←2003-04-19 2003-04-20 2003-04-21→ ↑2003 ↑all
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01:24:11 <gilbertdeb> hello
01:27:55 <lament> hi
01:28:16 <gilbertdeb> rebol?>
01:28:31 <gilbertdeb> is it esoteric?
01:28:53 <Taaus> It doesn't aim to be esoteric, AFAIK.
01:29:22 <gilbertdeb> does anyone here play with it?
01:29:30 <gilbertdeb> I couldn't think of any other chanels.
01:29:48 <gilbertdeb> ... except for pldi.
01:32:27 <lament> rebol is not esoteric at all.
01:32:44 <lament> Just obscure and weird :)
01:32:56 <Taaus> Hmm... Thin line, if you ask me ;)
01:33:16 <lament> I guess intent is important
01:33:38 <lament> rebol is obscure and weird despite the author's wishes
01:34:38 <Taaus> Hmm... So there's no such thing as an unintentionally esoteric language?
01:34:54 <deltab> I guess I have a more inclusive interpretation of 'esoteric' than you
01:35:17 <lament> Taaus: well, perhaps the author is a madman
01:35:23 <lament> Taaus: Which seems to be fairly common
01:35:31 <Taaus> I was just about to say that. Heh.
01:35:41 <lament> I guess a language constructed by a madman would be esoteric. Perhaps rebol can qualify for that.
01:35:52 <lament> s/would/could
01:36:04 <gilbertdeb> the author once(?) wrote a forth.
01:36:52 <lament> i don't think that's sufficient :)
01:36:58 <gilbertdeb> rebol qualifies then by reputation?
01:36:59 <gilbertdeb> it has to!
01:37:12 <lament> Forth is fairly esoteric, though
01:37:29 <gilbertdeb> you don't say :D
01:37:45 <gilbertdeb> htrofroloc even more so.
01:37:48 <deltab> yeah, I'd say there are different levels of esotericity
01:38:14 <lament> deltab: ranging from merely broken to transcendentally weird? :)
01:38:20 <deltab> yes
01:39:14 <Taaus> Who decides if a language is esoteric, though?
01:39:32 <lament> Oh, well, that is obvious.
01:39:34 <lament> I do. :)
01:41:04 <lament> Esotericity is fuzzy.
01:41:11 <gilbertdeb> are j/k esoteric enough?
01:41:19 <Taaus> And probably NP-complete as well ;)
01:41:28 <lament> j/k?
01:41:40 <gilbertdeb> jsoftware.com kx.com
01:41:41 <Taaus> J and K.
01:41:53 <lament> I wonder if a useable language can be considered esoteric.
01:42:05 <gilbertdeb> they are useable by their authors for sure.
01:42:06 <lament> Something like Haskell
01:42:07 <Taaus> They are pretty esoteric, I guess... But they do have a lot of usability.
01:42:35 <lament> hm
01:42:41 <Taaus> I've used J. It is... Interesting :)
01:42:45 <lament> Some languages are esoteric because they're intentionally obfuscated
01:42:59 <Taaus> But it never occured to me to label J as esoteric.
01:43:09 <deltab> I'd call J esoteric
01:43:12 <lament> Others are esoteric because they use wacky concepts
01:43:27 <lament> Does J use wacky concepts? :)
01:43:27 <Taaus> So I guess APL is esoteric as well?
01:43:40 <gilbertdeb> Taaus: what did you use j for?
01:44:27 <Taaus> gilbertdeb: Oh, just small things... Messing around with various mathematical calculations with matrices and whatnot... I gave up trying to use it for anything big.
01:44:48 <gilbertdeb> I tried to mess around with it too.
01:44:59 <gilbertdeb> but my skills in matrices were severely lacking.
01:45:24 <lament> matrices seem to be such an ugly thing to base a language on.
01:45:34 <gilbertdeb> lament: it is based on arrays.
01:45:45 <gilbertdeb> so you can do something like 2 + [arraylist]
01:46:21 <gilbertdeb> and because of that you don't have to explicitly write many loops.
01:46:21 <gilbertdeb> you could get away with just one in a major application.
01:47:05 <lament> arrays are tremendously ugly as well :)
01:47:31 <gilbertdeb> which is why k, inspired by apl, bases its stuff on lists.
