Re: What we really need, gui, website, AI, etc
- Posted by Chris Burch <chriscrylex at aol.com> Nov 15, 2002
- 469 views
--part1_121.1a116008.2b062a0b_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi I have been following the Euphoria mailing list for nearly a year now, and am one of the 'outsiders' previously described in one of the threads - I haven't (yet) bought the full licensed version of Euphoria. A little background first. I am a full time veterinary surgeon, and a part time coder. My main programming interest at the moment is the practice management system which I have written (in C, on linux), which seems to have an endless of features which need to be added / I would like added / users want added, I have a lovely understanding wife who can tolerate my spending endless evenings writing / modifying / tweaking the code, and three children who deserve as much of my time as I can give. I also do out of hours and weekends on call. (no, I don't want sympathy, this is just the way it is). Consequently my delving into Euphoria has been little more than dabbling. (I have experimented with EDS on my work Linux machine for a lost and found database, but I am finding it hard going trying to learn essentially another syntax, when I am so familiar with C - enough of that) Ok, the reason I'm writing this is because I want to add an 'outsiders' view of Euphoria. Make no mistake, I think Euphoria is a great language, when I first read about sequences, and no pointers, I thought 'at last', and then seeing how well it worked in windows (on my 2.0ghz xp machine, I can see no difference between the speed of execution of a delphi program, and a similar Euphoria program, I'm not talking about benchmarking, my brain doesn't need to do that), I thought this is the language I have been looking for. I subscribe to the Euphoria mailing and read it every day, I have even chipped in a couple of times with one or two non specific queries. On thread was that no - one responded to the issues raised on the list. Personally I find that the hardcore cadre of Euphorians reply so quickly to the issues raised that they have already said what I was going to say any way (and I'm not implying that they should write less, just again, that is the way it is, which is great because it shows a great enthusiasm for the language). Also any questions I have posed have almost been responded to in the next post, and yet I have received 2 or 3 more tranches of emails of Topica posts, so any response is almost out of date (I do try to say thanks though!) The thing about Euphoria, as I see it, is it is a programmers language, for people who are interested in programming, and as such its appeal will IMHO always remain limited. Here's a simple question - what can you do with it? Demonstrate reordering of 10 squillion sequences in 0.5 microseconds? (of course). Write a text / program editor (yes - suggestion, get it out in the wild). My point is that non programmers (or occasional hobby programmers) do not really care about this. They want to be able to plonk a box here, a text entry there, a button over there, and presto a full featured telephone database. Or, a tank here, a spaceship there, a few mines, a few running soldiers over the hill, and have there own wargame, to dump on the internet, and have there friends play, and ooh and awe at. Euphoria has the capability to do either of these. Its just that the learning curve is a little too steep for it to really take off - yet. (My intention is not to insult people here by the way, merely to point things out as the way I see them). I came across Exotica the other day. Good grief - that has some potential, and frankly its been squandered - you want a killer app - there it is, it needs a few wrappers, some brain modules (aka 3drad), ability to import models, combined with the ease of Euphoria's variable system, trumpets blown for miles around on the website, and people will flock (probably!). I see that Chris Bensler has just unsubscribed from the mailing lis. Hmm. I appreciate you Chris. As far as the website goes - its designed for programmers, and obviously does its job well in that respect. Personally, one thing that infuriates me is graphic intensity, but since that may not the 'masses' cup of tea, then a sparklier graphicyier (?) frontpage with links to Euphoria's stars, and a less graphic intensive archive would be a compromise. Suggestions as to what Rob should do with his program - its his baby, and he can do with it what he likes, criticism as far as its stagnation goes is unproductive. I agree that the size issue is no longer relevant with current technology, but Euphoria seems to be hugely expandable with its include library system, so what difference does it make how small or big the original interpreter is? To quote an old adage, its not size that matters, but what you do with it that counts! The library base is huge (well I think it is anyway) - one thing is though that I have to download a lot of the libraries - perhaps a lot of these should be included with the package. And I agree - get a better install program too (Bach's is great). AI - the thread seems to have stalled a little, partially I think because theres a huge hill to climb there. It is said that camel's were designed by commitee - hows the worm coming? (for what its worth, as far as I can see, no one has yet defined a definition of intelligence for what you're trying to achieve, ie no one has defined the intelligent worm (an oxymoron?) yet - good luck on that definition!). Ah - if only I had the time for such a hugely ambitious project. Cross platform - of course there are going to be discrepancies between the way the program works on Windows and Linux (I am neither pro nor con either operating system, they both have points in there favour, and points against, I use both, to me they are simply tools, and I use the best tool for the job in hand). It is one of the things that drew me to Euphoria. It works in Linux, there is a distance to go as far as libraries go, Linux users tend to be geeks (meant in the nicest possible way of course), and will probably mess around until they get things to work. Irv's GTK library is marvellous, and I hope to post some things to the Euphoria site (when I get around to it that is!) One day anyway, the operating system will be irrelavent - users won't care whats on it, as long as they can use it, one will simply get a program, pop it into any computer, and whatever os is in will do the rest (dreaming?). Having said that, I think that even computers will disappear from common use, roll out fridges and ovens talking to each other, and running dictating Microlin Word - how else are we going to do our groceries? I think I've raved for long enough. I just want to say that this is a marvellous community, sometimes I've had a lot of smiles reading the posts. I have learnt a lot from the posts. It has not been my intention to upset anyone, and apologise if I have. Keep up the great work - even if you don't here from me very much, I'm always reading. Chris --part1_121.1a116008.2b062a0b_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <HTML> </PRE> <FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Hi<BR> <BR> I have been following the Euphoria mailing list for nearly a year now, and am one of the 'outsiders' previously described in one of the threads - I haven't (yet) bought the full licensed version of Euphoria.