Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language

topspin

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@admiral_p There are places that think like that. There are others that are very highly rated as universities that look at that sort of thing and say “well that's a stupid crock of shit and we reject it”. The theory is provided since it is a very suitable way of learning for some, yet in general without a way to turn theory into practice, all you end up with is unsatisfying academic wanking. Combining theory and practice achieves a much more satisfying set of insights into the world, in all fields.

Trade schools are something else. They tend to teach skills that are utterly bound to specific ways of working with no generalization at all. If you want to learn about exactly SharePoint Enterprise of the edition released on a specific date, all taught by people who tell you to do things like clicking the third item on the fourth menu and so on (all of which is stupidly easily changed between versions even by accident) then a trade school is for you. Some people seem to love 'em. (I don't.)

You could generalize this by saying that the practice is interchangeable and the theory is what generalizes. That's why you, e.g., don't teach programming specifics at a university but programming concepts.
And what's the business use for, say, philosophy anyway.

Gurth

@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

If you're thinking about the theory, you're not playing right.

This is pretty much a universal given. If you’re driving a car and having to continually think about which pedal to operate, where the turn indicator is, whether to give way to another vehicle, etc. you’re probably not ready for a driver’s licence yet.

OTOH, if you’re just someone who dabbles in something, having to think about how stuff works isn’t a problem, and in fact will help you learn. (This caused a bit of an argument between my brother and me once, when I claimed DSLR cameras are too complicated for their own good: if you just want to take a picture with one, chances are you’ll get lost in all the options. He argued that you should learn your tools before using them — but he wouldn’t accept that it’s ridiculous to expect people to learn all the functions of a device like that before trying to take a straightforward photo.)

dkf

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

This caused a bit of an argument between my brother and me once, when I claimed DSLR cameras are too complicated for their own good: if you just want to take a picture with one, chances are you’ll get lost in all the options. He argued that you should learn your tools before using them — but he wouldn’t accept that it’s ridiculous to expect people to learn all the functions of a device like that before trying to take a straightforward photo.

Well… a DSLR isn't an entry-level camera anyway (the one on your phone is more like that these days) and hasn't ever been, so you can expect it to be not aimed at the basic point-and-grunt market. They're also not too hard to use in their high-automation modes. It's just when you go “I want to control All The Things” that they become difficult, but then that's what you asked for, yes?

Carnage

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There aren't many popular verbose languages, but the most verbose one I worked with was TTCN - and it's really verbose. Java looks like subcompact car next to it. The additional verbosity made it a bit easier to read casually by a novice developer, but it didn't actually help with doing actual work.

Oh my, another soul unfortunate enough to have had TTCN inflicted upon them.

Steve_The_Cynic

@topspin said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska
begin;
Niklaus Wirth just dropped dead and started spinning in his grave.

Nah. In Pascal, that's just an empty statement right after (and on the same line as) the begin, in between it and the ;(1). What would really get his goat, I suspect, is a ; just before end

(1) In Pascal, the semi-colon is a statement separator, not a statement terminator.

Steve_The_Cynic

@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

And there are whole successful schools of music (the Suzuki method) who don't teach any real theory beyond the names of the notes. You learn by playing simple pieces until you master them, then moving on to more complex pieces. And it works.

It works because music theory is mostly a tool for composers rather than performers. It describes the theory of how to put all those notes and stuff together so that they sound like what you want, and so that the end of a piece of music sounds like the end and not as if the performers just stopped playing, and so on.

Some knowledge of that theory can help a musician to learn a new piece more easily and more rapidly, because it teaches us what sort of things to expect, so that we aren't continually surprised by the next notes, but much of that knowledge can be informal and picked up by playing "properly" constructed (theoretically sound) music.

dkf

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

What would really get his goat, I suspect, is a ; just before end

You mean, written like this?

;end

That is a horrible thing, indeed…

boomzilla

@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

The question for me is not theory XOR application. It's which comes first when you're learning it.