01:47:40 <gilbertdeb> lament: therefore j/apl qualify!!
01:47:58 <lament> why?
01:48:09 <Taaus> I liked the / (over) and \ (prefix) modifiers... But I couldn't get used to referring to them as 'adjectives'... Actually none of the 'grammatical' nomenclature really clicked with me...
01:48:09 <lament> Tremendous ugliness doesn't make a language esoteric.
01:48:14 <lament> C++ is not esoteric.
01:48:15 <gilbertdeb> it doesn't?
01:48:20 <gilbertdeb> hmmm.
01:48:28 <lament> Although Perl almost is.
01:48:50 <gilbertdeb> Taaus: the uglier it is, the more english like they claim it actually is.
01:48:51 <Taaus> I disagree... Perl is way too widely used to be called esoteric, IMO.
01:49:05 <SamB> heh!
01:49:20 <SamB> Taaus: maybe thats why he said almost
01:50:09 <lament> Perl is one of the languages where obfuscation comes naturally
01:50:28 <Taaus> SamB: Well, yes... But there's a difference of at least a few orders of magnitude between the number of Perl users and the number of users of esolangs... And I wouldn't call that 'almost' :)
01:50:53 <lament> Taaus: but they don't even suspect it's an esoteric language!
01:51:04 <Taaus> Hehe.
01:51:08 <SamB> yeah, it creeps up on you from behind and grabs you
01:51:10 <lament> Many are called, few are chosen
01:51:43 <lament> Many people who are into Scientology don't suspect how fucked up it is, either
01:52:10 <SamB> heh
01:52:13 <lament> And Perl is written by a madman :)
01:52:43 <SamB> does everyone know about it but scientologists?
01:53:01 <lament> Probably.
01:53:08 <Taaus> lament: Designed by a madman, written by several madmen, I'd say ;)
01:53:35 <lament> Taaus: Well, now it's being designed by the collective insanity of the whole world :)
01:54:11 <SamB> Taaus: scientology... I think scientology only had *on* madman...
01:55:31 <Taaus> Sure.. I'm still talking about Perl :)
01:56:21 <lament> Suppose I make a language based on some wacky concept, with no intention of it being actually used
01:56:27 <lament> And then it turns out to be the next big thing
01:56:32 <lament> Will it be esoteric?
01:57:08 <Taaus> I'd say no.
01:57:11 <deltab> no
01:57:33 <lament> damn
01:57:39 <lament> then i won't do it :)
01:57:57 <gilbertdeb> does esotericity require a small user base?
01:58:00 <Taaus> I'm not sure whether I should be relieved or disappointed ;)
01:58:48 <lament> gilbertdeb: Depends on what you think of as 'user'
01:59:05 <lament> gilbertdeb: what happened to bsd?
01:59:09 <gilbertdeb> the human writers/thinkers/speakers.
01:59:14 <gilbertdeb> oh 'tis a sad story.
01:59:28 <gilbertdeb> the installer wouldn't boot on this machine :(
01:59:33 <gilbertdeb> and debian seduced me.
01:59:42 <lament> I've written 'hello world' in smalltalk; am i a smalltalk user?
02:00:06 <gilbertdeb> lament: I've said 'hello' in japanese, am I a speaker of japanese?
02:00:08 <SamB> lament: not really
02:00:14 <lament> gilbertdeb: i'm asking you :)
02:00:30 <lament> gilbertdeb: because your definition of 'user' sucks
02:00:39 <SamB> you haven't done anything you couldn't have more easily done in another language
02:00:49 <gilbertdeb> it is not sucky, it just allows a lot of fluff in.
02:00:51 <SamB> (with the smalltalk one, that is)
02:00:54 <lament> My mother is a human writer/thinker/speaker
02:01:04 <lament> She never heard of smalltalk, but she would be a smalltalk user by your definition.
02:01:10 <deltab> it's fuzzy
02:01:30 <gilbertdeb> user of language X.
02:01:33 <gilbertdeb> X being anything.
02:01:43 <gilbertdeb> any programming language that is.
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←2003-04-19 2003-04-20 2003-04-21→ ↑2003 ↑all