[Ffmpeg-devel] SVN dump

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 10:06:44 -0400
Dave Dodge <dododge at dododge.net> wrote:

> Do you have Java support on your target system?  Jython supposedly
> implements Python in pure Java (it compiles Python to JVM bytecode).
> I don't know if Mercurial would easily run on top of it, though.

I hope you have your fire proofe underware on. Suggesting Rich to
use Java is even worse then suggesting to use Python. Now to use
Java to run Python scripts is a whole class of its own.
 
> > And writing your program in a RAD tool/prototyping/script language
> > does not speak well for its quality.
> 
> Not sure I entirely agree with that.  For example if the program
> needed to do a _lot_ of string processing, it would probably be easier
> and clearer to use some higher-level language than plain C.

Well, i don't agree with Rich on that, but neither do I with you.
But that's beyond the topic here.

> Aside: it could be worse; one of the main "competitors" to Mercurial
> and GIT is Darcs. 

Well, i tried darcs about 3 years ago. Set up a test repo, did
a few things i was used to do with cvs and run into problems
that darcs couldn't solve. It was to some extend a bug of darcs
(it was supposed to be possible), but a look at the code revealed
that it was a design problem rather than just a bug. Questions
about this on the ml were simply ignored.

No idea whether they fixed these issues by now, but then darcs
pretty much died for me.

> While it has the best (or at least the most
> interesting) design theory behind its operation, it ends up being slow
> for large projects, apparently has some corner cases where it goes
> into a near-infinite loop, and is implemented in Haskell -- making its
> code mostly impenetrable to the average programmer who might be
> interested in working on it.

Haskell is only difficult if you cannot think in a functional
language. Ok, maybe Haskell is not the right one to start,
try maybe Scheme first (has one of the smallest language
descriptions known to me). And IMHO every good coder should have
at least once tryed a functional language.

			Attila Kinali

-- 
Praised are the Fountains of Shelieth, the silver harp of the waters,
But blest in my name forever this stream that stanched my thirst!
                         -- Deed of Morred