

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>0:00</time>
      <p>
          We   had   a   course   in   second   year   where   we   we   learnt   ADA   and   we   wrote   this   we   we   had   this   big   huge   class   project.   And   that   was   the   only   ADA,   but   th   there   was   no   compiler   at   the   time.   It   was   too   early.   Wait.   But   when   you   say   there&#39;s   no   compiler,   do   you   mean   you   just   didn&#39;t   run   the   code?   No,   you   couldn&#39;t   the   the   compiler   that   we   had   access   to   in   New   York   University   did   not   actually   produce   uh   machine   code.   It   just   said   this   it&#39;s   it   was   like   the   first   stage   of   a   compiler.   It   had   no   back   end.   It   had   no   code   generation.   Uh   so   you   could   own   you   only   knew   that   your   code   was   syntactically   and   I   guess   semantically   correct.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>0:53</time>
      <p>
          Welcome   to   ADSP   the   podcast,   episode   154,   recorded   on   October   18th,   2023.   My   name   is   Connor,   and   today   with   my   co-host   Bryce,   we   continue   part   three   of   our   four-part   conversation   with   Jonathan   O&#39;Connor.   On   today&#39;s   episode,   we   continue   our   comparison   of   Pascom   vs   C   vs   Ada   and   go   on   to   talk   about   a   plethora   of   other   programming   languages.   Zig,   NIM,   Carbon,   Eiffel,   WiWon,   Clojure   are   all   languages   that   get   mentioned   in   this   episode.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>1:25</time>
      <p>
          So   I   don&#39;t   know   that   we   I   don&#39;t   know   that   we   bottomed   out   on   talking   about   ADA.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>1:29</time>
      <p>
          Oh   yeah,   no,   wait.   So   I   mean   we&#39;re   hopping   all   over   the   place.   I   was,   while   you   were   explaining   the   power   of   visualization   in   paper,   uh,   because   at   one   point   we   had,   so   we&#39;re   even   rewinding   more   uh   back   from   Ada.   We&#39;ll   get   back   to   Ada   in   a   sec.   I   was   trying   to   figure   out   what   the   internet   has   to   say   of   why   C   won   out   over   Pascal.   And   so   the   summary,   first   of   all,   Pascal   is   actually   older   than   C.   I   did   not   know   that.   Uh   C,   according   to   Wikipedia&#39;s   first   year   of   appearance   was   1972,   and   Pascal&#39;s   was   1970.   And   the   general   opinion   of   the   internet,   there   are   many   different   hot   takes,   but   the   most   popular   one   is   that   Pascal   was   designed   to   be   a   language   for   teaching.   And   C   was   designed   to   be   a   language   for   doing   systems   programming   and   getting   things   done.   And   what   that   meant   is   that   as   a   teaching   language,   C   isn&#39;t   great   because   you   got   many   foot   guns,   you   can   you   can   make   many   mistakes   as   a   beginner,   but   that&#39;s   the   kind   of   power   you   want   when   you&#39;re   trying   to   write   a   system.   Whereas   Pascal   did   not   have   those   foot   guns,   but   it   kind   of   made   things   more   difficult.   Well,   I   mean,   one   of   the   top   things   that   came   across   answers   was   that   uh   Pascal,   I&#39;m   not   sure   if   this   changed   with   all   future   versions   of   Pascal,   but   at   one   point,   all   of   your   code   had   to   be   in   a   single   source   file,   which   does   sound   pretty   crazy.   I&#39;m   not   sure   if   you   recall   uh   Jonathan,   if   that   was   the   case   when   you   were   using   Pascal.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>2:45</time>
      <p>
          That   that   might   have   been   the   case,   but   I   would   I   would   have   thought   you   could   just   type,   you   just   say,   you   know,   Pascal   or   whatever   PC   or   whatever   was   the   thing   was,   and   the   list   of   files,   I   guess,   to   compile   all   of   them   into   one   group.   But   yeah,   but   maybe   that&#39;s   true   because   I   think   that   was   the   big   thing   with   Ada.   Um   because   Ada   uh   started   they   had   this   notion   of   packages,   that   was   one   of   their   big   selling   points.   It   was   for   large   application   development,   um   with   large   teams,   and   you   could   have   uh   you   have   a   package   um   specification   and   a   package   body.   So   you   had   the   split   from   between   declaration   and   and   uh   implementation,   um   and   that   was   huge,   and   you   could   you   could   come,   I   mean   that&#39;s   what   we   spent   most   of   our   time   doing   was   just   writing   package   specifications   rather   than   implementations,   um   uh   in   that   project   that   we   did.   Um,   but   yeah,   you   had   the   huge   thing   about   packages,   and   packages   could   have   they   had   they   were   like   um   namespaces.   They&#39;re   they&#39;re   similar   to   namespaces   except   in   C,   except   you   can   also   uh   I   guess   no,   they&#39;re   not   like   classes,   but   you   can   you   had   functions,   procedures,   um,   and   you   could   uh   have   data   inside   them.   So   you   could   have   what&#39;s   the   difference   between   a   function   and   a   procedure   in   uh   function   a   function   has   all   uh   input   parameters   and   it   returns   a   value.   And   procedures   can   have   input   and   output,   and   I   don&#39;t   think   they   have   any   no,   they   don&#39;t   they   don&#39;t   have   any   um   uh   return   value.   But   yeah,   you   could   I   mean   I   I   that&#39;s   from   what   I   remember   ADA   didn&#39;t   have   object   orientation   built   into   it.   Uh   you   had   a   package,   you   could   create   like   a   a   global   variable   inside   the   package   that   was   private   to   the   package,   and   you   could   kind   of   refer   to   things   in   that   you   could   you   could   hand   out   private   uh   you   could   hand   out   these   what   was   it   called   limited   something   or   other,   um   where   you   you&#39;d   have   they   were   just   like   handles   um   to   something   and   and   people   outside   the   package   couldn&#39;t   do   anything   with   them   uh   except   pass   them   around.   Um   and   uh   that   way   you   could   you   could   you   could   set   up   stacks   and   whatever,   but   um,   there   was   no   kind   of   you   couldn&#39;t   there   was   no   such   thing   as   a   class.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>5:29</time>
      <p>
          Um,   I   also   just   looked   up,   so   Ada   was   created   in   1980,   so   that&#39;s   a   decade,   roughly   a   decade   after   both   uh   Pascal   and   C.   And   it   says   right   in   the   first   line   on   the   Wikipedia   page   that   it   was   primarily   inspired   by   Pascal,   but   that   uh   it   was   I   didn&#39;t   actually   know   this.   It   was   it   was   uh   created   by   a   guy   at   Honeywell,   whose   name   I&#39;m   gonna   mess   up.   Jean   French   computers.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>5:57</time>
      <p>
          Yeah,   what&#39;s   his   name?
