Dev Language Comparison

[Alex Rice]

On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, at 07:16  AM, xbury.cs at clearstream.com 
wrote:
> Last but not least, an article on Slashdot.org regarding RR would be a 
> boost to our
> little community...

Maybe someone with a Rev/Linux success story can post there!

> Comments or testing results anyone?

I haven't read the article, too lengthy to look at right now. But some 
thoughts:

C# and .NET requires end users to install ~ 20 MB runtime, right? 
That's worse than downloading an installing a Java runtime, which afaik 
is ~ 5-10MB. Rev has a huge advantage here with a 2 MB runtime.

Yesterday I watched the demo (mentioned on slashdot) of Borlands new 
CBuilderX IDE for C and C++. It's Windows/Solaris/Linux. It's supposed 
to be their next-gen IDE that will last through the lifespan of C/C++ 
(decade? two?). I was drooling watching the demo- it's a nice IDE. But 
had to keep reminding myself: "You hate C++. Oh yeah".

I think Rev would get a big boost if it's Externals SDK were 
documented, and if it had some generic .dll-glue capabilities like 
we've discussed on list before.

Now that I've figured out how to write Rev externals (it was a 
challenge, let me tell you) is has opened up a lot of possibilities for 
me.

My revclips external opens up the CLIPS expert system engine as 
transcript functions and handlers. In the future CLIPS will be able to 
inspect Rev object properties and call transcript handlers, via C calls 
runtime.

This means that I will be able to control application logic either at 
the high transcript level, or at a deeper level in CLIPS with a rule 
based production system, or object-oriented, or procedural styles of 
programming. When I say deeper level that's only because it's 
abstracted down into an external lib. Not deeper as in - closer to a 
system programming language like C++ or Java. Considering it's all 
x-platform this opens up exciting possibilities for very smart 
xplatform apps in my eyes.

A rule based production system is fast pattern matching engine. If you 
know SQL, imagine a 3 way join between tables with foreign keys. Now 
imagine a 10 way join. Now imagine an N-way join! And imagine that the 
state of your query is persistent and you can unroll it or tweak it as 
you go. That's kind of what rule based production system is about.

Anyways now I'm rambling and don't know what this has to do with your 
question anymore :-)



Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco