kat
3. Re: Thanks and goodbye!
See you later, I hope.
I tried pushing the "Programmer is Important" line too. My message is that a
programming language's MAIN purpose is to make programming easier for people
to do. By easier I include faster and harder-to-make-mistakes. This also
seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
My new realization is that Euphoria as a language is not ex.exe, as that is
only one possible implementation of the use of the language. I hope that
somebody can create a different implementation that has nothing to do with
Robert, and that they are willing to increase its usability for programmers.
Maybe when I retire I'll have a decent go myself.
------
Derek.
----- Original Message -----
From: <doc at edgetap.net>
To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 10:16 AM
Subject: Thanks and goodbye!
>
> First, thanks to those of you replied to my "Fresh Perspective" post,
> whether you agreed with me or not. Unfortunately the thread got
> highjacked so quickly that I fear the point of putting the programmer
> before the language was probably lost. A few parting shots...
>
> 1) If the language was sufficient then most of the posts here would be
> of the type "Look at my latest application!" rather than the "I've got a
> way around that!" variety.
>
> 2) Regarding the recent and oh so boring language comparisons and
> especially in terms of speed: not once have I seen mentioned
> "speed-of-coding" which is far more important to real-life when you
> either just need to prove a concept or, more likely, have to implement a
> solution to a deadline. Again the programmer comes last, pity.
>
> 3) Karl (you star!) makes the heroic effort to provide some features
> which people have been requesting and for his effort, and probably to
> the constenation of others, gets as thanks... "These features are not
> expected to become part of Euphoria". There's encouragement for
> user-base... not!
>
> 4) Looking at the release history, Eu2.2 was released January 14, 2000
> and over two years later comes 2.3. Back to the speed issue again but
> not of the interpreter itself, rather the responsiveness of Rapid
> Euphoria to it's user-base. There is no chicken-and-egg problem here
> regarding the popularity of Eu. It's simply a case of not having made
> the evolutionary leap into the mindset that puts the programmer before
> the language. Worse still it is mainly about relatively simple requests
> like GoTo, Select Case, DLL calling convention, etc, that are causing
> this problem (more below).
>
> 5) From what I can tell Rob *is* Rapid Euphoria so it begs the question
> if Rob wrote it for his own use and, possibly for financial reasons,
> only reluctantly offer's it to the rest of us. I think there is some
> truth in this considering the lack of enthusiasm to respond to repeated
> requests for features-of-convenience. I apologise in advance if I am
> completely off the mark here but that's the impression I and no doubt
> others get. If there is any truth in it then Rob first needs to decide
> exactly who he is serving, himself or his customers, and if the latter
> then ditch his principles a little to better accommodate users wishes.
>
> 6) I denounce all arguments against new features based on the impact
> they will have on the interpreters speed. In some cases I simply don't
> believe there has to be any impact at all but more specifically if speed
> was a real issue you simply would not be using Euphoria to begin with.
> Neither do I believe that they would necessarily "bloat" the
> interpreters size, contrary to the extremist arguments put forward
> elsewhere.
>
> 7) I don't consider myself unique in my requirements such that if I can
> arrive at the conclusion that Eu is good but needs a) more features of
> convenience and b) a more customer oriented attitude from RE, then it's
> a certainty that 1000's of others have also come to the same conclusion.
> I do wonder how many could be bothered to stop and comment on their
> conclusions though, as one brief glance at some of the topics under
> discussion, as intelligent as some them are, would be enough to put
> people off.
>
> 8) This is a question of clarification: having added your own features
> to the interpreter can or can't they be compiled? Recent posts suggest
> not.
>
> In closing ("finally!" I hear you cry , the attraction of Euphoria to
> me was a single package in which I could do advanced prototyping, low
> level programming if need be, quick turn-around production releases and
> then, only if required, conversion to C for the odd cases where speed
> really is critical. Why am I not buying it then? Well, if you don't know
> then you haven't read this and the original post properly, but ok I'll
> point it out one more time, just for you: IT'S THE PROGRAMMERS THAT
> COUNT! There, that clear enough for you?
>
> OK, I lied, one final point... Rob, you should try harder to accommodate
> user's wishes if for no other reason than to ensure you keep the
> interest of THE most intelligent bunch of people I have come across in a
> long long time. That's it, farewell.
>
> PS: I nearly forgot... Rob, if you change your mind/approach, email me,
> there'll be a cheque waiting to show I'm not all mouth.
>
>
>
>
