Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Carsten Mattner]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull
<stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Carsten Mattner writes:
>  > On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
>  > > Jan Djärv writes:
>  > >
>  > >  > I think [llbd] yses Python as a scripting language (yech ...).
>  > >
>  > > Tastes differ, but I think you are nuts if you prefer gdb command
>  > > language scripting to Python!
>  >
>  > Yes, but from a simplicity and size perspective Lua (even though I
>  > don't like it and wouldn't recommend it) would be better choice.
>  > >From a use-case point of view I'm sure that Guile or another LISP
>  > variant would be a more ideal fit.
>
> Eh?  You really think people who program only in C/C++/Java/FORTRAN
> would really prefer a Lispy scripting language?  People who use Emacs
> don't really count, as they (mostly) shouldn't need to care, they
> should just use gdb (or gud) mode.

Yes, because Lisps are way easier to learn and reason about than
any C variant with 20% of the behaviour being guess work and
undefined or plain system specific. Adding win32 and posix apis
with different *nixes makes it a minefield. There's a reason autoconf
still exists with all those oddball platforms having died long ago.
Most "scripting" languages either abstract away or provide a 1:1
wrapper of APIs only providing a good interface probably half of
the time. See the recent close(2) discussion started by tarsnap's
author for a trivial but unfortunate situation if you want to write
some posix code and run it on BSDs, Linux, and OSX.

> Anyway, my question is not "which idealized scripting language do you
> think should be used for an imaginary debugger's command language?"
> It's "which real debugger's actual scripting language do you prefer?"

I've never used debuggers extensively to have an opinion.

My whole argument is on using the best tool, not what is seemingly
familiar. If gdb is used by C and C++ authors, Python is not a language
they are automatically able to reason about. It's just not true, and only
made popular due to being the new Perl of the Linux distros.
Python being in lldb is one of problems FreeBSD faces with putting
LLDB in the base system.

I've changed the subject. If you want to discuss this, please let's
start a new thread, but this is not the gdb list, so most probably
is the wrong forum anyway.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Carsten Mattner writes:

 > [Python is] only made popular due to being the new Perl of the
 > Linux distros.

I'm not sure exactly what your sentence referred to, but if the edit
above it correctly reflects your intent, your statement is false.
There are excellent reasons why Python is the scripting language
chosen by most distros that have made such a choice recently.  Those
reasons don't necessarily apply to an extension language, of course,
and we should be careful about that distinction.  However, I do find
some of the features of Python such as iterators, comprehensions, and
occasionally even generators to be useful at the interpreter prompt,
so I suspect they would be similarly useful if Python were used as an
extension language.

Of course the other scripting languages you mention are of similar
power, but I don't find them any easier to learn than I found Python
(and I've learned several languages since I learned Python; I should
be better at it now!)  There's an advantage to having one language
popular enough that you only need to learn that one, which gives
Python a substantial edge on the others (except Perl, of course).

It's also true that I find them all harder to learn than I found
forgetting Perl, but that, of course, is praising with faint damns.

 > Python being in lldb is one of problems FreeBSD faces with putting
 > LLDB in the base system.

If you say so, I'll take your word for it.  Nevertheless, Lisps face
far more resistance from the average member of the free software
community and the broader (or if you prefer, "neighboring") open
source community.

This *is* a problem for Emacs, and I think Lispers (and advocates of
functional languages in general) could learn a lot from the success of
Python.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Carsten Mattner]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Carsten Mattner writes:
>
>  > [Python is] only made popular due to being the new Perl of the
>  > Linux distros.
>
> I'm not sure exactly what your sentence referred to, but if the edit
> above it correctly reflects your intent, your statement is false.
> There are excellent reasons why Python is the scripting language
> chosen by most distros that have made such a choice recently.  Those
> reasons don't necessarily apply to an extension language, of course,
> and we should be careful about that distinction.  However, I do find
> some of the features of Python such as iterators, comprehensions, and
> occasionally even generators to be useful at the interpreter prompt,
> so I suspect they would be similarly useful if Python were used as an
> extension language.

I can decrypt enough Python to understand if there's a problem,
but ignore it as step back for expressing execution recipes for
machines. We've had better for far longer. Humanity seems to want
to feel pain. The rise of C like languages in the 80s started a dark
phase and sadly stopped hopeful approaches even within IBM related
to Fortran, however odd that may sound.

