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Aydan wrote:
> "scott" <sco### [at] scott com> wrote:
>>> - C and Prolog appeared at the same time. This doesn't make a lot of
>>> sense. C is a crude, simplistic low-level bit-twiddling langauge, while
>>> Prolog is a powerful high-level logic manipulation language. If there
>>> were computers capable of running Prolog, why did C need to exist?
>> Speed?
>
> How'd you imagine writing libraries for said high level logic manipulation
> language to interface hardware? Assembler? I'd think C is your best bet there
> since it's low level enough to do the bit twiddling to control hardware and high
> level enough to not be a PITA.
>
> Just my 2 cents
>
Depends on the processor, and your memory limits. Even C didn't do you
any good if you had to cram stuff in a tiny chunk of memory, and still
have it work. Nearly everything on Apple IIs was done in assembly.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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> C was basically portable assembly for the original Unix.
...and yet, it doesn't make it especially easy to do low-level stuff.
>> - Smalltalk was doing OOP before home computers were even *invented*,
>> and yet it wasn't until 20 _years_ later that commercial products like
>> TP 5.5 and Delphi started to take the idea mainstream.
>
> Smalltalk is actually from about 1977 or something, isn't it?
Yes. Very ancient, as the chart shows.
>> - SQL existed 15 years before high-capacity storage devices appeared.
>
> My uncle said that back then, they created ad-hoc, file-based database
> management systems by themselves. People were much bolder back then. :)
But what did dthey *store* these files on? Punch cards?!
>> - Haskell was invented back when people were still using green screens
>> and MS-DOS. It brings a slight chill to my spine to know that way back
>> when I was still coding with AMOS Professional, minds immeasurably
>> superior to ours had already constructed the most powerful programming
>> language known.
>
> Are you talking about Miranda? Yes, it was the spiritual basis for
> Haskell.
Haskell 1.0 is 1990. I guess green-screens is stretching it a litle, but
lots of people were still using MS-DOS regularly long after that date.
(And writing stuff in QBASIC and similar.)
Miranda, of course, is even older. (See the chart.)
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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>
>> XSLT is definitely turing-complete.
>>
>> http://www.unidex.com/turing/utm.htm
>
> So is PostScript, but nobody uses that for anything except page
> descriptions.
Well, I once wrote a PS program to compute fractals...
In any case, PostScript /is/ a full-fledged programming language, and
was always intended to be. You /could/ do other stuff with it if you
really wanted to, and it wouldn't be /too/ difficult once you got into
it (except for obvious limitations regarding the user interface).
XSLT on the other hand was originally designed as a /query/ language,
and it is only through extensions to the basic concept that it
(accidently, not by design) happens to be Turing complete. You really
have to abuse the language to write generic programs with it, and in- &
output will be your least problems.
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>>> XSLT is definitely turing-complete.
>>
>> So is PostScript, but nobody uses that for anything except page
>> descriptions.
>
> Well, I once wrote a PS program to compute fractals...
>
> In any case, PostScript /is/ a full-fledged programming language, and
> was always intended to be.
According to Wikipedia, it was always designed to be a page-description
language.
(I've read that there are in fact GUI systems powered by PS...)
> XSLT on the other hand was originally designed as a /query/ language,
> and it is only through extensions to the basic concept that it
> (accidently, not by design) happens to be Turing complete. You really
> have to abuse the language to write generic programs with it, and in- &
> output will be your least problems.
SQL was originally designed as a query language too. (Well, technically,
a data definition and manipulation language, which isn't precisely the
same thing.) Various people have made it Turing-complete in incompatible
ways though...
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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
>>> - PostScript was invented 10 years before laser printers existed. (It
>>> was apparently designed specifically with laser printers in mind, as
>>> I had always believed.)
>>
>> You're wrong here: The first laser printer dates back to 1969, while
>> even the roots of PostScript date no further back than 1976.
>> Furthermore, the language was initially targeted at the offset
>> printing industry to drive Computer-to-Film imagesetters, and was only
>> later adapted to laser printers.
>
> Wikipedia suggests that it was developed specifically for laser
> printing. (I may be wrong on the date that laser printers were
> *invented*, but they did not become common until very, very much later.
> Not unlike C++, apparently...)
Well, /my/ Wikipedia claims otherwise - see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript#History:
"Warnock left with Chuck Geschke and founded Adobe Systems in December
1982. They created a simpler language, similar to InterPress, called
PostScript, which went on the market in 1984. At about this time they
were visited by Steve Jobs, who urged them to /adapt PostScript to be
used as the language for driving laser printers/."
(emphasis added)
Laser printers were originally invented not for quality, but for sheer
speed (I guess they were the first printers to feature only rotating
parts, with no linear movement whatsoever, so no acceleration was needed
when "geared up" for printing), and were found at data centers for quite
a while.
And, as mentioned, there were other areas of use for PostScript before that.
>> - Perl predates the Internet by half a decade. (WTF?) I can only imagine
>>> it began life as a Unixy text-munging system in the style of awk,
>>> sed, etc.
>>
>> You surely mean it predates the /World Wide Web/ by half a decade.
