On Tue, Nov 14, 2006 at 06:31:50PM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 11/14/06, Chad Perrin <perrin(a)apotheon.com>
wrote:
[snip]
For that matter, I think there are JVM-embedded
Ruby and Perl
interpreters as well. Might as well allow it all, if you're going to do
it that way.
I'd prefer we only have one.. simply because I'd rather have one large
base of wikipedians speaking the same language than four fragmented
groups. .... But I don't really care which one it is.
In this case, I think the fact that a lot of people will care might
reduce the number of people willing to participate, to say nothing of
the fact that the way you presented the idea it sounds like the
Wikimedia collection of content (and the philosophy of how that content
is handled and distributed) would be extended to client-side code. This
being the case, it seems inconsistent and exclusionary to only "allow" a
single client-side programming language outside of Javascript. Maybe
that's just me, though.
Our site is innovative in many ways...(nearly) instant gratification,
open access, revision control (never forget), Free Content, low
barriers to entry.. etc.. as we step into the realm of executable
content we should not abandon all the things that have made us grand.
Thus, my concern about the extension of the philosophy of content to
executable content, and being inclusive in terms of interpreted source
code that can be used.
We need:
0) Can run safely in the JVM.
1) Can perform graphics in the JVM, hopefully sound.
2) near enough to interpreted (compile at preview would be a bummer :)
Plus new programmers really enjoy the ability to sit at a prompt and
type in code).
3) Used in the outside world (we already have one home grown
programming language, we don't need another)
4) Is broadly compatible with the JVMs on client systems.
5) Decent libraries for data handling, graphing, etc a big plus.
Agreed on each point, I think. The biggest problems are likely to be a
working definition of "safely" and sorting out JVM compatibility on
client systems.
--
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [
http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
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