4 ms·

I hope this does not come across to negative, definitely a nice project, but is this really useful in practice? If you want F# or Haskell syntax, why not just u

by danbruc 12y ago

I hope this does not come across to negative, definitely a nice project, but is this really useful in practice? If you want F# or Haskell syntax, why not just use F# or Haskell? Why bent C# until it looks like something that already exists? If you work together with (pure) C# developers, you will just confuse them. If you work together with Haskell or F# developers, you can just use that languages. If this is just a fun project, scratch what I said, I love building useless stuff myself, but if it is intended to be used seriously I don't get the point.

BigChiefSmokem 12y ago
The importance lies in that C# is becoming one of the first truly, for lack of a better word, "programmable" programming languages. The One Language to rule them all? Maybe not, but definitely making incredible progress.
- bbcbasic 12y ago
  What about Lisp?
  - louthy 12y ago
    On a side-note, I love that your handle is BBC BASIC. My first language. It's quite a way from this lib!
    - bbcbasic 12y ago
      Yes I remember the days when you edited a line by using the arrow key to go up then copying character by character, then edit the bits you want as you go along. Or something like that. Magic!
      - louthy 12y ago
        Dare to dream: http://bbc.godbolt.org http://bbc.godbolt.org
        tonyedgecombe 12y ago
        That brings back memories, I even had the cub monitor with mine.
      - weavie 12y ago
        It took me a while before I realised you could do that. Before that I would type the whole thing out again. When I realised you could copy parts of the line my mind was blown! Ah.. those were good days..
- codygman 12y ago
  C# imo doesn't qualify as a programmable programming language and even if it did it wouldn't be the first.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  How is C# at all "programmable"? Even all the neat C# features, like async or duck typing are hard-coded into the language and not extensible or generic.
  - MrDosu 12y ago
    IL weaving, CodeDom, Roslyn... All built in ways of powerful manipulation of your C# code. Remember you can do full on ECMA 335 with C#.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by that. I was under the impression that Common Lisp macros were the first metaprogramming feature http://stackoverflow.com/questions/267862/what-makes-lisp-macros-so-special http://stackoverflow.com/questions/267862/what-makes-lisp-ma... .. and not the last: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97069/is-there-a-language-offering-lisp-like-macros-with-a-more-complex-syntax http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97069/is-ther...
  - lispm 12y ago
    Well, Lisp macros as a meta-programming facility were introduced in 1963 by Timothy Hart.
dstone16321 12y ago
It is not just 'syntax'. Also I think a substantial portion of developers or the programming industry at large do not think these sort of tools are `useless`.
- danbruc 12y ago
  I am not saying the functionality is useless, but it already exists in other languages. Why force C# to look and behave like F# instead of just using F#?
  - dstone16321 12y ago
    I think most of the people creating and using these libraries would use F# if they could sadly. (However I am one of the lucky ones doing clojure in my day job.) Also a lot of existing software that needs to be maintained in C# would benefit from this library or others like it, just like they would benefit from having tools like linq, immutable collections, tpl available.
louthy 12y ago
I'm involved with a 9 year old C# project, it has seen almost every version of C#. When generics turned up that was nice, then LINQ, very nice, etc, etc. I like to see how far I can bend the language in general, but that wasn't the main driver. Over the past few years I've done some Haskell and also we've started creating satellite projects around our core project that are developed in F#. F# has been great to work with, and I love how a few key language decisions can make whole classes of bugs disappear. It's frustrating to run back into those bugs when returning to C#. It's great to see the direction that C# is going in, it's clearly going toward a more centrist position midway between OO and functional. But a few key things won't go away, ever. null for example, won't ever leave the language. Mutable first won't either. And because of this I'm always trying to think of ways of removing those classes of bugs that hurt the most. This library is currently just a pet weekend project (so it's exactly 5 days old at the moment). But I would like to take it further if there's enough interest. As I say in the introduction, I know it won't sit well with plenty of people, and that's fine.
pjmlp 12y ago
> Why bent C# until it looks like something that already exists? Because in the industry at large, JVM == Java and .NET == VB.NET == C#. So bending Java, C# and C++ to have features from OCaml, F#, Haskell... is the only way many of us can ever aspire to do FP at work. For example, on my case we always use the software stack that is already in place and used by the customer IT. It is expected that the software gets built with the said tools.
runT1ME 12y ago
Our organization (big C# codebase, newer apps in scala) has doubled down on extremely functional C# (using the NICTA XShapx library which has a lot of overlap with this one). It's been a tremendous help. C#'s linq comprehension makes it one of the most powerful languages doing functional style (w\ Haskell and then scala at the top). Since LINQ supports any monad and with extension methods, you can write a lot of pure, concurrent/parallel code with minimal fuss. This has mainly been helpful from a testing perspective, since the majority of our logic is 'pure', we can run more tests without having to set up test DBs/Webservers, etc.
MichaelGG 12y ago
I was a big proponent of functional C# and even started writing s book on it, back in 2008. But my final conclusion is that C# is ultimately too clumsy and verbose to really work with highly generic and highly functional code. You end up fighting too much. This librarydoes look nice, and top-level findings really do make a difference. But I doubt it's enough to really make up for all of C#'s shortcomings. But if you're stuck with C#, might as well make the best out it.
- louthy 12y ago
  > But if you're stuck with C#, might as well make the best out it. That's definitely the crux of it. There's no way you can tame all of the issues of C#, but it's possible to smooth some of the rough edges, just.

