Stop coding Pascal ...emotional sketch about past, present and future of programming languages, Python, compilers, developers, Life, Universe and Everything
Saturday, April 6, 13
About me
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Alexey Kachayev
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Erlang, Python, Scala, Clojure, Go, Haskell
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@kachayev
CTO at KitApps Inc. Open source activist Functional programming advocate
kachayev <$> gmail github.com/kachayev/fn.py
Einstein problem solving principle
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So, next 55 minutes we will talk about the core of the problems
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What are we going to talk about?
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difference between syntax and semantic
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imperative code: when and WHY?
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machine VS language: problems and solutions
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where did Python features come from
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what is the current problem
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why should I care?
Simple task count of unique substring
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Pascal
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* just sample... it’s really hard to show Pascal version in slide
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Python v.1
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Python v.2
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Haskell
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What the difference is?
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“pascal” VS “python.v1” syntax (mostly)
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“python.v1” VS “python.v2” - semantic
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“python.v2” VS “haskell” (mostly) syntax (*)
* iterators VS. lazy-evaluation is a different story Saturday, April 6, 13
Let’s dig deeper
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Why is Haskell code so compact?
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transformations compositions * unix way, BTW
Where did all these i, j, k come from?
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Instructions VS.
Transformations
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... and deeper
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Turing machine VS.
λ-calculus
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Turing machine
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infinite memory instructions (finite)
λ - calculus
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terms abstraction application β-reduction
The are many application operators in Haskell, ML
application abstraction
(λx.2 * x + 1) 3 β-reduction
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Q: “How it’s possible that everything is a transformation?”
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A: “Have you ever thought about how (4+5-2*9) works?”
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Hardware & compiler VS.
Programming language
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What the problem is? “reusability” && “composability” ... oh, off course modularity matters, but we created many ways to split our programs since goto
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Imperative
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hard to reuse/compose (context)
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hard to test (context)
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parallelism is impossible
“interactive style” is hard it’s not the language that I want to talk
... but it’s widespread ... but it’s common ... but it’s hard to see the root of the problems (“Vietnam”)
Imperative advantages(?)
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algorithms O(*) - the same
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low level optimization? oh, not in Python
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manual memory control? - oh, not in Python
Set theory
Logic combinators
Type theory
AST-base
λ-calculus as PL
Lisp (family)
Python
ABC
SETL
Pascal
λ-notation λ-calculus ML (family) Haskell С
Algol 60/8
Fortran Speedcoding Assembly Turing machine Saturday, April 6, 13
OCaml
When somebody tells you that each language is sugar over Turing machine... do not believe
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Python * ast/abt ** sequence-based semantic Saturday, April 6, 13
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mostly imperative, but...
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lambdas (*)
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generators (**)
higher-ordered functions (*)
no for(i=0;i<10;i++) (**) iterators (**) map/filter/zip/itertools (**)
futures (concurrency, tulip)
Move on to more practical questions * starting from easiest: looking for high-level patterns
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http://wrongsideofmemphis.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/screen-shot-2013-03-23-at-12-32-17.png
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Do you see the patterns?
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Do you see the patterns?
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Do you see the patterns?
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Do you see the patterns?
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Do you see the patterns?
* we already talked that loops do not compose Saturday, April 6, 13
Do you see the patterns?
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Not only syntax...
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transformations instead of instructions
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reduction declarations without dealing with application
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reuse pure function in some context (functor)
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high(er) level of composability
When syntax sucks...
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Iterators is not only about lists ... this is the semantic way to think about possible solutions
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Only last function matters ... other functions are common and you can find them in Python documentation or implemented in Fn.py library
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More examples Lazy evaluation and declarative approach: http://kachayev.github.com/talks/
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What stuff do you know about?
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• • • • • • • • • •
iterators generators lazy-evaluation undelimited continuations delimited continuations coroutines macros monads “staging” “deref scope”
What stuff do you use in code?
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• • • • • • • • • •
iterators generators lazy-evaluation undelimited continuations delimited continuations coroutines macros monads “staging” “deref scope”
What stuff do you want to use?
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• • • • • • • • • •
iterators generators lazy-evaluation undelimited continuations delimited continuations coroutines macros monads “staging” “deref scope”
I saw many coroutines during conference talks
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I never saw coroutines in real-life projects
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Can you describe* coroutine advantages? * using one word
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Can you describe coroutine disadvantages?
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What the problem is?
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easy to start with simplest stuff (it’s cool, but don’t stop!)
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habits, traditions (???)
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syntax doesn’t support non-imperative semantic (“for” is only one good example of support, “yield from” is also cool) (**)
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internal contradictions (***)
mutable variables and assignments dictate (*)
Can you see semantic under the syntax?
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https://gist.github.com/e000/1023982
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Are you getting on a bit?
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Can you see ABT under your AST?
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I don’t want you to write code this way I just want you to understand how it works and why it’s possible
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BTW, it’s common pattern in JS code...
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yield from is not only the new syntax! Saturday, April 6, 13
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It’s all about composition. Saturday, April 6, 13
You can (*) write pointfree (**) code * you just don’t have readable syntax to do this ** applyTwice is good example to show
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Isn’t this wonderful?
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Contra
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no composition syntax!!!
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no recursion!!!
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oh, I know! recursion = fold + unfold :)
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no fold!!! we have list comprehensions
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but... LC = map&filter... okay...
okay... def new function (not readable enough)
okay... the list is...? iterators is...?
Code vs. Ideas So now reduce(). This is actually the one I've always hated most, ... almost every time I see a reduce() call with a non-trivial function argument, I need to grab pen and paper to diagram... it's better to write out the accumulation loop explicitly. (c) Guido Van Rossum
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fold / unfold ... dig deeper
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Everybody knows this examples... Saturday, April 6, 13
Dig deeper. Saturday, April 6, 13
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I want you to think about semantic
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In 5 years Python will solve other problems
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In 5 years Python should (*) solve other problems * technologies are changing very fast Saturday, April 6, 13
Is Python ready to be a cutting-edge language?
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Are you ready?
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Questions? * other talks: https://kachayev.github.com/talks ** fn.py: https://github.com/kachayev/fn.py Saturday, April 6, 13