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>5:58</time>
      <p>
          Jean   Jean   Ickb?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>6:00</time>
      <p>
          Yeah,   I   think   so.   Probably   that&#39;s   something   else,   but   uh   but   that&#39;s   how   I   pronounce   it   as   well.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>6:06</time>
      <p>
          And   it   was   uh   I   guess   so   a   French   computer   scientist,   Honeywell,   famously,   an   American   company   though,   and   they   were   contracted   by   the   US   DOD,   Department   of   Defense,   to   create   this   language,   ADA,   specifically   to   replace   a   whole   bunch   of   languages   that   the   DoD   was   using   at   the   time.   And   it   also   has   this   little   byline   in   strong   typing,   we   trust.   So   it&#39;s   clearly   this,   you   know,   uh   government-funded   for   government   purposes   language.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>6:35</time>
      <p>
          That&#39;s   one   of   the   things   that   that   Ada   has   that   C   still   doesn&#39;t.   Um   it   had   strong   typedefs.   So   you   could   you   could   create   um   my   it,   you   could   say   using   my   int   equals   int,   say,   and   that   would   be   you   can&#39;t   you   can&#39;t   uh   do   arithmetic   between   ints   and   my   ints.   They&#39;re   totally   separate   and   they   don&#39;t   go   together.   So   that&#39;s   something   that   we   don&#39;t   have   in   C   still.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>7:03</time>
      <p>
          Interesting.   So   it&#39;s   a   type   alias   that   does   not   interrupt   with   the   underlying   type.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>7:10</time>
      <p>
          Correct,   correct.   Interesting.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>7:13</time>
      <p>
          And   then   I   assume   that   Ada   has   some   facility   for   you   know   casting   or   static   casting.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>7:17</time>
      <p>
          Uh   there   probably   was,   but   you&#39;d   probably   yeah,   there   must   have   been   some   some   way   of   casting   to   the   underlying   uh   low-level   integer.   And   the   other   thing   you   could   do,   you   could   you   just   had   integer   and   you   had   float.   But   you   could   specify   that   your   integer   had   to   have   a   range   from   like   zero   to   one   billion   or   something   like   that,   and   that   would   and   the   the   compiler   would   figure   out   how   many   bytes   to   use   for   its   integer   type.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>7:47</time>
      <p>
          And   so   that   actually,   so   I   that   was   one   of   the   things   that   I   did   know   about   Ada   is   that   it   has   bounded   and   fixed   point,   so   it   has   a   richer   type   system   for   your   integer   types   that   you   might   want.   And   I   was   perusing   through   ADSP,   the   Virth   book,   looking   at   a   couple   examples,   and   it   looks   like   they   actually   had   the   same   similar   syntax   for   that   kind   of   stuff.   Oh,   maybe,   maybe,   yeah.   Type   keyword,   and   it   said   type   uh   digit   uh   and   then   zero.9.   So   my   guess   is   that   is   defining   uh   like   an   integer   type.   I   could   be   wrong   about   that,   but   combining   this   with   the   fact   that   Ada   was   uh   you   know   inspired   by   Pascal,   I   wouldn&#39;t   be   surprised   if   Pascal   is   another   example   of   a   language   that   has,   I&#39;m   not   sure   about   the   fixed   point   type,   but   the   the   bounded   integer   types.   Um   and   and   speaking   of   Pascal   again,   that   was   the   other   thing   the   internet   said   is   that   C   is   not   really   known   to   have   killed   Pascal.   It   was   actually   Java   because   what   Pascal   was   good   at,   and   it   was   what   the   domain   that   it   was   successful   in   was   being   taught   in   universities.   It   was   a   teaching   language,   and   so   that&#39;s   where   it   kind   of   thrived.   And   then   when   Java   came   out   in   the   1990s   and   there   was   a   huge   marketing   blitz,   a   ton   of   universities   switched   from   whatever   language   they   were   using,   uh,   you   know,   insert   a   language,   and   a   lot   of   those   might   have   been   Pascal,   and   then   Java   became   the   one   of   the   de   facto   uh   teaching   languages   up   until   when   I   was   in   university,   you   know,   in   2008.   The   first,   well,   I   think   it   was   the   second   course.   The   first   course   taught   Python,   and   the   second   course   taught   uh   Java.   So   interesting   that,   you   know,   C   and   Pascal,   even   though   they   were   quote   unquote   contemporaries,   it&#39;s   at   least   the   internet   doesn&#39;t   think   that   it   was,   it   wasn&#39;t   the   success   of   C   that   like   killed   Pascal.   It   was   more   that   it   was   a   great   teaching   language,   but   then   uh   that   was   surpassed   by   something   else.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>9:33</time>
      <p>
          But   I   think   I   think   maybe   C   also   because   it   was   used   as   the   the   system   language   for   for   all   these   Unix   systems,   and   those   Unix   systems   started   getting   very   popular,   and   uh   it   became   a   a   language   that   you&#39;d   you   know   you&#39;d   write   code   on   on   uh   PCs.   Um   so   I   think   yeah,   just   you   could   as   you   said   you   could   get   things   done   with   C.   Whereas   uh   and   then   it   it   you   know   you   had   Microsoft   producing   compiler,   although   they   did   they   also   have   a   Pascal   compiler?   I   mean   Turbo   Pascal   was   the   big   thing   in   the   in   the   late   80s,   early   90s,   and   that   had   a   nice   IDE,   it   was   very,   very   fast   uh   to   compile   um   and   build.   So   that   was   that   was   kind   of   uh   really   nice   to   use.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>10:26</time>
