6 ms·

Curry On Prague 2015: Academia and industry need to have a talk

82 points by heathermiller 12y ago

heathermiller 12y ago
Someone changed the title of the post to something that doesn't describe the event at all. It's about bringing industry and academia together.
- sctb 12y ago
  We just changed the subtitle to a different one from the submitted page. We're open to suggestions for a better one.
  - heathermiller 12y ago
    The original title (which is most accurate) is: Curry On: Mainstream PL and academic PL should talk more often This also works (and illustrates that it's an event): Curry On: Mainstream PL and academic PL should talk more often. Here is a venue. The overarching point is that this is all about designers of mainstream languages (and industry) and academic languages (academia) coming together.
  - heathermiller 12y ago
    Key words: (1) programming language (2) academia (CS/PL) (3) industry The title keeps changing, but these 3 keywords aren't kept. The words chosen mean something totally different on each revision. Just wondering – why couldn't we keep the original title?
  - heathermiller 12y ago
    PS, you also changed the title. Just saying. (The second revision of the original title still has nothing to do with programming languages, btw... It's a programming languages conference.)
Argorak 12y ago
This is the perfect place for my "schönfinkeln?"-Shirt :).
rectang 12y ago
The feature I care about most is interoperability of components written in different programming languages, which doesn't seem to be a priority for either camp.
- kaeluka 12y ago
  ECOOP may be a good place to look. IIRC last year at ECOOP there was some work by or with Laurence Tratt.
  - heathermiller 12y ago
    True. And on that note – Curry On is co-located with ECOOP, and Curry On registration also covers ECOOP. So you can attend both on just one ticket :)
- jerf 12y ago
  This conference is more likely to take you farther away from that goal than get closer. The foundational reason [1] that components are not interoperable is that they function in different guarantee regimes. A pure language can not simply "interoperate" with code that expects to mutate. Yes, the pure language can wrap around the mutation-based code, but it will forever have an impedance mismatch. You can't trivially interoperate with languages that have different async/sync "colors", per the recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984648 . And the discussion is good, because everything else that people mention as other things they thought the post was getting at are also examples of places where the code can't just trivially interop. And I say this will likely take you farther away than closer because right now research tends to be focused on how to use colors more effectively, and how to use more colors in code rather than less. All this mitigates pretty strongly against cross-language interoperability. At least, against interoperability beyond what we have now, which I assume that you are not satisfied by. A lot of code today is "interoperable" because a lot of languages inherit the drab gray of C. For all the apparent differences between Python, Perl, Ruby, Lua, and C, in the end they are all languages of a very similar color. Python, Perl, Ruby, and Lua amount to programming in C where every line is a complicated function call instead of a simple C statement, but you're still fundamentally in C. This has provided an illusion that interoperability is either somehow "easy" or something that could be improved, but as we move away from C's drab gray, interoperability is going to get worse, not better. Perhaps someday if we settle on a particular rainbow, some form of code that can be sufficiently accurately labeled with its colors could be interoperable, but we're going to farther from that goal before we get closer. [1]: I say this is the "foundational reason" because it's the fundamental one that can't be fixed by "just trying harder". There are also incidental reasons that often depend on exactly where in the lifecycle of the language C-interop was considered (compare Lua with Python, for instance), and accidents of history that persist because there's no point fixing them because the fundamental problem will remain.
janvite6 12y ago
How many times does one get to see the creators of C++ and JS in the same place?
- mattgreenrocks 12y ago
  Last year's Lang.NEXT conference had Stroustrup, Pike, some ES6 devs, and Rust devs (among many others). I really enjoyed it. Hoping it happens again; seems like it's every two years.
jorjordandan 12y ago
Why does every tech conference site have to mention drinking beers? I like beer as much as the next guy, which is kind of the problem. It sorta seems like conferences feel like they gotta bro it up.
- wyager 12y ago
  Probably because they want to demonstrate that they're fun. >conferences feel like they gotta bro it up. It's not like women don't like beer.
  - jorjordandan 12y ago
    So why not say 'have a few glasses of wine'? Guys like wine.
  - eli_gottlieb 12y ago
    Women can be bros. People where I went to school called female bros "biddies", IIRC.
- NotOscarWilde 12y ago
  I think it could also be related to Czech Republic being the #1 country in terms of beer consumption per capita [1]. It's definitely a national drink there. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_cons...
  - jorjordandan 12y ago
    Fair enough. I would definitely drink some beer if I went there. Some of my favourite beers are czech.
  - jkot 12y ago
    To be fair there are many tourists coming to Prague just to drink. And we usually drink low-alcohol beer, 10 degree beer has ~3% alcohol content. And finally hard alcohol is less popular. Actual alcohol consumption is not that high. But yes, in pub water is often more expensive than beer.
heathermiller 12y ago
Turns out that Bjarne Stroustrup will also be talking about the evolution of C++ alongside of Curry On http://2015.ecoop.org/event/invited-speakers-bjarne-stroustrup http://2015.ecoop.org/event/invited-speakers-bjarne-stroustr...
- hga 12y ago
  That could be really good. Although I've come to loathe the language, his 1994 book on the topic is fantastically good and highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Evolution-Bjarne-Stroustrup/dp/0201543303 http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Evolution-Bjarne-Stroustrup...