My formal training in computer science / computer programming is fairly thin. However, I see parallels to how I learned math (where my formal training is much more robust). Let's start with my formula for learning math in class:

After introducing a new concept the teacher gives you some rules or steps to follow to solve the new type of problem. In general, it's OK if the student doesn't grasp what these do or why they work at first. Just start following the steps. At first, you may not even remember what they all are and have to refer to a textbook or notes. That's fine. Repetition will get them into your head. And once they're there your brain can actually start chewing on them and start to see the patterns and logic behind them. It's not even always a conscious process, but after a bit there's usually a Eureka! moment.

I've had a lot of analogous learning in programming by reading something somewhere (sometimes even here!) or looking something up on StackOverflow, etc.

I'd also say that "Learn by doing" to me doesn't necessarily mean that I'm personally reinventing the wheel, but that I'm motivated to learn something by a real life task. It's true that I'd have completed the task faster or better if I'd had the knowledge before but that's not an option at this point and anyways I still wouldn't change my prior education choices, even though it means my eyes might not glaze over so much when people start throwing out pattern name jargon or C++ standard section trivia.

Gąska

@Carnage said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There aren't many popular verbose languages, but the most verbose one I worked with was TTCN - and it's really verbose. Java looks like subcompact car next to it. The additional verbosity made it a bit easier to read casually by a novice developer, but it didn't actually help with doing actual work.

Oh my, another soul unfortunate enough to have had TTCN inflicted upon them.

Good to know I'm not the only one.

Gąska

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

What would really get his goat, I suspect, is a ; just before end

You mean, written like this?
;end
That is a horrible thing, indeed…

I'm almost certain this construct has some valid use in Bash.

Steve_The_Cynic

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

What would really get his goat, I suspect, is a ; just before end

You mean, written like this?
;end
That is a horrible thing, indeed…
I'm almost certain this construct has some valid use in Bash.

Apparently not.

$ ;end
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `;'

Steve_The_Cynic

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

What would really get his goat, I suspect, is a ; just before end

You mean, written like this?
;end
That is a horrible thing, indeed…

I was thinking more of putting the ; at the end of the previous line, but I think your version is even more goat-getting than mine.

HardwareGeek

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

so that the end of a piece of music sounds like the end and not as if the performers just stopped playing

Except in pop music where the last phrase just repeats over and over until the sound engineer slides the master volume fader to -∞.

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

because it teaches us what sort of things to expect, so that we aren't continually surprised by the next notes,

Until the composer throws in a deceptive cadence...

topspin

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

I was thinking more of putting the ; at the end of the previous line

While both equally valid syntactically, separating the begin with a semicolon is much more -inducing.

Steve_The_Cynic

@HardwareGeek said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

so that the end of a piece of music sounds like the end and not as if the performers just stopped playing

Except in pop music where the last phrase just repeats over and over until the sound engineer slides the master volume fader to -∞.

It does seem that many composers of the "instrumental" parts of pop music aren't very up to speed on music theory. Or, frequently, music.

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

because it teaches us what sort of things to expect, so that we aren't continually surprised by the next notes,

Until the composer throws in a deceptive cadence...

At which point your knowledge of music theory helps you to recognise it.

HardwareGeek

@Steve_The_Cynic said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

It does seem that many composers of the "instrumental" parts of pop music aren't very up to speed on music theory. Or, frequently, music.

OTOH, I often listen to a streaming channel called Second Inversion — "New and unusual music from all corners of the classical genre" — which occasionally causes one to wonder, "Was that music?"

Gurth

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

Well… a DSLR isn't an entry-level camera anyway (the one on your phone is more like that these days) and hasn't ever been, so you can expect it to be not aimed at the basic point-and-grunt market.

True, and the background of this conversation was that I had been using one to take somewhat technical pictures (I do have some experience with the technical sides of photography — just not an interest in it as a hobby in itself :) The camera, though, kept getting in my way because with modern DSLR cameras, chances are very high that you either know it can do something but can’t find how, or that you accidentally press something and change a setting without even realising you’ve done so. In this particular case, the “aiming point” which it uses for automatic focussing had moved up and to the left instead of being nicely centred, and I couldn’t find how to get it back so I had to do an awkward, “point slightly away from the subject, focus, point at the subject, press shutter all the way” routine for every picture.