<BR> <BR> A little background first. I am a full time veterinary surgeon, and a part time coder. My main programming interest at the moment is the practice management system which I have written (in C, on linux), which seems to have an endless of features which need to be added / I would like added / users want added, I have a lovely understanding wife who can tolerate my spending endless evenings writing / modifying / tweaking the code, and three children who deserve as much of my time as I can give. I also do out of hours and weekends on call. (no, I don't want sympathy, this is just the way it is).<BR> <BR> Consequently my delving into Euphoria has been little more than dabbling. (I have experimented with EDS on my work Linux machine for a lost and found database, but I am finding it hard going trying to learn essentially another syntax, when I am so familiar with C - enough of that)<BR> <BR> Ok, the reason I'm writing this is because I want to add an 'outsiders' view of Euphoria.<BR> <BR> Make no mistake, I think Euphoria is a great language, when I first read about sequences, and no pointers, I thought 'at last', and then seeing how well it worked in windows (on my 2.0ghz xp machine, I can see no difference between the speed of execution of a delphi program, and a similar Euphoria program, I'm not talking about benchmarking, my brain doesn't need to do that), I thought this is the language I have been looking for.<BR> <BR> I subscribe to the Euphoria mailing and read it every day, I have even chipped in a couple of times with one or two non specific queries. On thread was that no - one responded to the issues raised on the list. Personally I find that the hardcore cadre of Euphorians reply so quickly to the issues raised that they have already said what I was going to say any way (and I'm not implying that they should write less, just again, that is the way it is, which is great because it shows a great enthusiasm for the language). Also any questions I have posed have almost been responded to in the next post, and yet I have received 2 or 3 more tranches of emails of Topica posts, so any response is almost out of date (I do try to say thanks though!)<BR> <BR> The thing about Euphoria, as I see it, is it is a programmers language, for people who are interested in programming, and as such its appeal will IMHO always remain limited. Here's a simple question - what can you do with it? Demonstrate reordering of 10 squillion sequences in 0.5 microseconds? (of course). Write a text / program editor (yes - suggestion, get it out in the wild). My point is that non programmers (or occasional hobby programmers) do not really care about this. They want to be able to plonk a box here, a text entry there, a button over there, and presto a full featured telephone database.<BR> <BR> Or, a tank here, a spaceship there, a few mines, a few running soldiers over the hill, and have there own wargame, to dump on the internet, and have there friends play, and ooh and awe at.<BR> <BR> Euphoria has the capability to do either of these. Its just that the learning curve is a little too steep for it to really take off - yet. (My intention is not to insult people here by the way, merely to point things out as the way I see them).<BR> <BR> I came across Exotica the other day. Good grief - that has some potential, and frankly its been squandered - you want a killer app - there it is, it needs a few wrappers, some brain modules (aka 3drad), ability to import models, combined with the ease of Euphoria's variable system, trumpets blown for miles around on the website, and people will flock (probably!).<BR> <BR> I see that Chris Bensler has just unsubscribed from the mailing lis. Hmm. I appreciate you Chris.<BR> <BR> As far as the website goes - its designed for programmers, and obviously does its job well in that respect. Personally, one thing that infuriates me is graphic intensity, but since that may not the 'masses' cup of tea, then a sparklier graphicyier (?) frontpage with links to Euphoria's stars, and a less graphic intensive archive would be a compromise.<BR> <BR> Suggestions as to what Rob should do with his program - its his baby, and he can do with it what he likes, criticism as far as its stagnation goes is unproductive. I agree that the size issue is no longer relevant with current technology, but Euphoria seems to be hugely expandable with its include library system, so what difference does it make how small or big the original interpreter is? To quote an old adage, its not size that matters, but what you do with it that counts!<BR> <BR> The library base is huge (well I think it is anyway) - one thing is though that I have to download a lot of the libraries - perhaps a lot of these should be included with the package. And I agree - get a better install program too (Bach's is great).<BR> <BR> AI - the thread seems to have stalled a little, partially I think because theres a huge hill to climb there. It is said that camel's were designed by commitee - hows the worm coming? (for what its worth, as far as I can see, no one has yet defined a definition of intelligence for what you're trying to achieve, ie no one has defined the intelligent worm (an oxymoron?) yet - good luck on that definition!). Ah - if only I had the time for such a hugely ambitious project. <BR> <BR> Cross platform - of course there are going to be discrepancies between the way the program works on Windows and Linux (I am neither pro nor con either operating system, they both have points in there favour, and points against, I use both, to me they are simply tools, and I use the best tool for the job in hand). It is one of the things that drew me to Euphoria. It works in Linux, there is a distance to go as far as libraries go, Linux users tend to be geeks (meant in the nicest possible way of course), and will probably mess around until they get things to work. Irv's GTK library is marvellous, and I hope to post some things to the Euphoria site (when I get around to it that is!)<BR> <BR> One day anyway, the operating system will be irrelavent - users won't care whats on it, as long as they can use it, one will simply get a program, pop it into any computer, and whatever os is in will do the rest (dreaming?). Having said that, I think that even computers will disappear from common use, roll out fridges and ovens talking to each other, and running dictating Microlin Word - how else are we going to do our groceries?<BR> <BR> I think I've raved for long enough. I just want to say that this is a marvellous community, sometimes I've had a lot of smiles reading the posts. I have learnt a lot from the posts. It has not been my intention to upset anyone, and apologise if I have. Keep up the great work - even if you don't here from me very much, I'm always reading.<BR> <BR> Chris</FONT> </HTML> --part1_121.1a116008.2b062a0b_boundary--