Re: Fruit basket program alternatives for Learnability
- From: Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:03:45 -0400 (EDT)
Maybe the fruit basket site could add links to other sites that compare
programming languages in other ways.
Jamal
On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Octavian Rasnita
wrote:
> Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:40:39 +0300
> From: Octavian Rasnita <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Fruit basket program alternatives for Learnability
>
> Yes that's right. It would be interesting a project that compares more
> programming languages for the things you said because it can be even more
> helpful, but it might not be as nice as a project that compare GUIS.
>
> The site that could present it could have many sections like How to read a
> text file, how to write to a text file, how to read an xml file and write
> one, how to get a file content from the internet, how to sort an array, an
> associative array, an array of arrays, how to use regular expressions to
> find an email address (or something else)... so "how to create a simple GUI"
> can be just a part of that bigger project.
>
> But I don't think it would be very easy to do something like that, because
> each language has its strong points, and there will probably be examples for
> some things in some languages and examples for something else in other
> languages, beeing very hard to make a comparison.
>
> For example, it would be very simple to evaluate a piece of perl code from
> an external file and to execute it in the context of the current program,
> but it might not be possible or so easy in other strongly typed languages.
> Or in some languages and GUIS UTF-8 can be used while in others it is not
> possible at all.
>
> It is even hard to compare a more advanced GUI, because some GUIS can't have
> some types of controls.
>
> Octavian
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 8:41 AM
> Subject: RE: Fruit basket program alternatives for Learnability
>
>
>
>
> Well the point of the GUI example was to have an example for blind folks on
> which is easier to make GUI's in. It wasn't meant as an end all comparison
> of languages. For example there are ones out there on the web that do have
> a hello world that shows simple language structure. I guess the problem is
> figuring out what you want in a test program. The fruit basket has a single
> goal and that is GUI.
>
> If for example we decide we want to be able to build a list, sort the list,
> and copy that list into a hash do we let each language use the stuff that is
> in the language or do we make the person write everything. It was hard
> enough coming up with something everyone agreed on for the Fruit Basket I
> can't imagine coming up with a good test program for all languages that
> included, loops, Conditions, functions or methods, variables, structures or
> classes and the list goes on
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Veli-Pekka
> Tätilä
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 7:52 AM
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Fruit basket program alternatives for Learnability
>
> Hi Ken,
> Good point about Lua et al not being very good Fruit Basket langs since
> native GUis are harder to build. Which reminds me, as it stands now, the
> Fruit Basket is more an Exercise in GUi layout and basic controls rather
> than showing off a particular programming language, just as you said below.
> Especially in libs whose list boxes maintain the strings directly, you don't
> necessarily demonstrate any kind of array or hash usage, text processing,
> functional programming constructs or closures all of which are common
> elements in the dynamically typed scripting languages, for instance.
>
> So could a more involved, and possibly less graphical, version of the Fruit
> Basket be developed which is more akin to language comparisons?
> What if there's already a C version of WIn32, should there also be a C
> version of GTK+ 2, for instance, since it is a different lib with C
> bindings?
>
> Hello Worlds as in Wikipedia don't tell much about a language:
>
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/List_of_hello_world_programs
>
> However, I saw a benchmark which tries to demonstrate that with just in time
> compiling and dynamic optimizations Java doesn't lose much at all to C,
> contrary to popular belief. Not sure how feasible the results are
> but:
>
> http://www.osnews.com/story.php/5602/Nine-Language-Performance-Round-up-Benc
> hmarking-Math-and-File-IO//page1
>
> Another interesting thing about that benchmark is the code. IT shows you
> basic arithmetic using integer and floating point types, file reading and
> writing and measuring the execution times of code. This can be a good intro
> to the field of the language i.e. basic data types, control structures, file
> I/O etc... which are things almost everyone wants to do sooner or later.
>
> Another set of language benchmarks would be this one, though not sure how
> the code is from a learnability point of view:
>
> http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/
>
> --
> With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
> Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming:
> http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila
>
> Ken Perry wrote:
> > The problem with Haskell, LUA, and Objective Caml which are all
> > languages I have thought of doing one in are they do not have an easy
> > way to access the
> > Win32 environment or some way to create a dialog type application. I
> > keep them on the list of programs I will write one in but haven't got
> > around to it because it is almost as much work as the one I wrote in
> > LISP. If someone writes them first more power to them but what
> essentially these will end up
> > being is direct calls to Win32 and a bit of the programming languages
> > structure and syntax.
> >
> > When I came up with the Fruit Basket idea I didn't think of this kind
> > of language maybe we should come up with another test program that
> > instead of displaying a graphical interface does a lot of work like
> > looping, conditionals, functions or methods, Not really to do
> > anything important but to show what the language is like when using it.
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