Comments on: Flapjax http://www.weaselhat.com/2006/10/12/flapjax/ Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:23:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Michael Greenberg http://www.weaselhat.com/2006/10/12/flapjax/comment-page-1/#comment-436 Michael Greenberg Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:47:07 +0000 http://www.weaselhat.com/2006/10/12/flapjax/#comment-436 You're right---there's no reason to laugh. The situation isn't as dire as some would make it out to be, though: Haskell, Scala, and PLT Scheme are examples of theory and practice meeting (in some proportion). Whenever I explain PL to people outside of computer science, they always assume that our study is comparative. It would be interesting if, for a change, we did do a comparative study. How do different abstractions and structures---of computation, of data, even of syntax---affect languages as real-world objects? I'm not interested in "power" or "expressiveness" per se, but rather how programming languages function socially. I haven't liked what little of this sort of research I've seen, though. I'm not sure how we should approach this idea or who would be willing. You’re right—there’s no reason to laugh. The situation isn’t as dire as some would make it out to be, though: Haskell, Scala, and PLT Scheme are examples of theory and practice meeting (in some proportion).

Whenever I explain PL to people outside of computer science, they always assume that our study is comparative. It would be interesting if, for a change, we did do a comparative study. How do different abstractions and structures—of computation, of data, even of syntax—affect languages as real-world objects? I’m not interested in “power” or “expressiveness” per se, but rather how programming languages function socially.

I haven’t liked what little of this sort of research I’ve seen, though. I’m not sure how we should approach this idea or who would be willing.

]]> By: Artyom Shalkhakov http://www.weaselhat.com/2006/10/12/flapjax/comment-page-1/#comment-435 Artyom Shalkhakov Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:36:27 +0000 http://www.weaselhat.com/2006/10/12/flapjax/#comment-435 Hello,

I realise this is a very old post and such and such…

> Shriram got me on board by asking me what would happen if PL people actually got together and wrote something for real — that is, fully implemented an idea and sent it out at the world in a language the world can use. We both chuckled for a moment, thinking how funny it would be to actually apply PL. And then he pointed out that there’s nothing funny about that at all.

Why chuckle? I’m really interested in seeing smart math applied to everyday problems (that’s why I learn and apply it :)). Maybe we could live in a better world then.

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