What IMHO they need, is a better user interface. DSLR cameras are currently the equivalent of:—

https://storage.googleapis.com/xebia-blog/1/2015/03/toomuchfeatures.png

without the popup help.

TimeBandit

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

without the popup help.

admiral_p

@Steve_The_Cynic the point of (lots of) pop music is that it sounds both fresh (production, arrangement) and familiar (actual song). (Lots of) rock music replaces fresh with energetic. Ultimately modern music is all in the performance. You go from simple, say, I-IV-V (maybe with a II or a VI added in somewhere) to more complex structures which still pivot onto tropes (eg. "now everything one step higher", or pedal-points or ostinato bass, which are typical of lots of funk and soul). Usually in pop music you spice things up by using sus/add/slash chords. The point of pop music is to sing along it. Rock music often doesn't even bother with spicing things up and it's just basic power chords or a basic blues line from start to finish.

But again, the point of this kind of music is not in their song structure. Very few pop and rock artists manage to make more complex music without appearing pretentious. One such act were the Beatles, but they had George Martin and friends to give them a hand. The Beach Boys were another one, but the result was Brian Wilson having a mental breakdown. Back in the '60s and '70s there was more orchestrated stuff. One of my favourite songs ever is this one:

https://youtu.be/hzMl0-bhNcM

dkf

@admiral_p said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

the point of (lots of) pop music is that it sounds both fresh (production, arrangement) and familiar (actual song). (Lots of) rock music replaces fresh with energetic. Ultimately modern music is all in the performance. You go from simple, say, I-IV-V (maybe with a II or a VI added in somewhere) to more complex structures which still pivot onto tropes (eg. "now everything one step higher", or pedal-points or ostinato bass, which are typical of lots of funk and soul). Usually in pop music you spice things up by using sus/add/slash chords. The point of pop music is to sing along it. Rock music often doesn't even bother with spicing things up and it's just basic power chords or a basic blues line from start to finish.

A boring song (though occasionally saved by a very good soloist line on top) is one that harmonically just sticks to basic I-IV-V. There's just not a lot going on there. And if they just move everything up a semitone/tone and repeat, you know for sure that the composer has totally run out of ideas.

HardwareGeek

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

And if they just move everything up a semitone/tone and repeat, you know for sure that the composer has totally run out of ideas.

One music theorist (half of whose book is available free online — ) calls this a "gearshift" and maintains a "gearshift hall of shame." Modulating — good; adds interest. Shifting up a half-step/step, with no real modulation, and staying there (or worse, doing it again), rather than modulating back to the original key — lame cliche.

admiral_p

@dkf not pop but

https://youtu.be/MMFj8uDubsE

Or actually, yes, pop

https://youtu.be/XmSdTa9kaiQ

(I hate Bono but '80s U2 were acceptable).

admiral_p

@HardwareGeek it's a lame cliché but, like all lame clichés, it sometimes works.

An example (Italian, original song: Brazilian).

https://youtu.be/z4nhDtkzhRg

Anyway, would you mind providing a link to such list (and book)?

HardwareGeek

@admiral_p

How Music REALLY Works

Edit: I'm not sure he literally maintains such a list, but he does refer to the "hall of shame" in the book.

admiral_p

@HardwareGeek thanks. Skimming though it, it seems to be well written, if a bit lightweight. A good introductory course for aspiring composers. Many things would deserve more attention. All the important stuff is free anyway

Gąska

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

You haven't created any, yet you think you have enough knowledge to tell whether someone's judgement is good or bad.

Yes, because unlike you I spent much more time checking out Inform7, played quite a few games written in it (and checked source code of those available) and I was really impressed with it.

Sounds like you didn't actually try to program in it. At least that's what it sounds like when you mention games you played, not games you made.

Because it is. Because you cannot create anything that's not a toy with it.

