Things you hate about coding.....

[Bobby]

Languages with poor documentation and too small of communities for the resources to amount to anything. I've been doing some with the Io language recently. Great language, its concurrency support is bar none, but the documentation is virtually nonexistent.

[xcessive]

Dec 7, 2010 23:21:02 GMT Bobby said:

Languages with poor documentation and too small of communities for the resources to amount to anything. I've been doing some with the Io language recently. Great language, its concurrency support is bar none, but the documentation is virtually nonexistent.

I Googled Io. It looks interesting, and a bit like SmallTalk. The C++ integration is intriguing and I saw mention of using it via CGI..................................?

[Cam]

I've never heard of lo!

[hbk]

Then look it up.

[Bobby]

Dec 8, 2010 1:32:07 GMT xcessive said:

Dec 7, 2010 23:21:02 GMT Bobby said:

Languages with poor documentation and too small of communities for the resources to amount to anything. I've been doing some with the Io language recently. Great language, its concurrency support is bar none, but the documentation is virtually nonexistent.

I Googled Io. It looks interesting, and a bit like SmallTalk. The C++ integration is intriguing and I saw mention of using it via CGI..................................?

Io has a lot of similarities with SmallTalk and Lisp. Like SmallTalk and Ruby, everything in Io is an object. Io is a prototype OOP language, which means you never actually write any classes. Rather, when creating new objects you're always cloning something else. At the most generic level it's going to be Object. And like SmallTalk, Io uses a messaging system which can be chained. For example:

#!/usr/bin/env io

Mother := Object clone do (
  genes ::= "Her genes"
)

Father := Object clone do (
  genes ::= "His genes"
)

Child := Mother Father clone do (
  genes ::= "Their genes"
)

baby := Child clone
baby genes println

That example demonstrates multiple inheritance (Child inherits both Mother and Father). It also shows how the message chaining works at the end. The println method is being called "in context" of genes, which is called in context of the baby object.

Io has decent bindings to C++. Which makes sense though because Io is very small without any addons. Functionality such as large numbers (BigNum), sockets, threading, etc. doesn't exist by default. You need to install that functionality through addons. And all of these addons, which are typically included by default in many languages, use very similar bindings to what you would use to extend Io as an application-specific scripting engine. In that regard it's similar to Lua.

As for the CGI- Io supports it through an addon. Right now though there is no Apache DSO to handle Io. Thus its efficiency is quite sub par. But you can still tell Apache to treat .io files as a CGI script (AddHandler cgi-script .io).

Using the CGI addon

#!/usr/local/bin/io

cgi := CGI clone

cgi header ("Content-type", "text/html")
cgi sendHeaders

# GET
if (cgi getParameters size > 0) then (
  cgi getParameters foreach (k, v,
    cgi write (k .. " => " .. v .. "<br />")
  )
)

# POST
if (cgi postParameters size > 0) then (
  cgi postParameters foreach (k, v,
    cgi write (k .. " => " .. v .. "<br />")
  )
)

Without CGI addon

#!/usr/local/bin/io

writeln ("Content-type: text/html\n\n")

# GET parameters
envs := System getEnvironmentVariable ("QUERY_STRING") split ("&")
if (envs size > 0) then (
  envs foreach (v,
    param := v split ("=")
    writeln (param at (0) .. " => " .. param at (1) .. "<br />")
  )
)

# POST parameters
post := File standardInput readLines
if (post size > 0) then (
  post foreach (v,
    param := v split ("=")
    writeln (param at (0) .. " => " .. param at (1) .. "<br />")
  )
)

Functionally, both of the above are identical. The CGI addon obviously offers much cleaner code. It also handles parsing HTML entities for you. In the second example the string "Hello!" would display as "Hello%21" because of the exclamation mark. But all in all, the differences are minimal and you could get by without using the CGI addon if you so desired.

[xcessive]

Dec 8, 2010 15:35:27 GMT Bobby said:

Dec 8, 2010 1:32:07 GMT xcessive said:

I Googled Io. It looks interesting, and a bit like SmallTalk. The C++ integration is intriguing and I saw mention of using it via CGI..................................?

Io has a lot of similarities with SmallTalk and Lisp. Like SmallTalk and Ruby, everything in Io is an object. Io is a prototype OOP language, which means you never actually write any classes. Rather, when creating new objects you're always cloning something else. At the most generic level it's going to be Object. And like SmallTalk, Io uses a messaging system which can be chained. For example:

#!/usr/bin/env io

Mother := Object clone do (
  genes ::= "Her genes"
)

Father := Object clone do (
  genes ::= "His genes"
)

Child := Mother Father clone do (
  genes ::= "Their genes"
)

baby := Child clone
baby genes println

That example demonstrates multiple inheritance (Child inherits both Mother and Father). It also shows how the message chaining works at the end. The println method is being called "in context" of genes, which is called in context of the baby object.

