Programming Languages 2017-13

Nothing tastes better than a great triumph, well, maybe if it wasn’t an accident, the Nerds could have felt a little better, but I guess we will never find out. I liked how the video had a different approach about the start of computing than most of all the other documentaries and videos, where they follow the same storyline (while it is impossible to change, but it can be seen from other points of view). One of the first statements was the one that struck me the most; the whole success of computing was an accident. They didn’t create (at first) the computer for scientific purposes, but for leisure and fun, especially for impressing their friends. The first personal computer had no initial purpose. It was just some group of buttons and switches paired together to make small operations. The memory was limited, the effort needed to make something was huge, but still, this was groundbreaking, because they made a successful machine capable of translating some kind of langu...

You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Nerds, not join them! Bring balance to the knowledge, not leave it in darkness! You were my brother *Insert Nerd name here*! I loved you! World acclaimed article; The Revenge of the Nerds I felt I had a déjà vu reading this article, somewhat related to the article written by Paul Graham “Beating the Averages”, it almost seems they were written by the same author… Anyways, this article seems like a continuation of that said post. And Lisp is described (again) as an underrated tool, powerful enough to wipe the competition, just as ITA’s application, where the market was being dominated by Travelocity and Expedia and later was overturned to ITA’s favor, thanks to the macros in their Lisp code. One of the topics I would like to address are the pointy-haired people, with the great qualities of knowing absolutely nothing of technology and having strong opinions about it. I have met a lot of people like that thr...

To Lisp or not to Lisp, that is the question. Since I first saw Lisp (and I try to avoid that topic (because I still knew nothing about programing)) I got scared of programming at all. I asked myself if all programming languages were the same, at least syntax wise. This has happened every time I saw Lisplike syntax, every day until my first class of this course. I had no choice, I had to embrace Clojure, I have to code in Clojure, I have to be Clojure … and I have loved every moment since I took that decision (Well I technically didn’t take the decision, they took the decision for me). The first we encountered was that we weren’t going to code the way we have coded in the last semesters, but we will be introduced to a new paradigm, the functional programming. The code we saw was confusing at first, but after analyzing what the code did, we understood how Clojure worked. With that in mind, I consider I started coding easier with Clojure. I noticed the difference in th...

Not everyone likes how Lisp code looks like, however, it can be considered as one of the most powerful programming languages we have available. In an article written by Paul Graham in 2001 titled "Beating the Averages", Paul describes how Lisp was a huge advantage in the creation of Viaweb, the first Web-based application.  Being the first software that worked via the web was some ground breaking technology, and also it was one of the first bid end-user applications to be written in Lisp (It's ordering system was written in C, but everything else was Lisp). The article mentions that Lisp is worth learning because of the experience that this way of coding delivers, providing knowledge to become a better programmer, even outside of Lisp. This was one of the ideas that I liked the most; while Lisp is not visually attractive, if I know it will make me improve the way I code and approach programming, then I'm up for learning Lisp inside out.  Other quote I fo...

This time´s reading was "Semicolon wars". While the title was a "little" misleading, the concept was the same; how languages that has the same goal, has huge differences between them. First notable difference are their classification branches, such as imperative; built on commands, functional; modeled on the idea of a mathematical function, object-oriented; ideal to bind together imperative commands and the data they act on, and declarative; known for stating facts or relations. However, in each classification exists disparity amongst them. It´s incredible how, in just 50 years, 8,500 diverse programming languages were created, and until today, we still don´t know the best notation for expressing an algorithm or defining a data structure. But it doesn’t stop there, small syntax preferences are also controversy topics, such as CamelCase, snake case, and the possibility of nested comments (I personally use CamelCase). I loved what the author stated at t...

Welcome to my first blog entry, I´m your host Esteban Gil , in this chapter I will introduce myself and some other insights about my feelings towards this course. First let´s get rid of the (academical) elephant off the room; my expectations from the Programming Languages Course . I would like to learn, understand, and feel comfortable around functional and logical programming paradigms . I coded on LISP this summer, but few questions remained on the top of my head, so I expect my questions to be answered. I haven´t taken a class fully in English for years, so that will be interesting. Also, it´s my first class with Ariel, so I have great expectations of this class. Ariel showing us both pills; We could take the red pill and go with Ivan telling him we would not take the course, or take the blue pill, and see how far the rabbit hole goes. And now my hobbies and personal interests, as well as books, music, movies and programs I have enjoyed. I consider myself an avid gamer, s...