So 3D printers are a toy for you because they are mostly used to create plastic toys?

Have you noticed how you had to add the word "mostly" to your question for your rebuttal to even make sense? I didn't say Inform7 is mostly used for toys. I said it's only used for toys and cannot be used for anything that's not a toy.

I'm sure not even you would try to argue that text adventures are more than just toys.

They are more than toys -- they can be work of art just like novels.

I consider art to be in the same category as toys - pure entertainment without practical use.

While Datalog solves real life problems for real businesses, including several Fortune 500 companies, right now.

Who cares about their problems?

Themselves? Isn't that enough to call it practical?

No one has shown that Inform7 the language can be used to interact with those new I/O capabilities.

With a compiler update it would be possible.

Why did you say "would" and not "is"? Might it be because no one has actually succeeded at doing that? (Either because no one tried, or it cannot be done - we won't know until someone tries.)

The "of Sol" part was a reference point from which you measure direction of Alpha Centauri. Didn't you get this the first time I told you you've got the associativity wrong?

Maybe it is a language barrier?

“Alpha Centauri” is “towards the center of the galaxy” of “Sol”

If instead of "of" there was "from" I would parse it easier, I never saw "of" used like that before and I speak pretty fluent English.

Random example I could google up to show I'm not making this up:

Highway 401 to be closed west of London this weekend : My Stratford Now

"<Direction> of <reference point>" is a very common phrase. It's used all the time, though mostly with cardinal directions.

Do you really think my - or anyone else's - behavior in casual conversation on a troll forum is representative of their professional work when writing user documentation?

One can never be sure with you lot.

If you can't be sure, how can you know?

You've just compared a programming language you're trying to sell us as a great tool for general purpose programming, to a 3 year old.

No, that's what you did when you called it a toy. I just asked you to tell that sentence to 3 year old and see if they understand it.

You're asking me to tell that sentence to a 3 year old as part of an argument that it's not a problem that Inform7 wouldn't be able to parse that sentence. That sounds like Inform7 doesn't go beyond what a 3 year old is able of.

I didn't listen to him, I don't know anything about him, I couldn't care less about him.

Found your problem. You never pay ~~much~~any attention to what people are trying to show you and outright dismiss stuff out of prejudice.

I haven't dismissed him out of prejudice of any kind. I've dismissed him out of not feeling like listening to music at the moment. I took your word that he's amazing and it didn't look like I have to verify further.

admiral_p

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

Mine is this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s

Rare opportunity to hear how it was mixed and how much is actually going on in the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXIgq4dQ6ks

And sadly the only clip I could find where you can see the genius of Rutger Gunnarsson at work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B139-IqKcqg

Having the dime of your life, eh? This is surely Abba's perfect chart topper. (I don't think the recording engineer ever pulled the guitar tracks' faders up in the final mix). There's other stuff by Abba that I prefer though. For example their first hit

https://youtu.be/Sj_9CiNkkn4

if only for the audacity of citing Napoleon's final defeat in the context of the song but I've grown up listening to my mum listening to Abba, of course at full blast and singing along loudly, which resulted in some bad imprinting. I still cringe when I hear songs like Fernando, Chiquitita and the lot.

EDIT: bonus cringe!

https://youtu.be/DDVbp3IuZJ4

HardwareGeek

@admiral_p said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

I've grown up listening to my mum listening to Abba, of course at full blast and singing along loudly

Is child abuse not illegal in Italy?

Gąska

@HardwareGeek when have Italians ever cared about legality?

admiral_p

@HardwareGeek yes, which is why my dad was barred from singing, ever.

JBert

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

Sounds like you didn't actually try to program in it. At least that's what it sounds like when you mention games you played, not games you made.

[...] Give it up already.

YMBNH

admiral_p

@levicki bass eh?

