Post Az74nDY69cghwFCH6u by vnikolov@ieji.de
(DIR) More posts by vnikolov@ieji.de
(DIR) Post #Az74n9KpozhYrwxcsi by screwlisp@gamerplus.org
2025-10-10T20:29:04Z
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@AmenZwa I was thinking about your https://amenzwa.github.io/stem/PL/FortranModernisation/ . In my small experience, research labs at at least some universities have been deeply opposed to fortran, and supportive of writing what should have been and almost was fortran in python or non-fortran-using matlab. Switching to Fortran being above their paygrade, and inimical to their business community besides.Though, I do agree with you that if you want to write some algebra, writing fortran directly is suitable language for that.
(DIR) Post #Az74nAhClJBp5cR0O8 by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-10T23:49:52Z
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@screwlisp You stated in a few words what I tried to say in that lengthy article. Right Fortran, even the 2023 version, suffers from image problem amongst executives, technologists, and students alike. But there is a very small group of ardent Fortran devotees in a number of federal government agencies (some of them are my clients), several engineering professors (some of them are my classmates), and a few engineering students (my friends’ mentees). All of them—their numbers are few, but their devotion ample—rely on supercomputers, and they all swear by PGAS to implement their simulations.One of my gov clients is indeed in trouble. They’re still running F77 applications on HP-9000s. The hardware parts are drying up, the software has rotted, and the wetware is retiring or dying.
(DIR) Post #Az74nBa9T18rq28t28 by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-11T07:48:23Z
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Yes...And it has actually been pointed out a number of timesthat Fortran is _still_ superior to many, if not most,other programming languages for numeric computations.In a number of ways.@AmenZwa @screwlisp
(DIR) Post #Az74nCcfb8kb48KPb6 by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-11T12:26:41Z
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@vnikolov Right on! Yes, FORTRAN is respected in narrow, but deep, subarea of our field, namely scientific and engineering parallel numerical computations. Likewise, COBOL is still used in major financial institutions and federal agencies that regulate those institutions. For some thirty years or so, this lot had tried, repeatedly, to dislodge COBOL by switching to C++, Java, Python, and the like, but failed, repeatedly. It turned out that nothing beats COBOL's transactional throughput, when it is run on a modern mainframe mated to a modern I/O fabric. But like the FORTRAN lot, COBOL shops, too, are on shaky grounds. Both camps are facing an alarming shortage of wetware, due to retirements, and due to the drying up of the replacement pipeline.On the contrary, in the present company, it'd be superfluous to harp about how LISP is thriving and steadily attracting new, curious programmers, after almost seven decades. It could, at least in part, be due to the recent (since around 2010s) resurgence of FP in IT.Most EE kids today came into the uni armed with Python adoration, and most CS kids came into the uni believing that they're JavaScript demigods. And unlike in our days, when most kids try to learn at least a few different languages, kids these days are perfectly happy with their one true language, be it Python or JavaScript, because the language coupled with its ample, modern ecosystem, are essentially "complete" kit. This single-language scenario is productive and less frustrating, for sure. But it gives these kids a sense of unwarranted superiority, which will bite them on their posteriors, when that "currently number 1" language wanes in popularity.@screwlisp
(DIR) Post #Az74nDY69cghwFCH6u by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-10-11T20:38:36Z
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@AmenZwaYes.Indeed.Very true.You are right on all counts.At least Python has a lot of Lisp's nature, in my eyes, though I wouldn't undertake now a specific enumeration of these aspects of Python, in my Finite Free Time.And it's been said a long time ago that JavaScript is Lisp for the Masses (I don't know who said it first).That is obviously open to different interpretations, favorable and unfavorable...@screwlisp
(DIR) Post #Az74nDzkUoo1K08MD2 by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
2025-10-11T20:47:54Z
3 likes, 3 repeats
@vnikolov JavaScript was Eich’s compromise to placate his twenty-something, know-it-all CEO at Netscape—you remember those dot-com days….Eich correctly embedded Scheme into the Navigator, but the management went into a tizzy, because they wanted Java as the scripting language. Eich had to do rush job shoehorning Scheme semantics into Java (ie, C) syntax.Consequently, JavaScript is a brilliant little language in the hands of a Lisper, but it is a massive horrid mess in the hands of typical wevdev.@screwlisp
(DIR) Post #B0BEWcN6t406rBrpU8 by richcarl@mastodon.nu
2025-11-12T13:03:52Z
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@AmenZwa @vnikolov @screwlisp Not quite. Eich though he would be implementing a Scheme, but it never even got that far. The demand to make an object oriented little language that looked like Java made Eich base the "Mocha" prototype on Self (which is basically Smalltalk). See https://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/jshopl.pdf for the full story.
(DIR) Post #B0BEWdgI1Ew8uxqf1E by vnikolov@ieji.de
2025-11-12T19:06:28Z
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"JavaScript is Lisp for the masses."(I wish I knew the attribution of that.)I suppose that quote is one part truth,one part sarcasm,one part wishful thinking,one part Greenspun's Tenth,and one Fibonacci prime-th part is left as an exercise.Pardon my reply, I had a coincidental dose of JavaScript programming today and I am posting under the influence...--␠Our software doesn't have bugs,simply the users' expectationsdiffer from the way it's implemented.@richcarl @AmenZwa @screwlisp
(DIR) Post #B0BHdxOJR4Qbw9cY4W by AmenZwa@mathstodon.xyz
2025-11-12T19:30:43Z
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@vnikolov 🤣 👍 @richcarl @screwlisp
(DIR) Post #B0BHdykKOhdI8ive1g by screwlisp@gamerplus.org
2025-11-12T20:16:29Z
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@jwz I think you said you'd go to the mat for javascript-is-a-lisp.@AmenZwa @vnikolov @richcarl