4 ms·

Damien Conway interview: Perl 6, Java, his PhD

14 points by gtani 18y ago

astrec 18y ago
Ah memories! I consider myself very fortunate to have been one of Damian's students. The container box store mnemonic took me way back. He's not overstating the diversity thing either. In those days the CS program was C, Lisp, Prolog, C++, sh, MIPS assembler, operating system design, AI, digital logic, algorithms, formal methods, and discrete mathematics. These days, the kids I hire from the same school mostly cruised through IS style degree with only Java/C# under their belts.
- bootload 18y ago
  "... Ah memories! I consider myself very fortunate to have been one of Damian's students. ..." Ahh those whacky CS students from Monash. I went to RMIT & Swinny and missed "The Damian". What kind of lectures did he run? I've heard some of his talks & they are pretty good ~ http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail880.html http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail880.html If your lucky you can still hear him talk for nics at Melbourne Perl Mongers.
  - astrec 18y ago
    He taught the first year intro to programming (C) with Ann Nicholson (AI researcher), and supervised a few post graduates. Ann also taught the Lisp course. Damian was a fantastic lecturer with a rare ability to enthuse and engage his students while he delivered otherwise dry material. A true master of the story.
albertcardona 18y ago
I loved the part that said: in diversity there is power. You should know as many programming languages and paradigms as possible. And code every day to stay fit.
martinr 18y ago
Am I the only one who considers Perl6 dead and irrelevant? I haven't seen anything approaching a usable product out of the efforts, and how long has the project been underway now? By the time it's finished, Perl5 is irrelevant as all the kids will be using Python, Java, Ruby, maybe D. Legacy applications won't switch from Perl5.
- gaius 18y ago
  Perl 6 is an academic research language, which is weird, normally languages come from academia into commercial use.
  - neilk 18y ago
    That's an interesting insight. It's not truly "academic" because such a language would not be considered interesting in a research sense; it has no clear vision, no central metaphor for computing. But if you consider the Perl community a sort of academy with its own tastes and goals which have nothing to do with mainstream acceptance, then yes, it is academic.
- asjo 18y ago
  I think you are not alone. But then again, there are also many people who look forward to get to use Perl6 for real. It has been underway for a long time, since 2000. Do notice though, that Perl6 isn't just a revision up for Perl5, it is a thorough redesign. As for all the kids - well, if they are going for the (percieved) latest and greatest language all the time, they will be quick to try Perl6 when the right christmas comes around. I think Perl6 will hit a sweet spot, but we'll see. Maybe your dire predictions will be fullfilled; maybe not. I don't think age necessarily is a bad thing for a language - I bet a lot of programs you use are written in C, for instance.
- greyman 18y ago
  Perl6 is not dead. I think the basic idea behind perl6 was good, but they had to release a few years ago to be relevant. Now they will have hard time competing against ruby or python. We will see, thought.

14 points by gtani 18y ago

Ah memories! I consider myself very fortunate to have been one of Damian's students. The container box store mnemonic took me way back. He's not overstating the diversity thing either. In those days the CS program was C, Lisp, Prolog, C++, sh, MIPS assembler, operating system design, AI, digital logic, algorithms, formal methods, and discrete mathematics. These days, the kids I hire from the same school mostly cruised through IS style degree with only Java/C# under their belts.

bootload 18y ago
"... Ah memories! I consider myself very fortunate to have been one of Damian's students. ..." Ahh those whacky CS students from Monash. I went to RMIT & Swinny and missed "The Damian". What kind of lectures did he run? I've heard some of his talks & they are pretty good ~ http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail880.html http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail880.html If your lucky you can still hear him talk for nics at Melbourne Perl Mongers.
- astrec 18y ago
  He taught the first year intro to programming (C) with Ann Nicholson (AI researcher), and supervised a few post graduates. Ann also taught the Lisp course. Damian was a fantastic lecturer with a rare ability to enthuse and engage his students while he delivered otherwise dry material. A true master of the story.

albertcardona 18y ago

I loved the part that said: in diversity there is power. You should know as many programming languages and paradigms as possible. And code every day to stay fit.

martinr 18y ago

Am I the only one who considers Perl6 dead and irrelevant? I haven't seen anything approaching a usable product out of the efforts, and how long has the project been underway now? By the time it's finished, Perl5 is irrelevant as all the kids will be using Python, Java, Ruby, maybe D. Legacy applications won't switch from Perl5.

gaius 18y ago
Perl 6 is an academic research language, which is weird, normally languages come from academia into commercial use.
- neilk 18y ago
  That's an interesting insight. It's not truly "academic" because such a language would not be considered interesting in a research sense; it has no clear vision, no central metaphor for computing. But if you consider the Perl community a sort of academy with its own tastes and goals which have nothing to do with mainstream acceptance, then yes, it is academic.
asjo 18y ago
I think you are not alone. But then again, there are also many people who look forward to get to use Perl6 for real. It has been underway for a long time, since 2000. Do notice though, that Perl6 isn't just a revision up for Perl5, it is a thorough redesign. As for all the kids - well, if they are going for the (percieved) latest and greatest language all the time, they will be quick to try Perl6 when the right christmas comes around. I think Perl6 will hit a sweet spot, but we'll see. Maybe your dire predictions will be fullfilled; maybe not. I don't think age necessarily is a bad thing for a language - I bet a lot of programs you use are written in C, for instance.
greyman 18y ago
Perl6 is not dead. I think the basic idea behind perl6 was good, but they had to release a few years ago to be relevant. Now they will have hard time competing against ruby or python. We will see, thought.