How about some James Jamerson? This is probably my favourite Jamerson bassline of all time:

https://youtu.be/kAT3aVj-A_E

This is one of my warm up lines (no chance playing on of Jamerson's ones, I could never remember the countless variations)

https://youtu.be/7ypxnhLxIUs

And finally, 'cause boys will be boys

https://youtu.be/C_Xy_pD_Or8

Benjamin Hall

as far as music goes, give me simple, well-performed music that doesn't try to get pretentious. If it has good clean vocals and can be sung along to, that's a bonus. Call me a philistine, but "complex" or "deep" music just doesn't do anything for me.

Gąska

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

Sounds like you didn't actually try to program in it. At least that's what it sounds like when you mention games you played, not games you made.

I did try writing or I wouldn't know about its capabilities, but you didn't try and you are still trying to sound like an authority on the subject

I explained my reasons for thinking what I think. And your only counterargument is "but you didn't try it!" I tried enough other languages to have a pretty good idea what kinds of design choices any particular language can make, and what those choices mean for the users of the language. If I had infinite time, I'd try it out and see whether it's exactly like what I think it is, or if there's something you're not telling us and Inform7 really is ingenious in its approach to parsing, like not having keywords and doing something entirely different instead with its grammar. But I don't have infinite time, and I really don't feel like sinking 200 hours into a project I'm not going to enjoy (I don't have any idea for a text adventure, and you can't use Inform7 for anything else than text adventures at the moment), so as a heuristic, I'm relying on my experience, and my experience tells me that when a language requires very long winded statements, it's very annoying to work with. And as I already said, 99% of what makes Inform7 good for text adventures is in the libraries (including standard library/runtime), not in the language itself.

not to mention trying to downplay what I said because I mentioned playing a few games as part of getting to know what can be done.

I'm not downplaying you for saying you played a few games. I'm downplaying you for NOT saying you MADE a few games. Playing games doesn't tell you anything about language. And that something "can be done" doesn't tell anything about the language either (unless you mean the language supports certain abstractions that allow writing code in a certain way so you have to write less code overall, but you don't mean this). Nearly all languages are Turing-complete. This means their capabilities as of what programs can be made with them are mostly interchangable.

I said it's only used for toys and cannot be used for anything that's not a toy.

It can be used for teaching. Some people do that successfully.

Just like toys.

I consider art to be in the same category as toys - pure entertainment without practical use.

Pure entertainment is not art. Art is thought provoking and inspiring.

I consider provocation and inspiration to be in the same category as entertainment - a set of emotions that feel nice, but have no material value of any kind (because emotions aren't material themselves).

Themselves? Isn't that enough to call it practical?

Who cares? Fuck Fortune 500.

Sounds like you ran out of arguments for why Datalog is no better than Inform7, but you're too proud to admit this disrespectful sociopath was right and Datalog is indeed better than Inform7, as far as practical value goes.

Why did you say "would" and not "is"?

Because someone has to implement new I/O thing first? As in, it would be possible in the immediate future after that event.

No one has yet shown that Inform7 the language could be used to interact with those new I/O capabilities, even if someone took the effort and implemented those new I/O capabilities.

"Towards the center of the galaxy" (which includes your reference point Sol whose position is ambiguos) is not a direction.

Oh, that's where you're stuck at. Here, let me draw it out for you:

There's no west or east or north or south in space. When talking about things in the same galaxy, the center of galaxy is pretty much the only reference point that makes sense. And towards/away from center of galaxy absolutely can be used as a direction. Here, direction from Sol to Alpha Centauri is very close to the direction from Sol to the center of the galaxy - so you can say that Alpha Centauri is toward the center of the galaxy of Sol.

If you can't be sure, how can you know?

I can assume the worst just like you do with everything I say?

I'm not assuming anything. I say what I see. The only assumption I make is that things with similar features work in similar way. I allow the possibility that I'm totally wrong - but you haven't convinced me

You're asking me to tell that sentence to a 3 year old as part of an argument that it's not a problem that Inform7 wouldn't be able to parse that sentence. That sounds like Inform7 doesn't go beyond what a 3 year old is able of.

No, that sounds like you are incapable of putting together a sentence which even a 3 year old would understand.

