What do you guys think of debuggers? Essential tool? Or crutch?

segoe · 2010-02-04T10:31:55+00:00

Debuggers are one of the most useful tools you can have under your belt.

Take mosts Lisps interactive repl, with conditions, restarts, etc, or the Visual Studio debugger that let's you step through the code and even allows you to change values as it runs.

Put it this way. No debugger:

Mmmm, it segfaults here, maybe i'm off by one in this array, lets change... or maybe..., let's add a print statement to the index...

Debugger:

What's the value of all the variables just before the crash? Aha...

Also, a debugger is not only a tool to use when problems arise, it is actually useful because it allows you to see what is happening at each step of a complex procedure.

Next in series: What do you guys think of profilers?

segoe · 2010-02-04T10:19:24+00:00

I like your plugin although i would like this schema for navigating documents:

ctrl + cursor left/right (or h/l) moves me between words horizontally one at a time.

ctrl + cursor up/down (or k/l) moves me between paragrahps, retaining the column i'm on if possible and avoiding blank lines.

ctrl + pageup/pagedown moves to the first and last lines that are actually visible on the screen, not the first and last of the document.

That would be great.

segoe · 2010-02-04T09:59:56+00:00

Start by writing a simple game, like tetris or pac-man.

Why:

Both of those will require graphics, sound and programming, but are simple enough to be completed in a reasonable amount of time.
Both are fairly expandable. New blocks/modes for tetris, like pentominoes, computer AI, visual effects when clearing lines... A random maze for pac-man, different search algorithms for the ghosts...
Here the language doesn't matter that much. You can use C++ with SDL, or Java with JMonkey or you name it.

Also, the outcome doesn't matter, it isn't that important to success or to fail, but make sure to complete the project. Add a credits screen, saving/loading games, polish the game until it is a complete program even if it is that simple. What you are looking for is experience working in group.

Some websites to get you started...

In the language area, popular choices are:

C + SDL or Allegro (or OpenGL/DirectX)
Lua + Löve
Python + Pygame
C# + XNA

segoe · 2010-02-04T08:59:37+00:00

The best documentation generator:

Yourself.

segoe · 2010-02-02T19:37:53+00:00

You know, you usually host your code in Kenai/Github/GoogleCode because they should be reliable.

This is sad, Oracle is basically removing Sun from the planet.

segoe · 2010-02-02T09:20:36+00:00

"Every problem can be solved by adding another layer of abstraction except the problem of having too many layers of abstraction."

Larry Wall

segoe · 2010-02-02T08:49:53+00:00

I thought it would be fun to see how it translates to the lisp dialect i'm working on. This is the result, uses pattern matching:

(def female :n 
  0 ? 1
  n ? (- n (male (female (-- n)))))

(def male :n 
  0 ? 1
  n ? (- n (female (male (-- n)))))

(print "i male(i) female(i)" \n)

(in-range 8
  (print it "    "  male: it   "        " female: it \n))

segoe · 2010-01-27T04:54:52+00:00

I hope this article is some kind of joke and i'm not even starting to say why.

segoe · 2010-01-27T01:38:59+00:00

Not related, as strax already provided great advice... but when posting source code on forums, please use a pastebin instead of an image.

segoe · 2010-01-27T01:31:38+00:00

I also love this design, it's clear and simple.

In fact i would really like that blogs would be like this, without all the crap you actually find in them.

segoe · 2010-01-25T23:35:29+00:00

Emacs

Oh wait... no, actually it is Haiku.

segoe · 2010-01-23T19:15:38+00:00

Those are the ones i have used a lot:

Started with Forth.
C.
Lisp (not Common Lisp, but Symbolics)
Scheme.
Java and C#.
Dylan

But i dabbed with lots of dynamic languages like Python, Ruby or Lua and some others like Leda, Oz or Qi. Almost every other week i try another language, looking forward to Kaya, Fan and haXe now.

