Python and Flaming Thunder

[Lie]

On May 13, 11:20 pm, Dave Parker <davepar... at flamingthunder.com>
wrote:
> > 5-10 times faster for what kind of code?
>
> Mostly numerical analysis and CGI scripting.  All of Flaming Thunder's
> library code is in assembly language, and Flaming Thunder creates
> statically-linked pure syscall CGI scripts.
>
> > I don't see anything that resembles OO features of python, ...
>
> True.  But in Python, you don't see statically-linked pure-syscall CGI
> scripts being cross-compiled under Windows for ftp'ing up to a Linux
> server.  And you don't see the speed of pure assembly language
> libraries.  And I'll be willing to bet that Flaming Thunder will have
> OO features similar to Python before Python has the features that
> Flaming Thunder already does.
>
> For many people, being 5 to 10 times faster at numerical analysis and
> CGI scripting is reason enough to pay $19 per year.  But maybe for
> other people, having slow, inefficient programs and websites is
> acceptable.

I don't think so, even Microsoft, the huge money netter, realized that
nobody would use their new .NET framework if they don't provide free
compilers for it, they only sold their IDE, not their compilers (did I
mention that the Visual Studio Express is free as in beer? And Express
isn't a crippled compiler)

> > And what is really expensive is brain-cycles, not cpu-cycles.
>
> Depends on whether you're the programmer, or the customer.  I've found
> that customers prefer products that are 5 to 10 times faster, instead
> of products that were easy for the developer.
>
> And I disagree that Flaming Thunder requires more brain-cycles.
> Because it's based on leveraging existing English and math fluency
> (which was one of the original goals of Python, was it not?), I think
> that Flaming Thunder requires fewer brain-cycles because fewer brains
> cells have to be devoted to memorizing language peculiarities.

You keep mentioning that the original goals of Python is to "make it
English-like", well, I can say, you are wrong. The goals of  Python is
to make a usable language that have a clean and clutter-free syntax,
which is clearly the inverse of FT's goal. To say, Python's goal is to
make simple syntax that is easy to learn, learning process is
something which can't be avoided unless you've created a natural
language programming language.

As I see it, FT aimed to be a natural language programming language,
well, unless you can parse script like this;

Write down "Hello World" to the file in "C:\test.txt" then print the
output to the printer, if no printer can be found, then tell the user
"Cannot Find Printer" then write a log file that printing has failed.
Unless a = b, then make c equal to 4, or raise 5 to the power of 8 and
assign that to c when a is also equal to d. If the page has been
printed, then print a + b + c + d to the screen and wait for user
input up to 8 seconds before quitting.

Anything less than that, you've failed to create natural language
parser. The current state of FT, as I see it, is no more smarter or
intelligible or readable than Python, albeit with much more
unnecessary verbosity, which in Python, is frowned upon. Anything
between the current FT and a real natural language parser is a verbose
Perl ("there is more than one way to do it").

> > Let alone it is
> > very much a question of view-point if two different looping constructs or
> > keywords are more awkward than one general looping-concept with only one
> > keyword. It's a matter of taste.
>
> Perhaps.  But if elementary school students can easily understand why
> one programming language gives the answer 100 (Flaming Thunder):
>
>   Write 10^2.
>
> but can't understand why another programming language gives the answer
> 8 (Python):
>
>   Print 10^2
>
> then I think the comparison moves beyond a matter of taste into the
> realm of measurable ease-of-use.

Lol, that only means you haven't read the documentation of the
language. You can't write program without understanding the language,
which usually means reading the documentation, even in FT. Except in a
real natural language programming language, which you can write
anything and the compiler would (hopefully, as natural language has
many ambiguity) understand whatever you've written.

(snip)