I didn't see any ads, probably because of adblock. And given the nature of its conceit, I didn't expect an attribution. I just came across it and thought HN would appreciate it.
This is a well-designed link-spam site, but still a link-spam site. Do not support it. It is part of the so-called "spamdexing" problem. More information:
I'm confused by his five example for "1.2.3. Access Path Dependence" (page.378), where an app would fail if the data representation changed, because I think an app using a relational store would also fail if the relations were organized differently. I can see some possible resolutions, but the paper doesn't address the issue...
I concede that it's hard to assess a proposed approach when it doesn't actually exist yet; but I think that if you raise an issue with the existing approaches in a paper, it's reasonable to also assess your own proposal with respect to that issue.
e.g. maybe he imagined automatic views to convert the underlying relations (so that different relations are identical if they represent the same information...); or a manual conversion layer with views (but the same could be done for the other store!); or maybe he was only thinking of different physical representations when he wrote that part and it didn't occur to him that different relations also might be used
I think he's saying that while the relational model has the same problem of retaining compatibility for old apps when it evolves, it this is * easier * to do this with the relational model. ie. the "number of access paths" for old apps becomes "excessively large" for non-relational models. He talks a bit about the complexity of representing different queries later on, but somewhat obliquely and doesn't draw the connection (and I don't quite follow what he means in the second last paragraph of section 1.5, where he mentions n!, 2n-1 and n+1 - I understand it so little, that I think there might be a typo).
Is it really true that business people use R directly? Being in Forbes is consistent with it...
I recall that SQL was intended to be used by business people... and it probably has been, sometimes; but I don't think it happens much. The days of early adoption might have differed, through appealing to the more adventurous business people (as R might be now).
One thing I know for a fact: business people use spreadsheets. I think making something that easy to get things done in is an incredible achievement. As an example, I think PHP has approached but not attained it.
I don't know if business people do a lot of scripting (if any) in spreadsheets, because it side-steps the ease-of-use GUI of spreadsheet in favour of a programmer's UI...
Language you think in is constraining... unless your language is the best that could ever exist. Of course, if you can only think in it, you couldn't imagine anything better.
Mathematical notation might be a better language to think in than any programming language; but even that is constraining - since mathematicians are constantly inventing new notation, and many mathematicians think in pictures or even... intuition.
Of course, he really meant for coding; I just wanted to note the bigger picture.
Sorry but do you have sources to back up your assertion?
I took a class with Prof. Sussman, and even worked as an undergraduate researcher for a summer, and I know for a fact that his current work is still being done in MIT Scheme. The classes that he teaches currently Adventures in Symbolic programming, and Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics are also in MIT Scheme.
Finally, when I asked him about his opinion on Python and he put it this way "they wanted to have a language that they could use everywhere and also have it work with robots [describing the new intro to EECS course at MIT] so they picked Python."
So I strongly doubt the veracity of your statement. I think you're confusing MIT EECS department's switch to python in many classes as a sign that Prof. Sussman has personally switched to Python, which is very misleading.
Ok, but what is he using now? A more (easily) extensible, more flexible editor?
Or are the principles which have driven the design of Emacs not valid anymore? A C core with Lisp for the non-performance critical parts. That is modern, agile design right there.
I've started trying to narrow the scope of features required for launch, where the minimum set of features is not with respect to the full set I want, nor with what customers might need, nor what will differentiate me from competitors - but the minimum set that would make it have some use, to some customers.
It doesn't matter if other products are more useful; nor if that minimum set expresses the really cool goal I have, or the essence of my approach. Just that it be some use to some one.
I think of this a little bit like a strategy for proving theorems: if you haven't got time to prove the thing you are aiming at, but you need to publish something, you can always restrict your assumptions and goal to what you can manage, and prove that. Now you have a base you can build on.
Prozvonit's equivalent in English is a "bat-call." A bat-call can also be used to notify the other person of something (not necessarily to prompt a call back). As in, "When I get to your house, come outside when I give you a bat-call"
Interesting read. The real Goethe also had some nice lines. There was also a link to "Shakespeare in German" (http://german.about.com/od/literature/a/Shakespeare.htm) on the site you mentioned. Did you know that Germany has the world's oldest Shakespeare Society?