I'm not talking to a 3 year old. I'm talking to a programming language interpreter (or compiler, or frontend, or whatever you want to call the part of the tech stack that takes raw source code and turns it into something that the computer can reason about). If the interpreter/compiler/frontend/whatever claims to understand natural language but can only parse sentences understandable by a 3 year old, it's a shitty language and will be pain to work in.

I haven't dismissed him out of prejudice of any kind. I've dismissed him out of not feeling like listening to music at the moment. I took your word that he's amazing and it didn't look like I have to verify further.

But then you can't talk with authority about whether he needs notes and theory for what he does, can you?

If I know what he does (and I know it from you), and know what it takes to do what he does (and I know it from observing people around me), I have everything I need to say whether he needs notes and theory for what he does.

Luhmann

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

I own Canon 5D Mark II and I can tell you are bullshitting.

I own a toilet and I can tell you, you are full of shit

Gurth

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

DSLR cameras are currently the equivalent of:—

https://storage.googleapis.com/xebia-blog/1/2015/03/toomuchfeatures.png

without the popup help.

After posting this yesterday, I realised it’s even worse. At least in a window like the above, each button only has one function. A DSLR is like the screenshot, except that the functions of many push-buttons change depending on the state of various on/off-buttons. So the  button normally saves your file, except if the B button is also pressed, in which case it doesn’t save your work but opens the paragraph settings window, or if you’re currently editing the page header or footer, when it will invert all colours, or …

Gurth

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

What IMHO they need, is a better user interface. DSLR cameras are currently the equivalent of:

I own Canon 5D Mark II and I can tell you are bullshitting.

And how long did it take you to not press the wrong buttons to set or do something you know it can but don’t use a lot?

Gąska

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

A DSLR is like the screenshot, except that the functions of many push-buttons change depending on the state of various on/off-buttons. So the  button normally saves your file, except if the B button is also pressed, in which case it doesn’t save your work but opens the paragraph settings window, or if you’re currently editing the page header or footer, when it will invert all colours, or …

So, Vim?

Parody

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

A DSLR is like the screenshot, except that the functions of many push-buttons change depending on the state of various on/off-buttons. So the  button normally saves your file, except if the B button is also pressed, in which case it doesn’t save your work but opens the paragraph settings window, or if you’re currently editing the page header or footer, when it will invert all colours, or …

So, Vim?

:q! (The other one being Ctrl-X then Ctrl-C.)

A long time ago I had a secondary account on an ISP/hosting service where their command line level help documentation started with "If you're stuck on a text editing screen, here's how to get out. If you actually want to edit a text file and you're still reading this page, use pico (filename)." Nothing was safe to use back then, though.

dkf

@admiral_p said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

And finally, 'cause boys will be boys

https://youtu.be/C_Xy_pD_Or8

FWIW, that piece of music is harmonically superb. A lovely complex series of chord shifts that pull you along, yet it definitely knows what key it's in too. Cracking stuff. Good melody and rhythm too. (The bass line isn't purely about the harmonies, but it's where it is usually easiest to hear them.)

I don't know whether @Benjamin-Hall thinks this sort of thing is pretentious. To me, it just sounds great fun.

kazitor

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gurth said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

DSLR cameras are currently the equivalent of:—

https://storage.googleapis.com/xebia-blog/1/2015/03/toomuchfeatures.png

without the popup help.

After posting this yesterday, I realised it’s even worse. At least in a window like the above, each button only has one function. A DSLR is like the screenshot, except that the functions of many push-buttons change depending on the state of various on/off-buttons. So the  button normally saves your file, except if the B button is also pressed, in which case it doesn’t save your work but opens the paragraph settings window, or if you’re currently editing the page header or footer, when it will invert all colours, or …

This is exactly how I feel about Photoshop. Coincidence?!

dkf

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There's no west or east or north or south in space.

You can have Discworld-like directions (e.g., “hubwards”, “turnwise”) but you have to define with respect to what given that there are multiple sane choices for reference points (e.g., the local star when you're in a solar system, Sagittarius A^* when you're in the galaxy at large). The meaning of directions in space is definitely complicated.