82 points by heathermiller 12y ago

Someone changed the title of the post to something that doesn't describe the event at all. It's about bringing industry and academia together.

sctb 12y ago
We just changed the subtitle to a different one from the submitted page. We're open to suggestions for a better one.
- heathermiller 12y ago
  The original title (which is most accurate) is: Curry On: Mainstream PL and academic PL should talk more often This also works (and illustrates that it's an event): Curry On: Mainstream PL and academic PL should talk more often. Here is a venue. The overarching point is that this is all about designers of mainstream languages (and industry) and academic languages (academia) coming together.
- heathermiller 12y ago
  Key words: (1) programming language (2) academia (CS/PL) (3) industry The title keeps changing, but these 3 keywords aren't kept. The words chosen mean something totally different on each revision. Just wondering – why couldn't we keep the original title?
- heathermiller 12y ago
  PS, you also changed the title. Just saying. (The second revision of the original title still has nothing to do with programming languages, btw... It's a programming languages conference.)

Argorak 12y ago

This is the perfect place for my "schönfinkeln?"-Shirt :).

rectang 12y ago

The feature I care about most is interoperability of components written in different programming languages, which doesn't seem to be a priority for either camp.

kaeluka 12y ago
ECOOP may be a good place to look. IIRC last year at ECOOP there was some work by or with Laurence Tratt.
- heathermiller 12y ago
  True. And on that note – Curry On is co-located with ECOOP, and Curry On registration also covers ECOOP. So you can attend both on just one ticket :)
jerf 12y ago
This conference is more likely to take you farther away from that goal than get closer. The foundational reason [1] that components are not interoperable is that they function in different guarantee regimes. A pure language can not simply "interoperate" with code that expects to mutate. Yes, the pure language can wrap around the mutation-based code, but it will forever have an impedance mismatch. You can't trivially interoperate with languages that have different async/sync "colors", per the recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984648 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984648 . And the discussion is good, because everything else that people mention as other things they thought the post was getting at are also examples of places where the code can't just trivially interop. And I say this will likely take you farther away than closer because right now research tends to be focused on how to use colors more effectively, and how to use more colors in code rather than less. All this mitigates pretty strongly against cross-language interoperability. At least, against interoperability beyond what we have now, which I assume that you are not satisfied by. A lot of code today is "interoperable" because a lot of languages inherit the drab gray of C. For all the apparent differences between Python, Perl, Ruby, Lua, and C, in the end they are all languages of a very similar color. Python, Perl, Ruby, and Lua amount to programming in C where every line is a complicated function call instead of a simple C statement, but you're still fundamentally in C. This has provided an illusion that interoperability is either somehow "easy" or something that could be improved, but as we move away from C's drab gray, interoperability is going to get worse, not better. Perhaps someday if we settle on a particular rainbow, some form of code that can be sufficiently accurately labeled with its colors could be interoperable, but we're going to farther from that goal before we get closer. [1]: I say this is the "foundational reason" because it's the fundamental one that can't be fixed by "just trying harder". There are also incidental reasons that often depend on exactly where in the lifecycle of the language C-interop was considered (compare Lua with Python, for instance), and accidents of history that persist because there's no point fixing them because the fundamental problem will remain.

janvite6 12y ago

How many times does one get to see the creators of C++ and JS in the same place?

mattgreenrocks 12y ago
Last year's Lang.NEXT conference had Stroustrup, Pike, some ES6 devs, and Rust devs (among many others). I really enjoyed it. Hoping it happens again; seems like it's every two years.

jorjordandan 12y ago

Why does every tech conference site have to mention drinking beers? I like beer as much as the next guy, which is kind of the problem. It sorta seems like conferences feel like they gotta bro it up.

wyager 12y ago
Probably because they want to demonstrate that they're fun. >conferences feel like they gotta bro it up. It's not like women don't like beer.
- jorjordandan 12y ago
  So why not say 'have a few glasses of wine'? Guys like wine.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago
  Women can be bros. People where I went to school called female bros "biddies", IIRC.
NotOscarWilde 12y ago
I think it could also be related to Czech Republic being the #1 country in terms of beer consumption per capita [1]. It's definitely a national drink there. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_cons...
- jorjordandan 12y ago
  Fair enough. I would definitely drink some beer if I went there. Some of my favourite beers are czech.
- jkot 12y ago
  To be fair there are many tourists coming to Prague just to drink. And we usually drink low-alcohol beer, 10 degree beer has ~3% alcohol content. And finally hard alcohol is less popular. Actual alcohol consumption is not that high. But yes, in pub water is often more expensive than beer.

heathermiller 12y ago

Turns out that Bjarne Stroustrup will also be talking about the evolution of C++ alongside of Curry On http://2015.ecoop.org/event/invited-speakers-bjarne-stroustrup http://2015.ecoop.org/event/invited-speakers-bjarne-stroustr...

hga 12y ago
That could be really good. Although I've come to loathe the language, his 1994 book on the topic is fantastically good and highly recommended: http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Evolution-Bjarne-Stroustrup/dp/0201543303 http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Evolution-Bjarne-Stroustrup...