      <p>
          Yeah.   I   mean   that   that   was   definitely   uh   something   that   came   up   in   in   the   answers,   was   that   the   fact   that   Unix   was   written   in   C   and   it   shipped   with,   I   think,   the   C   compiler.   Yeah.   Um   not   only   did   that   have   a   huge   impact   on   you   know   educational   institutions   that   were   getting   Unix   computers,   um,   but   also   a   ton   of   folks   that   were   at   Bell   or   other   places   that   had   experience   with   Unix,   when   they   went   to   go   do   their   own   companies,   it   was   a   uh   very   easy   choice   to   build   their   whatever   you   know   hardware   or   software   they   were   building   on   top   of   Unix,   which   you   know   C   becomes   a   very   good   option   and   because   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   there   and   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   if   you&#39;re   doing   stuff   that   interopts   with   uh   the   OS.   Uh   yeah.   Interesting.   So   that   that   brings   us   back   to   ADA.   So   ADA   is   this   government-funded,   you   know,   language   designed   for   the   government.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>11:16</time>
      <p>
          Military   standard   1858   is   the   official   the   original   thing,   MIL   STD   1858.   It   was   a   military   standard   for   for   the   Department   of   Defense   in   America.   And   they   chose   1858,   which   because   I   think   that   was   Ada   Lovelace&#39;s   date   of   birth   or   date   of   death.   Um   interesting.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>11:41</time>
      <p>
          So   it&#39;s   just   a   random   four-digit   number.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>11:43</time>
      <p>
          It&#39;s   not   it&#39;s   not   like   it&#39;s   not   a   random   four-digit   number.   No,   no,   no,   it   isn&#39;t.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>11:47</time>
      <p>
          Um   the   next   number   in   like   a   sequence   of   you   know   paper   numbers,   like   for   the   ISO   uh   sequence.   I   don&#39;t   believe   it.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>11:54</time>
      <p>
          I   don&#39;t   believe   it.   No,   don&#39;t   believe   it   was   interesting.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>11:56</time>
      <p>
          Um   so   did   you   do   any   ADA   programming   when   you   were   in   in   school?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>12:00</time>
      <p>
          Or   yeah,   I   for   for   we   had   a   course   in   second   year   where   we   we   learnt   ADA   and   we   wrote   this   we   we   had   this   big   huge   class   project.   And   that   was   the   only   ADA,   but   there   was   no   compiler   at   the   time.   It   was   too   early.   That   the   they   there   was   this   Wait.   But   when   you   say   there&#39;s   no   compiler,   do   you   mean   you   just   didn&#39;t   run   the   code?   No,   you   couldn&#39;t   the   the   compiler   that   we   had   access   to   in   New   York   University   did   not   actually   produce   uh   machine   code.   It   just   said   this   it&#39;s   it   was   like   the   first   stage   of   a   compiler.   It   had   no   back   end,   it   had   no   code   generation.   Uh   so   you   could   own   you   only   knew   that   your   code   was   syntactically   and   I   guess   semantically   correct.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>12:46</time>
      <p>
          So   wait,   so   what   ch   what   causes   a   yeah,   how   how   what   causes   a   a   professor   or   a   university   to   teach   a   langu   teach   a   course   in   a   language   that   doesn&#39;t   have   a   work   a   full   end-to-end   working   compiler?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>13:03</time>
      <p>
          Uh   I   I   think   it&#39;s   probably   um   an   experiment.   I   suspect   it   was   an   experiment.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>13:10</time>
      <p>
          That   is   like   uh   I&#39;m   not   sure.   Is   that   the   equivalent   of   like   a   university?   I   mean,   I   guess   it   was   government   funded,   so   they   knew   that   at   some   point   there   was   going   to   be   ADA   jobs.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>13:20</time>
      <p>
          But   uh   I   mean   it   sounds   like   a   university   choosing   carbon   as   like   we&#39;re   gonna   teach   uh   and   you   know,   carbon   has   an   interpreter,   you   can   you   can   you   know   write   some   code   in   it,   but   I   mean   the   other   thing   though,   Connor,   was   that   it   it   like   in   this   in   the   70s,   if   you   look,   if   you   look   at   the   the   PhDs,   the   the   PhD   thesis   of   people   who   did   computer   science   uh   in   the   1970s,   you&#39;d   find   a   huge   number   of   them   have   got   their   PhD   by   creating   a   language   to   investigate   some   some   aspect   of   of   computer   science.   Um   and   so   there   were   there   were   hundreds,   if   not   yeah,   definitely   maybe   even   thousands   of   languages   created   in   the   70s,   and   that   kept   on   that   kept   on   for   another   few   years,   and   then   it   kind   of   people   stopped   creating   languages,   I   think,   and   and   you   know,   the   from   the   90s   I   think   didn&#39;t   have   that   many   languages   created.   There   were   a   few   big   ones,   and   now   we   seem   to   after   maybe   like   10-15   years   of   of   no   new   languages,   now   suddenly   we&#39;re   getting   a   whole   lot   of   new   languages   like   Zig   and   NIM   and   as   well   as   the   C   ones,   carbon.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>14:32</time>