There are also north and south defined, which are used to define where you are with respect to the galactic plane. Or you might be thinking about magnetics, which are stupendously complicated in space to the point where you probably don't want to think about that stuff unless you are an astronomer, cosmologist or plasma physicist.

Gąska

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There are also north and south defined, which are used to define where you are with respect to the galactic plane.

They're defined relative to Sun. Which is quite arbitrary, and doesn't really work in @levicki's hypothetical scenario of talking to someone who never heard about Sol.

kazitor

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There are also north and south defined, which are used to define where you are with respect to the galactic plane.

They're defined relative to Sun.

No, they're just directions that run orthogonal to the galactic plane. It's actual values/positions of galactic longitude and latitude that are measured from the Sun specifically.

Galactic coordinate system - Wikipedia

Gąska

@kazitor said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@dkf said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

There are also north and south defined, which are used to define where you are with respect to the galactic plane.

They're defined relative to Sun.

No, they're just directions that run orthogonal to the galactic plane.

Oh. I misread the article. I thought north/south axis is parallel, not perpendicular to the galactic plane.

Steve_The_Cynic

@admiral_p said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Steve_The_Cynic the point of (lots of) pop music is that it sounds both fresh (production, arrangement) and familiar (actual song). (Lots of) rock music replaces fresh with energetic. Ultimately modern music is all in the performance. You go from simple, say, I-IV-V (maybe with a II or a VI added in somewhere) to more complex structures which still pivot onto tropes (eg. "now everything one step higher", or pedal-points or ostinato bass, which are typical of lots of funk and soul). Usually in pop music you spice things up by using sus/add/slash chords. The point of pop music is to sing along it. Rock music often doesn't even bother with spicing things up and it's just basic power chords or a basic blues line from start to finish.

But again, the point of this kind of music is not in their song structure. Very few pop and rock artists manage to make more complex music without appearing pretentious. One such act were the Beatles, but they had George Martin and friends to give them a hand. The Beach Boys were another one, but the result was Brian Wilson having a mental breakdown. Back in the '60s and '70s there was more orchestrated stuff. One of my favourite songs ever is this one:

You're not wrong, but frankly, . My comment was mostly a snide back-handed criticism of the general musical naivety and unoriginality of most pop music.

Benjamin Hall

@Steve_The_Cynic To which I would reply:

Original is not good. Derivative is not bad. Good is good, bad is bad.

Someone reportedly once wrote:

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccl. 1:9, NIV)

I'd rather have a competent rendition of an old standard over an experimental, original work that sounds awful. Like the vast majority of such pieces.

admiral_p

@Steve_The_Cynic for kicks, you should read my fellow Italian Piero Scaruffi.

The History of Rock Music. Beatles: biography, discography, reviews, ratings, best albums

He's a lovable self-satisfied prick. Bless him.

topspin

@Benjamin-Hall said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

Call me a philistine, but "complex" or "deep" music just doesn't do anything for me.

Wonder how much you'd hate my favorite band. "Deep" only as in "strange lyrics", but kind of complex. Matt Bellamy can play instruments like an absolute mad-man, upon first hearing it took me once or twice to go from "what cacophonous noise is this" to "that's beautiful". Not quite sure what a good example is, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMqsWc8muj8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1qzYsESDhc

Gąska

@levicki said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

@Gąska said in Microsoft debuts Bosque – a yet another pointless programming language:

...or if there's something you're not telling us and Inform7 really is ingenious in its approach to parsing, like not having keywords...

Where did you see keywords in Inform 7 (apart from publishing, gameplay, and map control stuff)? It is almost free-form text.

