Catchup

It has been far too long since I have posted last.

Programming Languages of the Moment:

• Factor – a stack based language reminisent to me of the the language of the HP calculators I grew up with. It is roughly analogous to Forth as Java is to C. That is, it is a high-level object based language rather than a low-level bit oriented language. I like the way stack based languages deal with data flow. If you look at it the right way, it is possible to think about data flow much the same way it works in shell script filters, where data is passed from one function to the next implicitly.

• Haskell – one of the most mathematically oriented languages I’ve seen. I really like how much it feels like the kind of mathematics I dealt with studying set theory. It feels like it could deal with really hard problems.

I’m kind of looking at both at the same time. It’s a little hard for me to say where I would use each at this point. Factor is easier to play with, but I’m not sure if I trust it to be as maintainable as Haskell. Both seem like great languages, and both will let you get stuff done with far fewer lines of code than languages like C and Java.