      <p>
          Weewa?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>14:33</time>
      <p>
          And   we   wah,   wee   wah,   yes.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>14:36</time>
      <p>
          The   funnest   language   to   say.   Um   I   wonder   if   there&#39;s   a   graph.   I   wonder   what   I   wonder   what   causes   these.   I   mean,   clearly   in   the   70s,   software   engineering,   computer   science,   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   a   a   burgeoning,   you   know,   uh,   what   do   you   call   it?   Emerging   field.   And   there&#39;s   a   ton   of   research   topics.   Um   But   then   what   caused   you   know   the   90s   to   to   be,   what   do   they   call   it,   a   nadir?   Um   a   trough,   if   you   will?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>15:04</time>
      <p>
          Probably   people   started   trying   to   make   money   out   of   you   know,   by   writing   applications   that   actual   people   want   to   use.   So   it   went   it   went   from   it   went   from   the   you   know,   the   laboratory   or   or   from   academia   to   to   into   into   the   the   real   world.   Well   I&#39;m   going   to   insult   somebody   there,   but   um   That&#39;s   alright.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>15:27</time>
      <p>
          We&#39;re   we   love   maybe   I&#39;ll   maybe   I&#39;ll   insert   the   uh   what   is   it   the   the   the   hot   take   or   spicy   take   uh   K-pop   song?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>15:35</time>
      <p>
          But   but   yeah,   I   think   I   think   that&#39;s   what   happened   and   you   had   and   so   we   had   I   mean   there   was   Turbo   Pascal,   there   was   there   was   C   ⁇   was   getting   was   big.   There   was   Eiffel   briefly.   I   remember   going   to   a   conference   in   Germany,   a   one-day   conference   in   Germany   with   um   who   was   this   guy   who   who   headed   Eiffel,   who   created   Eiffel,   a   French   guy,   very   clever   man.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>16:00</time>
      <p>
          Um   I   feel   like   I   would   know   the   name.   I   know   it   was   the   language   of   contracts.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>16:05</time>
      <p>
          Um   it   had   a   terrific   book.   He   had   a   terrific   book.   Um   it   was   oh   yes,   uh   Bertrand   Meyer   and   poor   old   Bertrand,   he   absolutely   he   f   found   it   so   hard   to   to   to   uh   to   have   to   accept   that   C   ⁇   was   the   more   ex   more   popular   language.   He   found   that   very   hard   to   take   because   he   just   saw   all   the   inadequacies   uh   and   uh   of   C   ⁇   where   his   his   language   Eiffel   was   beautiful   and   it   and   it   is   a   beautiful   language.   Um   and   he   had   a   lovely   he   had   a   lovely   standard   library,   he   had   he   had   all   sorts   of   very   clever   ideas   on   on   data   structures   and   you   know   the   uh   how   they   were   what   was   common   about   them,   and   and   uh   I   thought   yeah,   I   thought   he   it   was   it   was   excellent.   But   um   yeah,   Eiffel   was   another   language   that   seems   to   have   come   and   gone.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>17:09</time>
      <p>
          Um   Yeah,   what   is   Bjarna&#39;s   uh   I   mean   whether   you   disagree   or   agree   with   uh   his   takes   over   time,   he   has   that   one   quote   is   there&#39;s   uh   two   types   of   languages,   languages   that   people   complain   about   and   languages   that   people   don&#39;t   use.   Which   I   mean   is   uh   there&#39;s   definitely   some   truth   in   that.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>17:27</time>
      <p>
          Uh   yeah,   I   mean   there&#39;s   there&#39;s   so   many   like   Ada   I   know   has   got   much   bigger.   I   mean   the   the   I&#39;m   yeah,   this   is   the   Ada   reference   manual.   You   can   only   see   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   like   a   centimeter   thick,   this   part,   that   the   the   s   second   half   of   this   book.   And   that   so   it&#39;s   only   about   a   hundred   a   hundred   and   twenty   pages   long   or   so.   And   I   noticed   um   there   I   got   I   downloaded   um   the   C   sharp   standard.   Uh   there   was   a   link   that   was   sent   out   on   on   that   I   get   um   and   it   I   looked   at   it,   it   was   400   pages   long.   Um   and   of   course,   what   C   is   2,000   pages   long,   the   standard.   Yeah.   Hold   my   beer.   Um   so   I   I   think   yeah,   the   the   languages   were   much   smaller   then   and   and   they   are   not   anymore.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>18:20</time>
      <p>