I'll take a random snippet of Inform 7 code and mark keywords with double angle brackets, using official documentation for reference (BTW - the grammar is really badly documented there; it's all over the place, mostly written with unsearchable natural language descriptions, and the BNF listings are largely incomplete):

The royal portrait <<is>> a reminder <<in>> the Green Bedroom. <<It>> <<is>> fixed in place. "The chief exception is the [royal portrait] on the wall[<<if>> the miniature is seen], hung at a height and in a position that reminds you of the miniature in the Zoo[<<end if>>]." The description <<is>> "A portrait of a young, arrogant king: not a prince, but one who inherited early and used his power from the beginning. He stares out with bitterness, perhaps even resentment." <<Instead of>> looking under the royal portrait: <<say>> "It is attached to the wall in the ordinary way, and there is nothing of interest behind." The memory <<of>> the royal portrait <<is>> "'That was me,' he told you. 'Before I was changed. Do you think I was handsome?'

As you can see, there's quite a few of them. And that's just for object descriptions - the actions have more of them, like "understand" and "as", "instead of", "before" and "after", "carry out", and a bunch of other strings that look like they're hardcoded in the language and not coming from game code.

And as I already said, 99% of what makes Inform7 good for text adventures is in the libraries (including standard library/runtime), not in the language itself.

Well you don't have clothing in the library for example, but language allows you to define it and if you read the example below you will see the kind of things that are possible.

You defined one object attribute and a couple of related actions in what's equivalent of 35 lines of code (number of individual sentences, or individual clauses in case of complex sentences). I'm not exactly impressed.

I sincerely doubt parsing is done with keywords here (actually I am sure it isn't

I should've made it a bet. Would be such easy money.

Also - if not keywords, what is parsing done with instead? Because the compiler has to know what kind of statement the programmer wrote somehow. And Inform 7 doesn't use non-alphabetic symbols much.

Playing games doesn't tell you anything about language.

It does tell you that the language exists for starters

It's kind of assumed that the language exists if we're talking about it.

then it also tells you what kinds of game mechanics can be implemented in it.

As I said in the part of my post that you cut out of the quote - that something can be and was implemented doesn't tell anything about the language either. Nearly all languages are Turing-complete. This means their capabilities as of what programs can be made with them are mostly interchangable.

I consider provocation and inspiration to be in the same category as entertainment

In other words, you lack empathy. You are like a machine, everything is the same to your cold, calculated mind.

Not at all. I like entertainment. As well as being provoked and inspired. I'm being driven by my emotions and I let my emotions drive me. I feel happiness and sadness, for myself and for others, and I value works of art that invoke these feelings. Does being consciously aware of how emotions work make me a lesser human being? Maybe. I don't care.

Sounds like you ran out of arguments

No I ran out of patience.

And yet you keep replying. It would be more believable if you said you ran out of patience before I called out your lack of arguments.

Oh, that's where you're stuck at. Here, let me draw it out for you:

What your drawing shows is that there are two directions involved in your "direction".

You missed the crucial part of the explanation - that the direction from Sol to Alpha Centauri is very close to the direction from Sol to the center of the galaxy. That makes these two directions basically the same direction.

Your second direction (Sol to the center of the galaxy) is implied instead of explained

The drawing was for you. I already know that you know what a galaxy is and what a center of a galaxy is and

and it is the reason no AI or language ever could parse it.

Does the language need to know what clothing is to understand that you can wear

There's no west or east or north or south in space.

There is north and south as others have shown you wrong.

Indeed they did. No need for you to repeat them.

And towards/away from center of galaxy absolutely can be used as a direction.

It can but it is meaningless without specifying latitude, longitude, and distance!

About as much as "west of London" is meaningless.

I'm not assuming anything...
...
If I know what he does (and I know it from you), and know what it takes to do what he does (and I know it from observing people around me), I have everything I need

Just keep telling that to yourself if it helps you sleep at night.

It doesn't. Tell me exactly where's the problem with my reasoning or fuck off and don't comment on it at all.

I'm talking to a programming language...

You are not, you are talking to a human on a forum and said human is telling you that what you are saying is not a good definition.

In case you don't remember - this whole subtopic was about how a compiler of natural-language programming language will have trouble parsing a sentence in natural language that it wasn't already prepared to understand in the exact form it's being used right now (post #80). Literally I'm talking to people on a forum, but the context was how hard (or easy) it is to communicate with a compiler.