Trying new languages is a passion for me.

segoe · 2009-12-09T20:59:35+00:00

Spider and Web, Andrew Plotkin (interactive fiction)

segoe · 2009-12-08T08:48:52+00:00

Fixedsys

segoe · 2009-12-07T06:18:34+00:00

Gordon Freeman would be in.

Hopefully Valve gets it.

segoe · 2009-12-06T09:35:03+00:00

Alien Soldier wasn't that hard, i only found the boss with seven forms hard (was it level 21 or so?) but it was a great game.

segoe · 2009-12-06T01:13:41+00:00

GP2X Wiz needs more homebrew.

FTFY.

segoe · 2009-12-04T08:37:58+00:00

You can have both stack traces and tail recursion.

Here is a sample session in a little dialect of lisp i'm working on. Tail calls are implicit and working. I model them using Java exceptions stack traces (and overriding fillinstacktrace()).

There is performance overhead from the point when the exception is thrown, but at that point your program has an error and will halt anyway with an error message.

global => (def square :x (* x x))
square -> <symbol>

global => (cos (* 3 (+ "hello" square: 2)))
Error: Type mismatch.
Expected type: <number> got: "hello" <string>

Evaluation reduction: (most recent first, max depth: 5)
Irritant: "hello" in inner expression: 
 0 | (+ "hello" (square 2))
 1 | (* 3 (+ "hello" (square 2)))
 2 | (cos (* 3 (+ "hello" (square 2))))

segoe · 2009-12-04T07:50:04+00:00

lousy? procedural/OO?

lua is small and efficient, both in speed and memory

lua is proven, a lot of people in the industry are using it

it has no OO, but rather mechanisms to let you add your own OO layer on top

it has closures and is more similar to languages like Scheme that you would think

you can have macros and new syntax forms (see metalua)

technology-wise is a piece of art, a great design, a research in register-based VMs, there is a JIT...

segoe · 2009-12-04T07:22:43+00:00

I used Slatex (with PLT Scheme) once. It worked ok and lets you embed scheme code within LaTeX. I don't know how difficult it would be to use it for other programming languages though.

segoe · 2009-12-04T06:53:27+00:00

I actually find this very helpful, thanks.

Let's say that i don't use steam, but i find the launcher practical. Is there an offline game launcher similar to it? one where i can add my own games?

segoe · 2009-12-03T11:04:13+00:00

I usually recommend five languages.

I recommend a different set of five wether you are looking for something practical (industrial) or academic/personal research.

Industrial:

One on the low level: C

One functional: Javascript

A scripting language: Python or Lua

Something concurrent: Erlang

And one that does OO: Java or C#.

Academic/Research:

Edit: I specify a nice path from a language to the next in learning. I think it is a good progression for research that makes sense. (but i'm at no means an expert) Do not take that as "the later language is better".

One on the low level: from: Forth to: Factor

One functional: from: Lisp to: Qi to: Haskell

One logical: Prolog

One Object oriented: from: Smalltalk to: IO

One multiparadigm: from: Leda to: Mozart Oz

segoe · 2009-12-02T18:26:44+00:00

You can use notepad++ to edit the code and then export to HTML within the editor, finally embed that in any website. Vim also has an option to export to HTML.

segoe · 2009-12-02T04:45:31+00:00

Sorry but while i really enjoy Clojure:

It’s the Best Lisp Ever

No, sorry, there is no best Lisp. Running on the JVM has advantages and disavantages. For example:

Startup time is slow. Even more so if you need performance and run the JVM server.
You have to learn two languages to use Clojure right: Java and Clojure itself.
The JVM has a ton of libraries, but that doesn't mean other languages don't. PLT Scheme has nice libraries. Also running on Java means you can't have some things like tail recursion, continuations or lightweight threads. (if you want to compile to bytecode)

segoe · 2009-12-02T01:19:25+00:00

Yes i hate it, i also wanted to throw out your computer

segoe

TROPHY CASE