          Um   it&#39;s   I   think   it&#39;s   so   I   mean   I   love   thinking   about   I&#39;ve   watched   a   couple   different   talks.   Richard   Feldman,   uh   fellow   podcaster   now   of   Software   Unscripted,   he   has   a   really   popular   talk   called   Why   Isn&#39;t   Functional   Programming   the   Norm?   And   that   talk   talks   about   like   what   what   is   it   that   actually   makes   a   language   popular   is   successful.   And   just   recently   I   watched   a   talk   from   uh   James   Gosling,   famously   the   creator   of   Java.   And   he   was   talking   at   an   online   conference   in   2022   called   Re-Closure.   So   it   was   a   closure   event.   And   for   those   of   you   that   don&#39;t   know,   Clojure   is   a   uh   a   Lisp   that   runs   on   the   JVM,   so   it&#39;s   kind   of   in   the   Java   family   of   languages,   similar   to   Scala   and   Kotlin.   And   he   was   talking   about   at   one   point   in   the   talk,   you   know,   what   is   it   that,   the   same   thing,   what   is   it   that   makes   a   language   successful?   And,   you   know,   how   much   of   it   is   familiarity   and   and   trying   to   meet   developers,   you   know,   where   they&#39;re   at,   because   there&#39;s   a   lot   of   great   novel   ideas   that   exist   in   these   kind   of   unique   languages,   but   if   it&#39;s   if   it&#39;s   too   different   or   feels   too   foreign,   it   people   are   repelled   from   it.   You   know,   I   I   think   APL   is   a,   you   know,   although   APL   had   its   heyday   in   the   60s   and   70s,   but   you   know,   these   days   you   make   videos   and   and   people   just   are   kind   of   shocked   by   it.   But   I   think   there&#39;s   like   an   a   more   nuanced   question   to   be   asked,   is   like,   I   think   the   things   that   made   languages   popular   in   the   70s   and   80s   is   now   different   than   what   makes   a   language   popular   today.   Because   back   in   the   70s   and   and   80s,   you   had   less   history   and   existing   code   to   compete   with.   And   now,   in   order   for   like   a   language   to   compete   in   the   C   space,   you   know,   you&#39;re   competing   with   the   whole   infrastructure   and   ecosystem,   as   Bryce   mentioned   in   the   most   recent   episode.   There&#39;s   millions,   if   not   billions,   of   lines   of   code   that   represents   like   you   know,   technology   and   effort   and   value   that   you   know   has   to   go   get   displaced   if   you   know   you   if   that&#39;s   your   goal,   if   you&#39;re   you   know,   whether   it&#39;s   Rust   or   whatever.   And   so   the   question   is,   you   know,   like   overall,   what   is   it   that   makes   a   language   successful?   But   then   also   too,   like   what   is   it   that   makes   us   a   language   successful   today?   Like,   is   it   you   know,   I   I   don&#39;t   have   the   answer   to   the   question.   I   mean,   Jonathan,   you&#39;ve   you&#39;ve   been   in   the   industry   a   lot   longer   than   we   have,   and   you&#39;ve   worked   with   you   know   C,   Lisp,   uh,   Ada,   Pascal,   Ruby,   Java.   Like,   do   you   have   thoughts   or   you   know?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>20:39</time>
      <p>
          I   don&#39;t   know   what   makes   a   language   popular.   I   do   know   that   most   of   us   want   to   use   a   single   language.   Uh   and   uh   rather   than   multiple   languages.   We   want   to   use   we   want   to   we   want   to   have   a   single   hammer   and   because   we   look   at   everything   as   a   nail.   And   and   so   you   see   things   like   I   I   don&#39;t   understand   the   I   why   people   want   to   use   things   like   uh   React   in   the   JavaScript   world   where   they   they   that   you   have   use   JavaScript   to   generate   HTML   and   and   CSS   for   web   pages.   Like   there   are   three   languages   there   JavaScript   for   for   dynamic   dynamism,   HTML   for   static   structure,   and   and   CSS   for   for   like   making   it   pretty   and   styling.   And   they   all   those   languages   do   their   job   very   well.   But   there   are   now   JavaScript   frameworks   where   you   do   everything   in   JavaScript.   And   I   I   and   that&#39;s   an   example,   like   and   and   in   the   C   world   we   prefer   we   like   well   in   any   programming   world   we   like   to   say   we   want   to   use   the   same   language.   Look   at   look   at   um   what&#39;s   that   that   um   WebAssom   where   you   can   Oh   yeah,   WebAssembly.   You   can   you   can   you   can   write   C   code   and   it   runs   in   your   browser.   And   people   tend   or   or   the   uh   Node.js   where   the   both   the   server   and   the   front   end,   the   the   browser,   are   running   JavaScript.   That&#39;s   another   example   of   having   a   single   tool.   And   maybe   it&#39;s   maybe   it&#39;s   just   that   you   know   these   languages   have   grown,   they&#39;re   quite   big,   it   takes   some   time   quite   some   time   to   to   understand   them   and   learn   them,   and   therefore   you   want   to   use   them   everywhere   because   you   don&#39;t   want   you   don&#39;t   have   time   or   or   it   costs   too   much   to   train   people   in   in   another   language.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>22:41</time>
      <p>
          So   well   so   here&#39;s   a   related   question.   What   made   you   uh   when   you   switched   languages,   was   that   just   a   what   do   you   call   it,   a   a   byproduct   of   switching   to   a   new   role   and   it   was   like   a   it   was   a   necessity   for   what   you   were   doing?   Or   like   because   at   what   you   went   from   C   to   Java   to   Ruby,   and   I   you   actually   did   explain   why   you   went   from   Java   to   Ruby.   That   was   someone   patted   you   on   the   shoulder   and   said,   maybe   check   out   this   thing   called   Ruby,   might   make   your   life   simpler.   But   then   you   went   back   to   C.   Like,   were   there   you   know   reasons   uh   you   know   that   you   you   I   think   what   Connor   is   really   asking   is   what   makes   a   rational   man   go   from   C   to   Java?
