RE: Moving on...
eugtk at yahoo.com wrote:
<snip>
> A good idea - if Euphoria were open source.
> Unfortunately, we can brainstorm all we want, but
> Rob is the one who decides what actually can be done
> with the language, and he has demonstrated repeatedly
> that speed and stability are his main concerns.
Speed and stability are things that clearly lay within the
domain of interpreter implementation. However, libraries are
not and can be developed (as is demonstrated by many) outside
of the interpreter.
Most of the functionality of languages like Perl, Python, etc.
are handled as libraries. The main reason for the use of external
libraries is that functionality can be added fast and easy without
having to rely on releasing updates for the interpreter itself.
> Find something slow - he'll fix it quickly.
> Find something broken - he'll fix it even more
> quickly.
>
> This is admirable.
>
> However, if you want something added, fugettaboutit.
> Therefore, any such community will inevitably turn
> into yet another "Let's write a Eu clone" site.
I really see no reason for that.
> > > Dave wrote:
> > > ** Not many trained developers available. (This is
> > a minor issue as
> > > learning Eu is very fast).
>
> In order for a Eu developer to actually contribute the
> things which are now needed, he or she must be very
> familiar with - not just Euphoria - but some pretty
> advanced concepts (databases, network protocols, the
> C language, etc).
> More familiar, in fact, than the average user of
> other languages, who can usually just cut & paste
> to get something running. The Eu developer has to
> have a pretty good grasp of a lot of inner workings
> before
> even beginning to port those things to Eu.
Agreed. And the simplest way to get a lot of expertise into one
spot so everyone can build on it is by creating a community.
> Eu has to offer something more than whatever language
> that programmer now uses, if we expect that programmer
> to be motivated to reinvent yet another wheel.
>
> What does Eu offer?
>
> I don't know. Let's look instead at languages which
> have *lots* of experienced programmers contributing
> lots of nice things, and see if we can figure out what
> they have that Eu doesn't.
>
> All of these languages offer more than Eu, except in
> the areas of speed and readability, and are far more
> popular:
I think Eu has more to offer then speed and readability...
> Python - well organized, versatile, thousands of
> users, lots of development going on, open source.
> Guido isn't starving.
I looked at Python and like the language, but it is MUCH to slow.
Besides, I have to install to much supporting stuff to get even
a simple project running. It's great for large web-based
applications as the interpreter can run on a large fast server and
the internet connection is the bottleneck anyway. But don't try
to run a moderate app standalone on a PIII-450 unless you have
a lot of time on your hands.
> Perl - disorganized, nearly unreadable, extremely
> versatile, tens of thousands of users, hundreds of
> developers contributing, open source.
> Larry isn't starving.
But again, Perl is NOT a choice to write consumer applications
that can run standalone on a machine.
> Ruby - well organized, readable (but not as good as
> Eu) thousands of users (but less than Python), lots of
> developers, open source,
> Matz isn't starving.
I didn't dig to deep into Ruby, although it looks good. Besides
that it has the same problem as Eu in that there are not yet
enough supporting libraries. But I could be wrong here.
> So there are perhaps a few things we can learn from
> this:
> 1. Speed and readability aren't the only things that
> matter.
But the contribute largely to the popularity of the language.
> 2. Open source probably *does* help make a language
> more popular.
Open source languages like Python being popular is just a sign
of the time. Before the open source movement languages where
popular because of the amount available of funtion libraries.
> 3. Rob wouldn't likely starve if he made Eu open
> source.
Probably not, but it IS his decision to make.
Hans Peter Willems
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