mattfenwick

12 ms·

61.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Excellent, this -- information on other people's strategies for generating good error messages -- is exactly what I've been looking for. Could you direct me to more resources/papers/tools that describe and apply this app
62.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Just curious -- where did the "30%" figure come from?
63.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I'd like to clarify my point -- I'm not arguing against OOP or for another paradigm. What I'm saying is that "do one thing" transcends paradigm. And in fact, its OOP incarnation is known as the single responsibili
64.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
> That's a good argument in favor of OO programming, where one writes a class instead of a mere function, thus avoiding the trap of trying to create multi-purpose functions. I disagree there (that "That's a good argument
65.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
This is a great -- and scary -- point. These statistical fallacies and misunderstandings are so deeply ingrained into our scientific and medical systems that it's hard to see how and when they will be removed. I can attest from perso
66.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
But is that really what this thread shows? It didn't show that for me. What I got out of the thread was that Linus had a solid & rational argument justified by actual technical reasons, which was ignored by Eric. I did not see whe
67.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
From reading some of the other message in the thread, I think Linus makes a well-reasoned argument -- so I disagree that "Eric is plainly right". Clearly I don't know all the context, and so I am not really sure what Eric is
68.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
This is a very interesting article, however, IMHO it has several major problems: 1. The author doesn't understand, or is too lazy to recognize, that "correlation does not imply causation". It's hard to read sentences li
69.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Just to clarify: I'm asking what strategy/approach you use -- hand-written vs. generator, bottom-up vs. top-down, backtracking, ambiguous, context-sensitive, semantic actions, etc. Sorry for the confusion.
70.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
What is your approach for generating error messages during parsing?
71.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Wait a second. Please don't misrepresent what I'm saying. I never said anything about "get[ting] bogged down trying to get the lexer/parser to work". I never mentioned a full-blown language/compiler. I'
72.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
One example in a recent HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7085682
73.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Yes, that's typically how it works -- at some point, the concrete syntax tree has to be converted to abstract syntax. I wouldn't call it jumping through hoops though. Rather, for me, it's a natural consequence of separation
74.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I'd just like to point out that s-expressions are not the same as Lisp. Rather, they are orthogonal. Using s-expressions for concrete syntax does not say anything at all about the semantics of your language. This also means that ther
75.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Good point -- also, dealing with corner cases, writing tests, and maintaining the parser as the language evolves are a couple more things that might take a lot more work. Do you know of any strategies for error reporting, or of tools that i
76.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I don't see where @noonespecial is claiming that "If you find something better later on, and it's so much better tha[t] it's worth going through the pain of switching", you shouldn't switch. Rather, I interpr
77.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Yes, obviously. However, just to avoid any ambiguity, I've edited to try and clarify what I meant.
78.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I'm sorry, but it should be clear from my comment that I was not talking about forced conversions. However, just to avoid any ambiguity, I've edited to try and clarify what I meant.
79.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I too cannot tell if this is serious -- but the idea that members of religion X enlighten themselves by learning about religion Y is a very interesting one. Perhaps that would go a long way towards solving the massive amounts of religious
80.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I do not believe that "delud[ing] yourself into thinking you picked it because it was the absolute best" is the correct interpretation of @noonespecial's comments. I read @noonespecial's comment as saying that once you p
81.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Totally agree. Programmers should understand the value of intimately knowing the domain. "Customers don't know what they want" is part of the game, and as such is not an acceptable excuse for building poor software.
82.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
The major problem they cause IMHO is coupling. Some examples of how this has bitten me: - can't instantiate the singleton differently. - program does task A, then task B, and both use the singleton; now you have to worry about the sta
83.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Very interesting read, thanks for posting. Out of curiosity, since you mentioned you're a self-taught programmer -- what did you major in at college?
84.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
The primary value that I've experienced is that I can run the same code -- as in the same version of a library -- as part of a CLI app and as part of an interactive JS web app.
85.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I am not an expert on RDBMSs, but isn't the issue of distributed computing and the CAP theorem a far more important driving force behind the NoSQL movement than any of the reasons in the article?
86.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Plus, the article is computer-searchable (Ctrl-f) and you can more easily point somebody to a specific passage or quote it.
87.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I don't get how taking away macros is "less is more". Since macros provide capabilities that no other feature does, it seems to me that taking them away is "less is less". As I understand it, the intent behind &quot
88.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
Exactly. I think it's part of a larger learning pattern that people go through: one starts learning about a new tool, library, or approach, and at some point, realizes that it's not perfect -- there are some cons. I guess there
89.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
s/strong/static/
90.
by mattfenwick 13y ago
I think it's unfortunate that it doesn't have more concrete examples. I think having more of those would really help strengthen their case, clarify their points, and make their arguments tangible and understandable to a much wide

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