amoroso, 22 days ago to random

Uncommon opinion (but not necessarily unpopular): I love languages with large standard libraries. I enjoy flipping through the language documentation, scouting for interesting functions or classes that may eventually come in handy.

My favorite large library language is Common Lisp but of course there are many others such as Smalltalk, Python, and Java.

#CommonLisp #ProgLang

amoroso, 2 months ago to random

Marc Kerbiquet started a new blog to talk about his "[...] experience as a hobbyist on compilers, decompilers and design of programming languages".

https://tibleiz.net

#compilers #proglang #blogs

amoroso, 11 months ago to programming

Peter Seibel: "How much does a choice of language really matter? Are there good reasons to choose one language over another or does it all just come down to taste?"

Guy L. Steele Jr.: "Why shouldn't taste be a good reason?"

Page 351 of "Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming". Peter Seibel, Apress, 2009.

#proglang #programming

inthehands, 1 year ago to ai

OK, trying an experiment with my Programming Languages class!

• Have an AI generate some of your writing assignment.
• Critique its output. Call BS on its BS.

Assignment details in screenshots below. I’ll let you know how it goes.

(Here are the links from the screenshots:)

Raw AI Text:
https://gist.github.com/pcantrell/7b68ce7c5b2e329543e2dadd6853be21

Comments on AI Text:
https://gist.github.com/pcantrell/d51bc2d4257027a6b4c64c9010d42c32

(Better) Human Text
https://gist.github.com/pcantrell/f363734336e6063f61e451e2658b50a6

#ai #chatgpt #education #writing #highered
#swift #proglang

You all can do much better than the AI! Instead of doing a traditional pre-submission project check-in, I have a challenge for you: ask an AI to write a few paragraphs of your paper, and then critique its output. Here’s what to do: Use an AI (ChatGPT or other) to generate a few paragraphs of your final project. You can use the AI to generate English text or code, whichever is appropriate to your project. You can use ChatGPT or a different AI. The OpenAI account you need for ChatGPT is cheap but not free, and maybe a little intrusive. If you don’t want to set up an account and generate text yourself, let me know your topic and I will happily generate some text for you. Just ask. Save the raw text the AI gave you. Write comments about the AI’s output, much like the ones I wrote above. You can write your comments inline like I did, or use the Comments / Suggested Edits features of Google Docs, or use the Review / Track Changes features of MS Word. Consider the following: What is correct, a good point? What is wrong? What is missing? (This is the hardest one.) What is useless, just filler language? You do not have to be as detailed as I was with the AI. Quick notes are fine! Please send me (1) the original AI text and (2) your comments.
You do not have to create the “better human version” like I did. Of course, doing so might help you write your paper. If you choose to do that, however, don’t let the AI decide your paper’s structure for you. It might give you some good ideas for things to talk about! It might point out some ideas and resources you hadn’t considered! But it might also mislead you into a line of argument that is wrong (as the AI did with my response above), or into a structure that doesn’t make sense. Don’t switch off your own good sense — not for a computer, and not for a human either. Not ever. JUST TO BE CLEAR: Using an AI to help write your assignment would be cheating in most circumstances. Don’t let the fact that we are doing this as an exercise confuse you about the ethics of coursework in general! If you think an AI would help you with an assignment, you need to ask your instructor. Hopefully you already know all that, but I do not want to leave any confusion about it.