I'm not a Lisp fanboy or believer, just stating that whoever
used a Lisp machine or similar in functionality and work flow
in the way you write and massage or run code (images) is
forever sad given popular languages.

People seem to care about solutions and products more than
technologies, so we have to hide the good stuff as a trojan horse
inside something fancy.

If a superior package manager was written in Forth and provided
enough benefit, it would inevitably give Forth credit and mindshare.

> Of course the other scripting languages you mention are of similar
> power, but I don't find them any easier to learn than I found Python
> (and I've learned several languages since I learned Python; I should
> be better at it now!)  There's an advantage to having one language
> popular enough that you only need to learn that one, which gives
> Python a substantial edge on the others (except Perl, of course).
>
> It's also true that I find them all harder to learn than I found
> forgetting Perl, but that, of course, is praising with faint damns.

I'm glad I never learned enough to Perl to be dangerous, also
I just ignore Python as it doesn't fit my taste. Still Python looks
and feels cleaner than Ruby, which is like one of the frankenstein
languages people have to use (yes C# is also like that).
You cannot tack on things on a language like "modding" cars.
At least you shouldn't if you respect your users.

>  > Python being in lldb is one of problems FreeBSD faces with putting
>  > LLDB in the base system.
>
> If you say so, I'll take your word for it.  Nevertheless, Lisps face

Don't, view this instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVaNAm8jR_U
It's buried somewhere at last 3rd IIRC.

> far more resistance from the average member of the free software
> community and the broader (or if you prefer, "neighboring") open
> source community.

Interesting, I never felt that Lisp has a hard time in the free software
community. My views may miss some spectrum you're referring to.

> This *is* a problem for Emacs, and I think Lispers (and advocates of
> functional languages in general) could learn a lot from the success of
> Python.

Maybe, but I'm a believer in a project's popular functionality dictating
use of some of its "controversial" choices. Nobody would use Objective-C
as much if it wasn't for Cocoa (Touch) and Apple's stringent rules.
Exceptions like using Mono, GHC arm or some Scheme variant are
excluded as exceptions.

I don't want to continue this discussion as it's way off topic and rather
talked about at a table or around a camp fire.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Carsten Mattner writes:

 > People seem to care about solutions and products more than
 > technologies,

For good reason.

[...]

 > You cannot tack on things on a language like "modding" cars.
 > At least you shouldn't if you respect your users.

My point about "learning from Python" is precisely that you are
describing "modern" Emacs Lisp here. :-(  Unfortunately, you're not
the only one uninterested in talking about it.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Carsten Mattner]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> Carsten Mattner writes:
>
>  > People seem to care about solutions and products more than
>  > technologies,
>
> For good reason.

Depends.

>  > You cannot tack on things on a language like "modding" cars.
>  > At least you shouldn't if you respect your users.
>
> My point about "learning from Python" is precisely that you are
> describing "modern" Emacs Lisp here. :-(  Unfortunately, you're not
> the only one uninterested in talking about it.

Probably. I'm only uninterested because there's no benefit in
discussing this here. gdb seems to have adopted Python.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Richard Stallman]

I will ask the GDB developers to work on Guile support.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Carsten Mattner]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:47 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> I will ask the GDB developers to work on Guile support.

Thanks Richard. Contrary to Python Guile due to being a Scheme
is something which I'd be happy to dig into.

Re: gdb scripting language (was OSX crash)

[Carsten Mattner]

On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:47 PM, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
> I will ask the GDB developers to work on Guile support.

This reminds that there has been work on replacing emacs lisp
with Guile.

What's the status of that work?

Re: gdb scripting language

[Andy Wingo]

On Mon 19 Dec 2011 22:10, Carsten Mattner <carstenmattner@googlemail.com> writes:

> there has been work on replacing emacs lisp with Guile.
>
> What's the status of that work?

The goal of that work is to be a better elisp implementation, while also
offering the ability to do things in Emacs with Scheme.  Replacing all
elisp is not a goal, at least for me.  (Some people might be interested
in that, but it is not a goal of the Guile project, I don't think.)

The status is that Guile's elisp support will be quite good once BT
Templeton's branch is merged to Guile, which should happen shortly.
There has been little work on integrating Guile and Emacs though.  It
needs a few months' work from a good hacker.

Andy
-- 
http://wingolog.org/