Programming Languages 201811

The article “The promises of functional programming” written by Konrad Hinsen highlights how software development has undergone significant advances as much as advances in technology and computational hardware, in the same way the article describes what is the essence of functional languages, what gives life and the reasons why they are created, in parallel it also explains the advantages of using it. The first feature to highlight functional programming is in the use of functions, since unlike the use of mathematical functions, the variables are not part of the functional programming paradigm which according to the article is the first surprise faced to the ones that are starting to use functional programing. One of the other features for the functional paradigm is the built-in fail safe mode against race conditions which is the lack of counter and side effects, and the possibility to define the language itself. Hand in hand with this change also highlights the difference in t...

Technology today is something with which we can't live or stand being without. Many people do not know that is that everything regarding high order management, basic services, and complex control is brought to all of us towards computer systems. Computer clubs of “nerds” in the 70’s and 80’s were a key factor in the revolution of modern computer science given by the fact that it was where the mathematical principles of logic and advanced operations made match with the tech in order to seek a personal approach to the dream of “do more” and do interesting things. Their enthusiasm and their desire of personal, portable and simpler versions of big mainframe computers, prevented computing from remain in the corporate closet. This video documentary was an interesting insight into the beginning and the path of the computer-(science) industry in the last decades. It is very attractive to think that something that began as the “nerd’s pastime” became one of the biggest technological a...

Rick Hickey really impressed me in this potcast when he started talking about the details of Clojure's implementation of “mutable…ish” data and how he made it happen within the problematic that is the Java Virtual Machine in terms of resources, although the JVM has become more and more efficient within the newer versions; but in that sense the creation of a resource-efficient data structures certainly deserves a lot of admiration from me or anyone that nowadays dedicates its career to data-science because it takes a very clever mind to abstract all those models. Clojure is presented to you as a new paradigm or tool for your career or projects it can sound super difficult or creepy in the way of syntax complexity, but the truth is that once you dominate it, it becomes another “weapon” in the duty of any computologyst or computer systems engineer. Clojure is an amazing and powerful language because it is the (almost) perfect link between the objects-oriented paradigm and the un...

When I was beginning the path to become a software engineer I tended to magnify the problems related to the things I wasn’t very much involved into, because of inexperience. The Analogy of the pointy-haired boss can apply to many people when they are neophytes to some regard. In the real world it’s something that have happened to me almost every time when the requirements for some software are very ambitious and a pseudo-informed client is involved. Everybody loves standards, it makes things easier and faster, but also is not always wat everyone needs for achieving their goals. Maybe the client wants the latest and greatest revision of a software that is commonly used for their branch in business, but maybe that version of that software implements functions and new paradigms that are no longer the principal need for the client. These kind of concerns are common because where there is money involved, there is always the need to have security and robustness, but in the software deve...