Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!
- Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Oct 31, 2014
- 6838 views
A new user of Euphoria, this really speaks to me. There is certainly something compelling about the language but a sweep of the forum does kick up a fair amount of negativity, concerns about Euphoria's imminent "death" and so on.
One thing I can't help but wonder is, who has control over rapideuphoria.com - is there any possibility of reaching out to the admin and if nothing else making the front page redirect to the new and progressive-looking openeuphoria.org? Or working with them to strike down some of the ... overwhelming 1980s naffness?
That's not to be rude or cruel, but I'll be honest and say on looking at Euphoria it did rather leave the wrong impression.
Maybe a quick history recap is in order ... but first an explanation of terms.
- Euphoria is the name of a programming language. It was invented by Robert Craig in the early 1990s.
- RapidEuphoria is the name of the web site that hosts Robert's incarnation of Euphoria.
- OpenEuphoria is the name of the web site that hosts an incarnation of Euphoria that has evolved from Robert's.
For various reasons that aren't relevant here, Robert Craig stopped working on Euphoria. He made the source code available to everyone and it still is that way. One group, and I use that term loosely, decided to take the version 3.1.1 version of Robert's Euphoria and develop it. This development was a huge change to the base source code and added a lot of capability to the language. It was released as Euphoria version 4, and I stress, Robert had no part in this development. One of the major features of V4 is that for the most part, it accepts V3 source unchanged.
The OpenEuphoria group is a very loose collection of people from around the planet, with members coming and going frequently. All their work is voluntary and most have a demanding life outside of Euphoria development. It funds the servers, domain names, and whatever mandatory expenses have come about, from their own pockets and a few donations. The biggest reward for working in the group, a part from the joy of achieving something worthwhile, is their name in the contributions page.
The step from version 3.1.1 to version 4.0 was enormous, time consuming, and personally draining for all contributors. The current pace of releases is testament to the available time and energy available to the contributing members (anyone who has something positive to bring to the language, can join, by the way, just ask). It is slow because we don't have the resources to make it go faster. And please remember, this is still a Work In Progress - the job ain't done yet.
If you can't, or don't want, to be one of the development group, we still desire and need your views on both the current implementations and the potential future capabilities of the language. Literally everyone is invited so speak their mind freely on that topic.
Also be aware that there exists other branches of the Euphoria language that have nothing to do with the OpenEuphoria implementation. Do the research to find out more.
I think that Euphoria is an outstanding language and Robert has created something of wonder and beauty. As to which incarnation you prefer, well ... that's up to you and that's perfectly okay.
As for the OpenEuphoria implementation, if you have issues with it, please be specific. Such comments like 'it is bloated' are not helpful as they do not address anything that can be specifically "fixed". I implore you all to be critical and to do so in a constructive manner because I'm pretty sure that we all want to end up with a language and implementation that is worthy of global praise.