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>23:22</time>
      <p>
          Well   at   the   time,   actually,   actually   there,   Bryce,   I   can   tell   you,   I   can   tell   you   something.   Like   when   I   moved   uh   to   to   Java   in   2001,   Java   had   reflection.   You   could   you   could   I   win,   I   win.   Shots   fired,   shots   fired.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>23:41</time>
      <p>
          90s   era   C   was   was   pretty   pretty   rough.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>23:46</time>
      <p>
          Yeah,   um   but   um   I   yeah,   I   don&#39;t   uh   the   there   were   there   you   can   see   in   language   like   Ruby   was   really   popular   in   in   from   about   2005,   maybe   to   to   when   I   stopped   using   it   in   2016.   Um   but   you   could   see   that   people   who   were   the   the   top   people   in   Ruby   they   had   decided   that   it   got   too   popular   and   they   wanted   to   move   on   to   the   next   new   fresh   thing.   And   so   th   they   chose   a   lot   of   them   chose   elixir   in   in   the   Ruby   community.   And   um   I   think   uh   Elixir,   well   that   again   people   say   they   want   they   don&#39;t   want   to   um   to   have   to   man   to   to   maintain   their   old   code   and   so   by   changing   languages   they   don&#39;t   have   to.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>24:40</time>
      <p>
          I   mean   uh   I&#39;ve   never   heard   that   one   before,   but   that   is   I   mean,   that&#39;s   a   good   uh   that   is   a   solution   to   a   problem   that   you   don&#39;t   want   to   solve.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>24:48</time>
      <p>
          Yeah,   you   don&#39;t   want   to   you   don&#39;t   want   to   have   to   look   at   your   old   code,   so   you   switch   languages   and   then   you   get   to   write   new   code.   Uh   and   maybe   you&#39;re   solving   similar   problems   that   you   solved   before   in   a   different   language,   so   you   have   a   a   better   idea   of   how   to   solve   them,   and   the   new   language   gives   you   other   interesting   characters.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>25:08</time>
      <p>
          That   reminds   me   of   the   of   the   um   the   K-language   guy   who   would   just   every   couple   years   just   write   a   new   version   and   then   just   delete   that.   It&#39;s   a   tragedy.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>25:22</time>
      <p>
          As   time   goes   on,   it&#39;s   uh   the   the   immensity   of   the   tragedy   of   what   he   is   doing.   Like,   don&#39;t   get   me   wrong,   one   of   the   smartest   people   I&#39;ve   ever   met   in   my   life.   The   guy   is   is   clearly   you   know   a   genius.   And   um,   you   know,   there&#39;s   uh   some   joke   on   the   internet,   it&#39;s   you   know   Arthur   Whitney   was   blessed   by   the   coding   gods,   but   you   know,   his   curse   with   the   the   abilities   that   he   was   given   is   that   you   know,   the   languages   he   created   and   the   code   he   wrote   was   you   know   in   unreadable   by   by   most   people.   And   uh   I   just   think   it&#39;s   such   a   shame   that   he   hits   the   delete   button   because   he   effectively,   I   don&#39;t   think   intentionally,   but   like   is   destroying   the   history   and   the   community.   I   mean,   I&#39;ve   said   this   a   couple   times,   like   the   the   K   programmers.   If   you   ask   them   as   a   group,   like   what   what   version,   or   not   version,   because   they&#39;re   different   languages,   but   if   I   want   to   go   learn   K,   what   do   I   go   learn?   K4,   K6,   K7?   And   you&#39;ll   get   a   different   answer.   And   uh   there&#39;s   different   documentations   for   each   one.   And   it   imagin   it   would   be   like   the   equivalent   of   like,   imagine   all   the   different   Lisps   were   created   by   one   person,   you   know,   this   this   godlike   you   know   entity.   And   every   time,   you   know,   the   individual   went   from   you   know   Lisp   to   Common   Lisp   to   Scheme   to   Guile   to   Racket   to   Clojure,   and   every   single   time   he   just   hit   the   delete   button,   didn&#39;t   didn&#39;t   you   know   explain   reasoning   or   anything,   and   you   you   we   just   have   to   follow   it   and   like   keep   this   history   in   your   head.   Like,   luckily,   we   got   to   talk   to   John   Ernest   on   a   ray   cast,   and   he   sort   of   gave   an   oral   history   of   all   the   different   Ks   and   what   are   the   major   differences   in   the   in   the   K   languages.   But   yeah,   it&#39;s   it   is   it&#39;s   a   it&#39;s   a   a   mass.   I   hope   he   I   hope   he   has   a   change   of   heart,   you   know,   and   uh   he   goes   on   a   podcast   or   gives   a   talk   at   some   and   and   gives   the   the   history   and   you   know   why   did   he   make   the   decision   from   K2   to   K3   to   to   change   the   data   model   or   something   like   that?   Uh   because   I   think   there&#39;s   a   lot   of   genius   in   in   his   work   and   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   not   even   getting   lost   to   the   annals   of   time.   It&#39;s   getting   lost   because   he&#39;s   he&#39;s   hitting   the   delete   key.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>27:20</time>
      <p>
          Like   he   is   actively   You   do   you   now   do   you   think   he&#39;s   you   think   he&#39;s   got   a   a   backup?
