Monday, December 22, 2008

The Obscenity of New Syntax

Background

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Lambda Lounge for a talk on OCaml. I decided to be proactive, so before the talk, I downloaded the runtime and kicked the tires.

For days, during compilations and Fit tests, I would play with the language. I had used ML years ago, but had forgotten much of it (aside from a vague memory of an ultra-strict, Klingon type system that was both a high-grade irritant, and yet oddly reassuring).

By the end of a week, I wasn't much further ahead with OCaml. I had written some basic functions and expressions, but nothing substantive.

The Experience

During the talk, I realized that the experimentation was more useful than I had imagined.

The presenter showed something like this:


# let sphere_surface = fun x -> x *. x *. pi;;
val sphere_surface : float -> float = fun

The questions flew immediately: why is there a double-semi (;;) ? are we running as root? how do we interpret the output?

These were natural questions by smart newbies to the language. I had two thoughts:
  • Naturally, it helps to prepare for a talk, but I was surprised by how far my modest time investment had taken me. I couldn't have answered all of the questions, but I could place myself in both mindsets: one of the questioner (what the heck?) and also the presenter (oh, see it works like this).
  • The first few examples struck the audience as obscene. I don't mean morally, and I don't mean that as a slight to OCaml per se. I mean in an artistic sense: well-known symbols that were beloved in other contexts had now been thrown together in a way that was jarring and almost repulsive. It takes some time to get past that shock of illiteracy.
The Upshot

This post is a reminder to myself: if a language talk is on the calendar, it is vital to download the environment and write some toy examples before attending, even if you only have a couple of hours to spare. The idea is not to learn the language but to embrace the obscenity and overcome it: celebrate the dissonance! As one music teacher put it: the Hendrix chord would have been considered hideous, even dangerous, in other eras. Now, it rocks.

Next Up: JavaFX

You may have several opportunities to see presentations on a new language in the near future: JavaFX. If you subscribe to the idea behind this post, you might be interested in an article by my friend Weiqi Gao: it is a top-shelf article on JavaFX as a language.

I'm going to be giving it a whirl over the holidays. The goal is to sing Auld Lang Syntax on New Year's Eve!

ps. Best holiday wishes to all readers... Here's a toast to a fine '09

3 comments:

  1. Okay, you've got about 2.5 weeks to give Clojure a spin!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good deal... The Lambda Lounge is going to keep me busy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. HI people hello use viagra because this drug seems to help in achieving an erection, it will maintain an erection for 4 hours . Erections are very strong and they last long for sexual performance.

    ReplyDelete