Re: [stack] Advantages of cat, joy ..?

chris glur wrote:
> >you can express the distributivity of
> >multiplication nicely without the need for infix operators:

> Which via A -> B -> C leads to increased productivety,
> either via faster initial building, or easier maintenance or increased
> reliability.

Plotting A->B->C won't get you anywhere if you're talking about human
factors. You have to build an experiment and demonstrate by doing. There
are too many factors to be able to make a-priori claims.

I've pointed out Factor; you should head on over and see what you think.
Come back and tell us! They've done all the hard work; you don't have to
logically justify it, just enjoy it.

> What are the [assumed ?] A,B,C.

No need for them. The purpose was just what he said -- expressiveness.
You can also express multiplicative distributivity easily without using
variables, as I showed, which gives additional advantages.

There are a lot of ways to write code. Every single one fails in the
majority of situations, and most of them succeed in different
situations. Knowing more ways of expressing yourself will lead to more
of your code being expressive of your intent.

One of Factor's biggest innovations is how it replaces shuffle words
with the new dataflow combinators. (See
http://factor-language.blogspot.com/2008/12/prevalence-of-shuffle-words-and.html for a telescopic view of a microscopic realm.) Dataflow combinators, when used correctly, allow you to state explicitly which quotations operate on which data, rather than having to juggle data out of the way so that the desired functions can access it. The difference is not that dataflow combinators are simpler than stack shuffles; the difference is that often they _express_ what you were actually intending to write. You didn't actually WANT to move the top element on the stack two down; you actually wanted to perform some action on the lower element and then some other action on the next two elements.

> I feel like a child trying to find out where babies
> come from, who's being given the run-around.

Actually, you're more like a child trying to find out how Santa Claus
manages to fit down the chimney. You're asking the wrong question, but
you're nonetheless on the right path to find the truth.

One difference from my Santa-Claus metaphor: none of us know the answer.
We can't feed you the answer, even if you were ready for it. If you find
out, we'd all love to know.

At least I would.

-Wm