by danbruc 12y ago

BigChiefSmokem 12y ago

The importance lies in that C# is becoming one of the first truly, for lack of a better word, "programmable" programming languages. The One Language to rule them all? Maybe not, but definitely making incredible progress.

bbcbasic 12y ago
What about Lisp?
- louthy 12y ago
  On a side-note, I love that your handle is BBC BASIC. My first language. It's quite a way from this lib!
  - bbcbasic 12y ago
    Yes I remember the days when you edited a line by using the arrow key to go up then copying character by character, then edit the bits you want as you go along. Or something like that. Magic!
    - louthy 12y ago
      Dare to dream: http://bbc.godbolt.org http://bbc.godbolt.org
      - tonyedgecombe 12y ago
        That brings back memories, I even had the cub monitor with mine.
    - weavie 12y ago
      It took me a while before I realised you could do that. Before that I would type the whole thing out again. When I realised you could copy parts of the line my mind was blown! Ah.. those were good days..
codygman 12y ago
C# imo doesn't qualify as a programmable programming language and even if it did it wouldn't be the first.
MichaelGG 12y ago
How is C# at all "programmable"? Even all the neat C# features, like async or duck typing are hard-coded into the language and not extensible or generic.
- MrDosu 12y ago
  IL weaving, CodeDom, Roslyn... All built in ways of powerful manipulation of your C# code. Remember you can do full on ECMA 335 with C#.
SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by that. I was under the impression that Common Lisp macros were the first metaprogramming feature http://stackoverflow.com/questions/267862/what-makes-lisp-macros-so-special http://stackoverflow.com/questions/267862/what-makes-lisp-ma... .. and not the last: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97069/is-there-a-language-offering-lisp-like-macros-with-a-more-complex-syntax http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/97069/is-ther...
- lispm 12y ago
  Well, Lisp macros as a meta-programming facility were introduced in 1963 by Timothy Hart.

dstone16321 12y ago

It is not just 'syntax'. Also I think a substantial portion of developers or the programming industry at large do not think these sort of tools are `useless`.

danbruc 12y ago
I am not saying the functionality is useless, but it already exists in other languages. Why force C# to look and behave like F# instead of just using F#?
- dstone16321 12y ago
  I think most of the people creating and using these libraries would use F# if they could sadly. (However I am one of the lucky ones doing clojure in my day job.) Also a lot of existing software that needs to be maintained in C# would benefit from this library or others like it, just like they would benefit from having tools like linq, immutable collections, tpl available.

louthy 12y ago

I'm involved with a 9 year old C# project, it has seen almost every version of C#. When generics turned up that was nice, then LINQ, very nice, etc, etc. I like to see how far I can bend the language in general, but that wasn't the main driver. Over the past few years I've done some Haskell and also we've started creating satellite projects around our core project that are developed in F#. F# has been great to work with, and I love how a few key language decisions can make whole classes of bugs disappear. It's frustrating to run back into those bugs when returning to C#. It's great to see the direction that C# is going in, it's clearly going toward a more centrist position midway between OO and functional. But a few key things won't go away, ever. null for example, won't ever leave the language. Mutable first won't either. And because of this I'm always trying to think of ways of removing those classes of bugs that hurt the most. This library is currently just a pet weekend project (so it's exactly 5 days old at the moment). But I would like to take it further if there's enough interest. As I say in the introduction, I know it won't sit well with plenty of people, and that's fine.

pjmlp 12y ago

> Why bent C# until it looks like something that already exists? Because in the industry at large, JVM == Java and .NET == VB.NET == C#. So bending Java, C# and C++ to have features from OCaml, F#, Haskell... is the only way many of us can ever aspire to do FP at work. For example, on my case we always use the software stack that is already in place and used by the customer IT. It is expected that the software gets built with the said tools.

runT1ME 12y ago

Our organization (big C# codebase, newer apps in scala) has doubled down on extremely functional C# (using the NICTA XShapx library which has a lot of overlap with this one). It's been a tremendous help. C#'s linq comprehension makes it one of the most powerful languages doing functional style (w\ Haskell and then scala at the top). Since LINQ supports any monad and with extension methods, you can write a lot of pure, concurrent/parallel code with minimal fuss. This has mainly been helpful from a testing perspective, since the majority of our logic is 'pure', we can run more tests without having to set up test DBs/Webservers, etc.

MichaelGG 12y ago

I was a big proponent of functional C# and even started writing s book on it, back in 2008. But my final conclusion is that C# is ultimately too clumsy and verbose to really work with highly generic and highly functional code. You end up fighting too much. This librarydoes look nice, and top-level findings really do make a difference. But I doubt it's enough to really make up for all of C#'s shortcomings. But if you're stuck with C#, might as well make the best out it.

louthy 12y ago
> But if you're stuck with C#, might as well make the best out it. That's definitely the crux of it. There's no way you can tame all of the issues of C#, but it's possible to smooth some of the rough edges, just.