augustk

30 ms·

301.
by augustk 8y ago
There is at least one language that evolves in the opposite direction. The philosophy of Oberon is that "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
302.
by augustk 8y ago
> There are very few languages today that don't have `break` and `continue`, and in them (Lua for instance) `goto` is still used. Oberon is one of those few "pure" structured languages where a statement sequence is never i
303.
by augustk 8y ago
And Oberon (also by Niklaus Wirth) has a 20 page description.
304.
by augustk 8y ago
Sometimes there is a trash can by the door but it has a lid (with a handle). Even if the door needs to be pulled from the inside you simply grab the door handle with a piece of paper and open the door, and then throw the paper in the trash
305.
by augustk 8y ago
I'm one of those. If maximum portability is desired C89 is still king.
306.
by augustk 8y ago
Today's Pascal is called Oberon, which is also designed by Niklaus Wirth. Oberon is a pure structured language* with support for modular and object-oriented programming. In a sense Oberon represents more than 50 years of refinement sta
307.
by augustk 9y ago
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." -Isaac Asimov
308.
by augustk 9y ago
This goes against best practice as proposed by Steve McConnel in his "Code Complete."
309.
by augustk 9y ago
That's because the return statement is a kind of goto statement. Goto-like statements reduce the value of structured programming. In a pure structured program, each statement sequence is either completely executed or not executed. Ther
310.
by augustk 9y ago
Not providing software updates is also a kind of planned obsolescence of computers. Luckily, we have free software operating systems which can extend the lifetime of computers. The fact that software is getting more and more inefficient isn
311.
by augustk 9y ago
Niklaus Wirth's "Good Ideas, Through the Looking Glass" is an interesting read on language design (I started reading from section 4): https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/10bd/dc49b85196aaa6715dd468... &quot
312.
by augustk 9y ago
"Edsger W. Dijkstra on Dutch TV": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCCigccBzIU&feature=youtu.be...
313.
by augustk 9y ago
"As long as you're fine with the site completely failing because the browser is too old, or too new, or the user's bandwidth is too constrained, or the server hiccups, or a firewall's security policy blocks it, or a depe
314.
by augustk 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement
315.
by augustk 9y ago
Without Javascript the mathematical expressions are not displayed. This makes some parts of the text incomprehensible.
316.
by augustk 9y ago
Awk is also a part of POSIX.
317.
by augustk 9y ago
What's so squeaky clean about hiding a goto inside a macro?
318.
by augustk 9y ago
Why not use Oberon instead?
319.
by augustk 9y ago
At least in Oberon there is no "address of" operator.
320.
by augustk 9y ago
> What happened to "lightweight typesystem that reduces cognitive load"? Oberon is an example of a true lean programming language. The complete language reference takes up only sixteen A4 pages. The compiler OBNC implements the
321.
by augustk 10y ago
But you still need a symbol for the equality operator, so not choosing "=" for that seems rather absurd. It's comparable to making the choice to use + for string concatenation and ++ for (numeric) addition.
322.
by augustk 10y ago
In what situation would you want to do this?
323.
by augustk 10y ago
Awk does not support local variables. However, to simulate local variables you can add extra function parameters. I would guess that the backslash is inserted to separate the "real" parameters from the "local variable" p
324.
by augustk 10y ago
It's convenient if you want to shoot a sitcom.
325.
by augustk 10y ago
I was more thinking of a situation where you have misunderstood the syntax of a command or forgot to type an argument.
326.
by augustk 10y ago
One consequence of "the rule of silence" is that sometimes it is not obvious if a command is processing data or waiting for input, there is no visual difference.
327.
by augustk 10y ago
This made me think of the passage below from Edsger Dijkstra's ACM Turing Lecture from 1972. Back then there was no C++. "I remember from a symposium on higher level programming language a lecture given in defense of PL/1 by
328.
by augustk 10y ago
Edsger Dijkstra's Turing Award Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sIlKP2LzbA
329.
by augustk 10y ago
What Linux distribution did you use? In my experience the font rendering in the common distributions, like Ubuntu, is rather good these days. Personally I use Debian stable with a simple window manager (Blackbox) and no X display manager. I
330.
by augustk 11y ago
A couple of years ago I bought a Raspberry Pi 2 to use as a music server. However, when playing through a Benchmark USB DAC I hear pops and clicks in the audio. Instead I bought a Cubox and use its Toslink output which works perfectly. Does

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