>
> Before the WWW, nobody outside the millitary knew the Internet existed.
Many university students did, and certainly virtually all informatics
students. The Internet had long grown beyond its roots in the ARPANET
into the scientific world, as a tool for file and e-mail transfer as
well as remote access to other universities' data centers. First
commercial use of Internet dates back to 1988. Usenet became part of the
Internet before the WWW era, too. Porn was exchanged via the internet on
a more-or-less regular basis years before the first HTTP server was set up.
>>> - JavaScript predates Java. (WTF?!)
>>
>> ... under the titles "Mocha" and later "LiveScript", yes. The name
>> JavaScript wasn't coined until December 1995 - when Java was already
>> released to the public (not in 1996, as your chart implies) - probably
>> in an attempt to benefit from the Java hype of those days.
>
> What do you mean "probably"? ;-) The language is utterly unrelated to
> Java in any way...
Well, "probably" in the sense of "sounds pretty likely, even though
nobody can give proof".
> I mean the Internet becoming known by the general public. ("The
> Internet" can be traced back to a secret classified military project
> which was probably around for *decades* before this, knowing the US
> millitary...)
That would have been the ARPANET, with the first data link being
established in 1969.
However, that's just the root of the /technology/. The first nucleus of
the actual network that later came to be known as the Internet - the
NSFNET - was established in 1985 (with a 56 kBit/s backbone - imagine
that!), linking 6 university computing centers.
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Invisible schrieb:
>> In any case, PostScript /is/ a full-fledged programming language, and
>> was always intended to be.
>
> According to Wikipedia, it was always designed to be a page-description
> language.
I'd rather say, a "page-description programming language".
The whole structure of the language indicates that Turing-completeness
wasn't just something added later - it quite clearly seems to have been
in there right from the start.
/Conceptually/ it has always been a full-fledged programming language,
even though the initial /use case/ was of course page description.
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Invisible schrieb:
>> My uncle said that back then, they created ad-hoc, file-based database
>> management systems by themselves. People were much bolder back then. :)
>
> But what did dthey *store* these files on? Punch cards?!
Exchangable hard disk drives (around since 1956)? Magnetic tape (used in
the computing world since the 1950's, after having already seen decades
of service for analog signal recording)?
You're underestimating the historic arsenal of data storage - and
possibly overestimating the volume of data processed back then.
AFAIK punchcards and punch tape were used primarily for data input and
output, not data storage (though of course they could double-feature as
a backup of the input or output data). Data storage was instead
typically done on magnetic tapes.
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clipka wrote:
> Many university students did, and certainly virtually all informatics
> students.
ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1.txt
By 1969, there were already open standards processes talking about how to
improve the internet. Both universities, telephone companies, and computer
manufacturers knew about it.
Now, you needed a special dedicated computer just to keep up with a
56kilobit connection, but that doesn't mean anybody didn't know about it.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Invisible escreveu:
>> C was basically portable assembly for the original Unix.
>
> ...and yet, it doesn't make it especially easy to do low-level stuff.
It doesn't?
>> Smalltalk is actually from about 1977 or something, isn't it?
>
> Yes. Very ancient, as the chart shows.
Please don't call me ancient. :P
>>> - SQL existed 15 years before high-capacity storage devices appeared.
>>
>> My uncle said that back then, they created ad-hoc, file-based database
>> management systems by themselves. People were much bolder back then. :)
>
> But what did dthey *store* these files on? Punch cards?!
Magnetic tapes, in the 1970's. Magnetic tapes, in the form of cassette
tapes were also available for home use, as MSX and perhaps C64 owners
may remember.
>> Are you talking about Miranda? Yes, it was the spiritual basis for
>> Haskell.
>
> Haskell 1.0 is 1990. I guess green-screens is stretching it a litle, but
> lots of people were still using MS-DOS regularly long after that date.
> (And writing stuff in QBASIC and similar.)
>
> Miranda, of course, is even older. (See the chart.)
Your concept of old reminds me of childhood. I was a youth in 1990 so
it doesn't seem that old to me. :)
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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>>> C was basically portable assembly for the original Unix.
>>
>> ...and yet, it doesn't make it especially easy to do low-level stuff.
>
> It doesn't?
I mean, sure, it has support for twiddling bits and stuff. But you'd
think if you were doing low-level work, you would have a way to
explicitly say how many bits you want to use. Yet C provides no such
facility. Every CPU I know of provides an instruction to check for
sign-overflow, but C ignores overflows by default, and provides no way
to check for them if you want to. (Besides manually testing the operands
before doing the operation.)
> Please don't call me ancient. :P
Ancient. :-P
>>>> - SQL existed 15 years before high-capacity storage devices appeared.
>>>
>>> My uncle said that back then, they created ad-hoc, file-based
>>> database management systems by themselves. People were much bolder
>>> back then. :)
>>
>> But what did dthey *store* these files on? Punch cards?!
>
> Magnetic tapes, in the 1970's. Magnetic tapes, in the form of cassette
> tapes were also available for home use, as MSX and perhaps C64 owners
> may remember.
The concept of performing a multi-table join where the tables are all
stored on magnetic tape scares me. o_O
My God, it could take months...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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