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>27:27</time>
      <p>
          Or   you   think   he   actually   I   believe   him   100%   that   he   actually   like   wipes   it   from   his   computer.   And   like   I   most   I   think   John   Ernest,   when   we   talked   to   him,   he   said   that   he   actually   locally   has   a   bunch   of   the   different   uh   K   languages   as   Arthur   was   working   on   them.   Um   but   he   can&#39;t   even   release   them   because   they&#39;re   under   copyright.   And   uh   and   so   like   the   versions   of   K   that   exist   on   the   internet   are   versions   that   people   have   reverse   engineered.   Like   there&#39;s   there&#39;s   two   different   K6s,   uh   one&#39;s   by   John   and   one&#39;s   by   another   individual.   One&#39;s   like   written   in   JavaScript   and   the   other   one   in   another   language,   I   think   maybe   C.   And   there&#39;s   a   couple   other   different   K   variants,   but   like   they   are   all   basically   people   that   had   a   executable   of   K,   whether   they   got   it   from   Arthur   or   someone   else,   or   they   just   had   the   documentation   and   they   reverse   engineered   the   behavior,   which   is   like   that&#39;s   that&#39;s   crazy.   Like,   isn&#39;t   that   crazy?   That&#39;s   crazy   to   think   that   like   the   the   dialects   or   the   versions   that   exist   of   you   know   K4,   K6   or   whatever,   um   or   or   K3,   even,   which   I   know   that   there&#39;s   a   couple   companies   that   have   licenses   to   K3.   Uh   that   like   that&#39;s   that&#39;s   the   history.   Like   you   know,   people   might   say,   oh,   Lisp   is   way   bigger   than   than   just   the   the   the   different   uh   K   languages.   Uh   but   like   I   I   don&#39;t   know.   I   think   there   is   there   is   some   analogy   there   that   like   imagine   you   know   you   know   uh   you   know   someone   was   hitting   the   delete   key   on   on   different   different   uh   Lisp&#39;s.   Anyways,   that   was   that   was   a   tangent   there.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>28:51</time>
      <p>
          Uh   I   I   have   a   question   for   the   two   of   you.   I   mean   C   is   multi-paradig   paradigmatic   language   in   that   it   supports   procedural,   object-oriented,   functional   coding   styles.   Um   we   have   languages   like   Prologue,   which   is   uh   logic-based   uh   style.   We&#39;ve   got   um,   I   guess,   well,   you&#39;ve   um   well   you&#39;ve   got   what   is   PPL,   BQN,   array   logic,   yeah.   Okay,   array,   array,   array,   small   talk   is   object-oriented.   And   we   now   have   these   quantum   languages.   Uh   so   have   we   found   um   all   the   programming   paradigms   that   are   possible?