Io has decent bindings to C++. Which makes sense though because Io is very small without any addons. Functionality such as large numbers (BigNum), sockets, threading, etc. doesn't exist by default. You need to install that functionality through addons. And all of these addons, which are typically included by default in many languages, use very similar bindings to what you would use to extend Io as an application-specific scripting engine. In that regard it's similar to Lua.

As for the CGI- Io supports it through an addon. Right now though there is no Apache DSO to handle Io. Thus its efficiency is quite sub par. But you can still tell Apache to treat .io files as a CGI script (AddHandler cgi-script .io).

Using the CGI addon

#!/usr/local/bin/io

cgi := CGI clone

cgi header ("Content-type", "text/html")
cgi sendHeaders

# GET
if (cgi getParameters size > 0) then (
  cgi getParameters foreach (k, v,
    cgi write (k .. " => " .. v .. "<br />")
  )
)

# POST
if (cgi postParameters size > 0) then (
  cgi postParameters foreach (k, v,
    cgi write (k .. " => " .. v .. "<br />")
  )
)

Without CGI addon

#!/usr/local/bin/io

writeln ("Content-type: text/html\n\n")

# GET parameters
envs := System getEnvironmentVariable ("QUERY_STRING") split ("&")
if (envs size > 0) then (
  envs foreach (v,
    param := v split ("=")
    writeln (param at (0) .. " => " .. param at (1) .. "<br />")
  )
)

# POST parameters
post := File standardInput readLines
if (post size > 0) then (
  post foreach (v,
    param := v split ("=")
    writeln (param at (0) .. " => " .. param at (1) .. "<br />")
  )
)

Functionally, both of the above are identical. The CGI addon obviously offers much cleaner code. It also handles parsing HTML entities for you. In the second example the string "Hello!" would display as "Hello%21" because of the exclamation mark. But all in all, the differences are minimal and you could get by without using the CGI addon if you so desired.

Looks like an intriguing language although the lack of DSO is a bummer. Still I am interested in learning this, although as you said there is poor documentation. It could be really useful as it binds well to C++ and I've been looking for an alternative to Lua.

Where would I start?

[Bobby]

Dec 9, 2010 1:01:01 GMT xcessive said:

Looks like an intriguing language although the lack of DSO is a bummer. Still I am interested in learning this, although as you said there is poor documentation. It could be really useful as it binds well to C++ and I've been looking for an alternative to Lua.

Where would I start?

www.iolanguage.com/

There is no Windows binary, so you'll need to build from the source if that's what you use. The guide and reference on the site are decent. But they're not comprehensive. Certainly not what I'd expect to see for a programming language.

[Nick]

I hate when things don't work right. (the first time)

[xcessive]

Dec 9, 2010 5:05:24 GMT Nick said:

I hate when things don't work right. (the first time)

Then maybe coding isn't for you. Things never work the first time.

[hbk]

Dec 9, 2010 5:05:24 GMT Nick said:

I hate when things don't work right. (the first time)

But that is what makes it fun, unless it happens too many times then it's frustrating.

[prads]

If it happens too many times, you seriously need to reconsider your design.

[Cam]

Dec 9, 2010 10:19:53 GMT xcessive said:

Dec 9, 2010 5:05:24 GMT Nick said:

I hate when things don't work right. (the first time)

Then maybe coding isn't for you. Things never work the first time.

Some things do work the first time..... ;D

[John Wankel]

Dec 9, 2010 10:39:29 GMT @hbk said:

Dec 9, 2010 5:05:24 GMT Nick said:

I hate when things don't work right. (the first time)

But that is what makes it fun, unless it happens too many times then it's frustrating.

Yeah, things not working is part of coding.

[edenwax]

xD Debugging sucks, yes. Especially when something isnt working and you find its just a small mistyped variable or symbol.. But it's just a part of coding.

[John Wankel]

It's annoying in JS when you start your code like this:

<script>
<!--

And end it with

</script>

And it doesn't work as you left //--> out by mistake

[Jordan]

I find logical errors to be the most annoying since they are the hardest to debug and locate. Once you've done a good amount of coding, syntactic problems disappear for you unless you are learning a new language, but even then it's usually not hard to figure out what you are doing wrong. When you have a logical error in your code there's a good chance that you won't have any idea as to where you messed up.