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Discussion of the Essence# programming language, and related issues and technologies. |
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A hidden twist in the black hole information paradox from PhysOrg.com
Professor Sam Braunstein, of the University of York's Department of Computer Science, and Dr Arun Pati, of the Institute of Physics, Sainik School, Bhubaneswar, India, have established that quantum information cannot be 'hidden' in conventional ways, or in Braunstein's words, "quantum information can run but it can't hide."
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Jeffrey Massung, in his blog post Smalltalk: An Application Language, states that programming in Smalltalk is fun. Jeffrey has formed that opinion over the past few months: He started using Smalltalk for the first time in late August 2006, developing a 2D game engine in Smalltalk.
I've had the same opinion since November, 1985--partly for the same reasons that Jeffrey mentions:
This is what Smalltalk does for me. I only write the code that matters. If I need to rename a class, all references everywhere else in my sources are automatically updated for me. If I change a method name, a browser window opens allowing me to see every caller so that I promptly fix them. These are just two of many, many, many features, all possible thanks to the reflective nature of Smalltalk, due in no small part, to it's object-oriented approach to problem solving.
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When it is implemented well (dare I say "properly?"), this paradigm doesn't just constitute another tool in the toolbox; it is the toolbox, from which everything else stems.
Since I started this endeavor to create a 2D game engine in Smalltalk, I've not once - wait, let me reiterate this - not once have I stopped, and started over again. I'm still working in the same image I started with in late August, 2006. All my designs began with prototypes (*cough* hacks *cough*) inside the main code base, and yet the code is clean. When they worked, it took minutes to reorganize and re-factor the code properly. And when they didn't, it took minutes to strip out bad code, and restore the old.
I've honestly never had more fun programming! Smalltalk has actually made programming more fun than it already was. It allows me to iterate the code so fast! The speed at which I can try an idea, see what's wrong, switch gears, or continue molding until it's right is so ridiculously fast, that it's fun. It's been stated that programming isn't fun. Problem solving and code design are fun. Programming in Smalltalk is just that - all the time. It's fun.
Eric Dobbs' blog post (Playing Nice - what Perl's got that LISP and Smalltalk lack) hits the nail on the head: Smalltalk and LISP have not been as successful as Perl because LISP and Smalltalk want to be independent universes, hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world:
There's always been only one Perl; differing versions, sure, but you have never had to spend any time choosing whose Perl interpreter to use. More importantly, Perl began with the assumption that it would not be the only tool in your toolbox: it set out from the beginning to play well with others. By contrast, there have always been many flavors of LISP and Smalltalk any of which have tried to be pretty much everything you ever need.
Painting in broad strokes, David says Smalltalk's weakness is "at the boundaries:" when you want to try to do some typical unix system maintenance, or interfacing with underlying C libraries, or something similar. As long as you're staying within the Smalltalk environment, it completely rocks. But it's definitely painful if you try to reach outside. And it's especially painful if you want your code to work with different Smalltalks. What Perl got right was making it completely painless to integrate with its environment.
In some sense LISP wants to be on a LISP Machine and Smalltalk wants to be in its virtual machine, whereas Perl wants to go out and play with the other kids. The former languages are introverted and Perl is extroverted.
Robot builds itself for special tasks from PhysOrg.com
In one of the latest studies on autonomous robots, scientists sat back and watched as their robot created itself out of smaller robotic modules. The result, called “swarm-bot,” comes in many varieties, depending on the assigned task and available components. As the current state of the art in autonomous self-assembly, swarm-bots offer insight into the potential versatility and robustness that robots may possess to perform missions beyond human abilities.
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Martin Kobetic has posted an excellent tutorial on handling different text file line-end conventions in VisualWorks.
The Passport inter-Smalltalk portability library (on which the Chronos Date/Time Library depends) also provides a solution to the same problem:
Macro, not micro: modified theories of gravity from PhysOrg.com
When it comes to cosmology, the macro scale is important. As scientists search for the reasons behind the increasing rate at which the universe is expanding, they modify Einstein’s theory of gravity and delve into dark energy theories to explain this counter-intuitive phenomenon.
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New energy source? Scientists convert heat to power using organic molecules from PhysOrg.com
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have successfully generated electricity from heat by trapping organic molecules between metal nanoparticles, an achievement that could pave the way toward the development of a new source for energy.
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Version 2007b of the Chronos Time Zone Repository has been published. It is based on version 2007b of the Olson Time Zone Database.
Downloads:
Current Task: Implement iCal Recurrence Rules
Planned Tasks/Enhancements/Features:
Researchers Create Tiny, Self-Propelled Devices from PhysOrg.com
North Carolina State University scientists have figured out a method to supply microscopic devices with enough energy to not only allow them to propel themselves through liquid – a difficult function in its own right – but also to perform some other functions, like emitting light.
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