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>29:37</time>
      <p>
          Um   no,   and   I   because   I   think   the   the   next   programming   paradigm   that&#39;s   likely   being   invented   today   is   the   um   LLMs.   The   the   AI-assisted   programming   paradigm.   Like   I   how   how   do   we   program   in   a   world   where   programming   is   really   uh   giving   a   prompt   to   some   AI   that   goes   and   does   the   task   for   you   or   writes   the   code   for   you.   Um   and   like   that&#39;s   the   that&#39;s   that&#39;s   I   think   c   clearly   the   whole   the   field   of   prompt   engineering   and   what   it&#39;s   leading   to   is   going   to   lead   to   new   programming   paradigms.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>30:12</time>
      <p>
          I   agree.   It   sounds   crazy,   but   like   literally   someone   when   I   we   were   having   a   research   discussion   at   NVIDIA   made   that   comment.   Like,   imagine   uh   like   your   new   layer   on   your   stack   is   like   you   are   committing   to   your   to   your   Git   repository   your   prompts.   And   then   the   immediate   reaction   is   like,   well,   you   know,   that&#39;s   not   deterministic,   blah,   blah,   blah.   But   like   think   about   all   the   different   layers   of   the   compiler   stack   from   like   the   different   IRs   all   the   way   down   to   assembly.   And   it&#39;s   like,   how   much   I   mean,   there   are   definitely   uh   assembly   generation   experts   out   there,   but   like   me   personally,   how   much   do   I   actually   understand   about   what   a   C   compiler   is   doing   at   the   end   of   the   day?   Like   there,   like   stuff   Bryce   knows   a   lot   more   about   like   instruction   level   parallelism   and   the   way   that   they&#39;re   like   reorienting   your   program   to   do   something.   And   uh,   I   mean,   half   the   time,   I   think   most   of   the   time   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   deterministic,   but   there   are   times   where   like   you   end   up,   you   know,   uh   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   rearranging   the   way   that   you   would   expect   it   to   be   done,   but   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   for   the   benefit   because   you   know   you   use   you   typed   something,   but   it   knows,   oh,   when   you&#39;re   doing   some,   you   know,   testing   whether   a   number   is   even.   Most   people   don&#39;t   use   the   bitwise,   you   know,   and   one   or   whatever.   Uh,   but   you   can   you   can   get   the   compiler   to   recognize   that   stuff   anyway.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>31:21</time>
      <p>
          So   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   I   don&#39;t   think   it&#39;s   that   far   of   a   fetch   to   any   any   limit   like   any   limitation   on   the   that   uh   exists   and   seems   to   be   written   in   stone   today   for   large   language   models   or   AI,   um   take   with   a   huge   grain   of   salt   because   it&#39;s   it&#39;s   a   nascent   field   and   it&#39;s   an   evolving   fi   it&#39;s   an   evolving   field.   Like,   yeah,   is   the   is   the   lack   of   determinism   that   you   get   out   of   large   language   model   like   a   problem   for   doing   things   production   scale?   Yes,   but   that&#39;s   a   restriction   that   I   don&#39;t   think   will   always   be   around.   You   know,   if   you   look   at   large   language   models   today,   like   they&#39;re   not   they&#39;re   not   very   practical.   Um   like   cost-wise,   uh   uh   latency-wise,   bandwidth-wise,   they&#39;re   not   they&#39;re   not   the   most   practical   or   most   efficient   tool,   but   uh   as   as   the   field   matures   um   and   as   it   becomes   more   commoditized,   um,   it&#39;ll   become   more   practical   and   will   overcome   a   lot   of   those   problems.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>32:17</time>
      <p>
          While   you   were   saying   that,   Bryce,   I   was   thinking   of   like   the   original   cell   phone   that   you   see   in   like   the   the   wall,   what   is   it   uh   there&#39;s   a   movie   called   Wall   Street   uh   with   Michael   something.   And   anyways,   they&#39;ve   got   these   like   huge   things,   and   it&#39;s   like   you   know,   only   the   people   that   had   you   know   oodles   of   money   could   afford   these   these   quote   unquote   cell   phones.   But   it&#39;s   like   if   you   saw   that   and   said,   Oh,   that&#39;s   gonna   be   the   future,   everyone&#39;s   gonna   have   one,   it&#39;s   gonna   completely   change   the   way   we   go   about   our   lives,   you&#39;d   probably   be   like,   Yeah,   probably   not.   But   like   that   wasn&#39;t   that   wasn&#39;t   what   cell   phones   went   on   to   be,   right?   And   there&#39;s   a   few   different   iterations.   They   had   the   flip   phones   and   then   the   smartphones   were,   you   know,   the   the   iPhone   was   a   complete,   you   know,   game   changer.   And   uh,   you   know,   expect   I   expect   that   that&#39;s   what   the   next   20   years   is   gonna   be   like.   You   know,   there&#39;s   gonna   be   a   couple   of   these   big   innovations.
      </p>

        <cite>Jonathan O&#39;Connor</cite>
      <time>33:00</time>
      <p>
          And   is   that   it&#39;s   that   not   just   a   different   way   of   okay,   I   suppose   it   is   a   different   way   of   writing   program.   Whereas   I&#39;m   thinking   of   the   programmy   paradigms   as   as   being   oh,   I   suppose   it   yes,   actually   paradigms   are   really   a   way   of   thinking,   isn&#39;t   it?   It&#39;s   it&#39;s   so   if   you&#39;re   writing   a   prompt,   that&#39;s   thinking.   Okay,   fair   enough.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>33:19</time>
      <p>
          And   I   mean   quant   quantum,   you   know,   the   the   the   paradigms   for   quantum   programming   are   also   very   nascent.   I   would   say   that   that&#39;s   a   new   thing,   and   there   may   be   other   things   like   quantum   in   the   future,   you   know.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>33:27</time>
      <p>
          Be   sure   to   check   the   show   notes   either   in   your   podcast   app   or   at   adspthepodcast.com   for   links   to   anything   we   mentioned   in   today&#39;s   episode,   as   well   as   a   link   to   the   GitHub   discussion   where   you   can   leave   comments,   thoughts,   and   questions.   Thanks   for   listening.   We   hope   you   enjoyed   and   have   a   great   day.
      </p>

        <cite>Bryce</cite>
      <time>33:41</time>
      <p>
          Low   quality,   high   quality,   that   is   the   tagline   of   our   podcast.
      </p>

        <cite>Conor</cite>
      <time>33:46</time>
      <p>
          That&#39;s   not   the   tagline.   Our   tagline   is   chaos   with   sprinkles   of   information.
      </p>