Evil Plolyglot programmer ploy

We had a share-session on Polyglot programming the other day, after Mark returned from SDWest 2008.

Tonight, I had an evil thought:

Half of these languages are ones most in the audience have neither seen nor played with--what if you added some "trick" language names to the slides to see how full of crap your audience was. It's a play on the same allegory from "The Emperor's New Clothes":


"...yes, and so your application logic should be components written in a systems language like java [sic], with the higher-level being in a dynamic language like JavaScript, Ruby, or Dimebag."

"Dimebag?

"Yes, you've surely heard of it! It's a language represented using flickr images manipulated using 4D Holographic gloves that parallelize any algorithm using only 2 lines of code. And it compiles down to machine independent machine code."

...

"Oh yeah, I've heard of that. Just testing you."

Manager: "Say, could we rewrite the dashboard in Dimebag? Sounds very interesting."



I'm all for knowing several languages with different target domains, but one jarring thing about my time spent in Win32 land: The developers typically know C and C++, and that's it. And that's all they NEED to know, since they're conentrating on the problem at hand, not the newest way to rewrite quicksort in fewer lines. (Yes, yes...I'm a languages fanboi, sue me!)

There's much to be said for people who concentrate on solving the problem first, then focus on how to solve it in the best, fastest, most maintainable way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Southeast Christian Church Easter Pageant

Easter Pageant?! What is this, amateur hour? Who cares about some piddly church passion play? What's next, "Best Little Christmas Pageant Ever"? How's this for Piddly: Two professional composers, a 9000 seat auditorium, 75,000 tickets over a month-long run, a 300 person chorous, two IMAX-size video screens. Traditionally, Southeast's Easter Pageant has been the biggest theatrical production in Louisville. They took a year off to retool and rework it, comissioning a rework from the ground up. Whereas the previous iteration had been a "cast of thousands" broadway-style production, they wanted something...different. Hoo-boy, it was different. Let's talk about "theatre" that is 1/2 movie, 1/2 live action. Apparently, they shot it at a quarry during last year's drought, and it looks pretty good. Still, I didn't like it...distracting and interrupts the flow. Likes It's not the same program they've put on for
Read more

Driving for the Cure...? (Or, how I got blacklisted...)

Image
Let me summarize: I got asked to leave and not come back. I was asked to LEAVE A CHARITY EVENT and not return. This is not a proud story, but I'm learning to deal with it. Here goes: I got to Don Jacobs BMW around 1:15 and signed my waiver with my information (including my cell phone #). They had all sorts of BMW's to drive, from Z4 roadsters to 3-, 5-, 6-, and 7-series cars, all with different engines and Rear- and All-wheel-drive configurations. I was in heaven. The place was busy, but I was interested in driving only one car for my first drive, a BMW 335i coupe (E92 in BMW parlance). This was THE car, BMW's first turbo passenger car in 20+ years, twin-turbocharged and tractable. So, I put my name in and waited patiently, watching the crew of permatan 20-somethings shuffling people in and out of the 18 cars, wagons, and SUVs they brought. This was a much bigger event than the last one I attended on a lark back in 2001. After about an hour, Gal in the White Cap ca
Read more

No, I don't have Connective Tissue Disorder

subtitle: OWWWWWWWWW! So, Whitney and I were hanging out last night, practicing some of her Bradly exercises, specifically Tailor Sitting . As we sat there, we were discussing flexibility and she said I should lean forward from my 90-degree position as far as I could. I leaned at about a 45 degree angle and finally felt a little stretch in my behind, so I kept going. Turns out, I could bend all the way forward, still in the seated position and touch my nose to the carpet. She was suitably impressed... ...Then I got up this morning, and every piece of connective tissue from my lower back to my knees hurt. =-) Seems I'm not that flexible, after all.
Read more