Re: [wmii] 10kloc project, wmii maintainer change

On Wed, Jul 19, 2006 at 01:03:47PM -0400, Geoffrey Alan Washburn wrote:
> No it's because modern processors require complex optimizations to
> obtain optimal performance. So maybe you should be complaining to
> computer architects. Furthermore, have you ever written a interpreter
> or compiler? Do you really know what kind of complexity goes into one?
> Have you written an operating system kernel?

Actually, I wonder, why the tcc
(http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/) compiler for instance
produces faster code (through less optimizations), in much
lesser time (compiled a linux kernel on a reference machine in
<20s), than gcc? Beside having a binary in the end which is much
smaller than binaries compiled with -Os flag in gcc?

There is something seriously wrong.

> I'm not advocating Web Services as a paragon of abstraction, but
> clearly you seem to have not been educated on the concept of irreducible
> or Kolmogorov complexity. Some things are just complex. Period.

That's not the point. I agree that some things are really
complex. However, the majority of software does not need to be
complex, because the usual problems solved are not complex.

> >I doubt that I can do fewer data abstraction with C than withany other
> >language. What can't I do with C, but with another language?
>
> And this is exactly because you are ignorant. A common problem with
> open source software developers. Try educating yourself; very little
> software should be written in C.

No this is because C is turing complete. My statement wasn't
intended to imply that C is the best choice for everything, but
it should point out, that the language is less important than
the concepts.

> Again, this shows an considerable lack of understanding about
> different models of computation. Some problems are significantly easier
> when provided with the correct paradigm. Furthermore, different models
> of computation allow for much better simpler/compilers. My guess is
> that you've never actually tried programming in anything except for
> poorly designed effectful-imperative languages.

I claim that I developed small stuff in Prolog, Haskell, and
ocaml, but most stuff I did in Pascal, Ada, Java, C++ and C.
Thus I really think much more in imperative ways than
functional ones... And I'd like to do new stuff in other
languages.

> So you're telling me that gcc, ghc, Linux, *BSD, etc. are complete
> failures?

Bad ideals at least.

> Anyway, your response was pretty much what I expected, so
> I'm not going to bother debating further. Most open source
> developers are completely clueless when it comes to
> choosing the right tools for the job.

Well, I'm open minded. Tell me for following software projects
the right tools in your opinion:

Text editor :
IRC client :
X Terminal :
X Window Manager:
Wiki app :

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe  ><><  www.ebrag.de  ><><  GPG key: 0D73F361