4 ms·

Game of Life in all languages

7 points by luminaobscura 14y ago

If Hello World is inadequate, what canonical program would better serve to demonstrate the salient features of a programming language? ... One suggestion (from David Pearce) was Conway’s Game of Life: a simple simulation of finite automata. This seems like a good demonstration of most of the properties. http://ejrh.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/beyond-hello-world/

luminaobscura 14y ago
If Hello World is inadequate, what canonical program would better serve to demonstrate the salient features of a programming language? Must it use variables? Must it have flow control? Must it actually compute something? Must it use non-primitive data structures? Must it exhibit use of the language’s code organisation features? These are some of the more generic properties that programs can have. ... One suggestion (from David Pearce) was Conway’s Game of Life: a simple simulation of finite automata. This seems like a good demonstration of most of the properties. http://ejrh.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/beyond-hello-world/ http://ejrh.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/beyond-hello-world/
willvarfar 14y ago
The APL version is mindbendingly awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 <-- watch it!
luminaobscura 14y ago
clojure, f# and python seems very terse.
tzs 14y ago
I don't see a shell version, so below is mine (well...it is not strictly shell, as it uses sort, uniq, grep, sed, and comm). It's written as a filter that takes as input live cell coordinates (one cell per line, X and Y coordinates separated by white space), and outputs the live cells of the next generation. For example, on this input: -10 100 -10 101 -10 102 1000 5 1001 5 1002 5 the output is: -11 101 -9 101 1001 4 1001 6 -10 101 1001 5 Here is the code, for bash or similar shells: > alive.$$ while read cells do echo $cells >> alive.$$ set x $cells x=$2 y=$3 echo $x $((y-1)) echo $x $((y+1)) echo $((x-1)) $((y-1)) echo $((x-1)) $y echo $((x-1)) $((y+1)) echo $((x+1)) $((y-1)) echo $((x+1)) $y echo $((x+1)) $((y+1)) done | sort | uniq -c > neighbors.$$ grep '^ *3' < neighbors.$$ | sed -e 's/^ *[0-9].//' grep '^ *2' < neighbors.$$ | sed -e 's/^ *[0-9].//' > has2.$$ sort alive.$$ -o alive.$$ comm -12 has2.$$ alive.$$ rm has2.$$ neighbors.$$ alive.$$
DisposableMike 14y ago
Brainfuck? Erlang? Coldfusion? Visual Basic (6/.NET)? Those are just a couple right off the top of my head. It is quite cool, though, to see a common problem solved in such a wide variety of languages. s/all languages/lots of languages/g

7 points by luminaobscura 14y ago

luminaobscura 14y ago

If Hello World is inadequate, what canonical program would better serve to demonstrate the salient features of a programming language? Must it use variables? Must it have flow control? Must it actually compute something? Must it use non-primitive data structures? Must it exhibit use of the language’s code organisation features? These are some of the more generic properties that programs can have. ... One suggestion (from David Pearce) was Conway’s Game of Life: a simple simulation of finite automata. This seems like a good demonstration of most of the properties. http://ejrh.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/beyond-hello-world/ http://ejrh.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/beyond-hello-world/

willvarfar 14y ago

The APL version is mindbendingly awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 <-- watch it!

luminaobscura 14y ago

clojure, f# and python seems very terse.

tzs 14y ago

I don't see a shell version, so below is mine (well...it is not strictly shell, as it uses sort, uniq, grep, sed, and comm). It's written as a filter that takes as input live cell coordinates (one cell per line, X and Y coordinates separated by white space), and outputs the live cells of the next generation. For example, on this input: -10 100 -10 101 -10 102 1000 5 1001 5 1002 5 the output is: -11 101 -9 101 1001 4 1001 6 -10 101 1001 5 Here is the code, for bash or similar shells: > alive.$$ while read cells do echo $cells >> alive.$$ set x $cells x=$2 y=$3 echo $x $((y-1)) echo $x $((y+1)) echo $((x-1)) $((y-1)) echo $((x-1)) $y echo $((x-1)) $((y+1)) echo $((x+1)) $((y-1)) echo $((x+1)) $y echo $((x+1)) $((y+1)) done | sort | uniq -c > neighbors.$$ grep '^ *3' < neighbors.$$ | sed -e 's/^ *[0-9].//' grep '^ *2' < neighbors.$$ | sed -e 's/^ *[0-9].//' > has2.$$ sort alive.$$ -o alive.$$ comm -12 has2.$$ alive.$$ rm has2.$$ neighbors.$$ alive.$$

DisposableMike 14y ago

Brainfuck? Erlang? Coldfusion? Visual Basic (6/.NET)? Those are just a couple right off the top of my head. It is quite cool, though, to see a common problem solved in such a wide variety of languages. s/all languages/lots of languages/g