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My takeaway was this: "what’s even more interesting than improving a piece of software, is to improve the way we write and improve software. Changing the proce
by Jun8 15y ago
My takeaway was this:
"what’s even more interesting than improving a piece of software, is to improve the way we write and improve software. Changing the process of making software has sometimes been some of the most painful parts of software development (because we so easily get used to certain models), but that has also often been the most rewarding parts. It is, after all, why “git” came to be, for example."
Exactly! with so many frameworks, platforms, languages and what not floating around this is getting more and more important. Yet, AFAIK, truly innovative approaches like Light Table are rare.
- ajross 15y agoSomehow I don't think Linus was thinking about Light Table when he wrote that...
- moonchrome 15y agoI think that's sort of ironic given that git is written in C.
- heretohelp 15y agoGit being fast is an important property of the problem it's solving. I work daily in Python, but I wouldn't use it for a VCS or DVCS.
- zurn 15y agoMercurial is written in Python, and is arguably better than git in most respects.
- berkut 15y agoThe core binary diff code is written in C.
- zurn 15y agoThat's how C is supposed to be used, in tiny bits to accelerate Python apps ;)
- cookiecaper 15y agofwiw much of git is also written in so-called "porcelain", bash and/or perl scripts that perform higher-level manipulation.
- exDM69 15y agoGot a better suggestion for writing I/O heavy Unix applications? I'd like to hear it.
- gouranga 15y agoLisp
- xyzzyz 15y agoSpeaking as a (Common) Lisp fan, Lisp is obviously hardly a good choice for Unix application -- it's completely orthogonal to Unix philosophy, and major modern free CL environments integrate pretty bad with Unix (I'm talking about SBCL and Clozure). It's especially bad for console tools like git, where loading multi megabyte core image every time is unacceptable.
- gouranga 15y agoOh I agree entirely. The real problem lies further up the stack - is UNIX the right solution?
- moonchrome 15y agoAnother irony in his statement that I didn't want to comment on seeing how the C one got most people pissed off enough.
- eru 15y agoOCaml would also work, if you can find the libraries. Or Haskell, if you can wrap your head around enumerator and iteratee IO. (Not saying that those are the best choices.) By the way, git was originally written in a mixture of C and shell-code. They replaced most of the shell code.
- yukyukyuk 15y agoThis is what great spin is all about. Drama queens are naturals at it, but anyone can learn. Basically, whatever the other guy says, you turn it around and make it about you. Or whatever you're thinking about at the moment. Other guy: My mom has cancer You: Oh my god, that's terrible! My grandmother had cancer and it was just horrible, but I'm so glad that we have this amazing technology today to develop new ways to fight cancer. For example, you can use Light Table to program a protein-folding algorithm to test cures more efficiently! Other guy: Um, yeah...I mean, what? Other guy: I just got an A on my French test. You: Awesome! With Light Table you could program a French tutoring software so you could help spread your extensive knowledge of French with more students. Other guy: Uh, what? That's not... Other guy: We're stuck on a moon base and blood-sucking aliens are all around us! We're going to die! You: Oh shit! We better program some advanced robotic weapons systems with Light Table to take them out. Other guy: AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH THEY GOT MY LEG