There are a lot of smart people on the Arc forum. So if you want to use Arc, and you said, "you know, I could use Arc for my project if only I knew how to do X in Arc", there's a good chance someone will be able to help you.
For example, my lang hack (http://awwx.ws/lang2, also in Anarki) lets you call Python libraries from Arc, and as it happens I've heard that it has been used in production (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1814558). If my lang hack does what you need you can use it, or if there's something missing that you would need you can tell me what's missing for you and maybe I can help.
But you do have to be able to explain what it is that you need. One person says "can I use Arc in production?" and by that they mean "I need X, Y, and Z" and another person says "what would it take for Arc to be easy to use in production?" and by that they mean "I need A, B, and C"... and they're completely different things.
I understand your point but still, I was more talking about a collective effort to try to make Arc easier to use by other programmers that don't necessarily want to hack up a new implementation. But yeah, "production" is really vague.
For what it's worth, everything I use Arc for is the Arc3.1 codebase -- I don't use Anarki, or any of the other alternative Arcs. What makes you think you have to "hack up a new implementation"?
As a side note, I have no idea what you mean when you say "hacking in Hack". What is the second "hack" there?
Hard to say. For my use only, it'd be to make it easy to integrate it with python/django a little bit like clojure do it with java. Ideally python could call arc, and arc could call python. (But again, this is just an example). To make it really easy, we could do something like: easy_install django-arc.. I'm sure that would encourage more people to use it. No?
"Many of us are using Arc because it's not Python."
"I call Python from Arc when there's a Python library that would be useful to me."
Yup, I agree with both of those. Python is ew compared to Arc, but it does have some nice libraries.
Incidentally, I started on Arubic for fun, to learn more about how an Arc interpreter works, and also to enable nice integration with Python. Then I can finally use multi-expression lambdas with Python. :P
Oh yeah, and change some stuff that I felt Arc was lacking in.
Plus, I like Python better than Racket. So if I'm going to hack in one of the two...
Seems interesting, but kinda heavy-weight. If the Python version of Arubic were in better shape, I might recommend that, but it doesn't have a Python compatibility layer yet, and I've gotten sidetracked implementing Arubic in ar/Arc.
Seems like there's a significant disconnect in this thread.
I think d0m's saying: Why do Arc folks do things like X by making a new language? Shouldn't we put features in Arc itself, if it's going to be a language people will actually use?
I think aw's saying: Why not ask instead, "How can I do X in Arc?" In fact, here's a way I do X without making a new language.
I think Pauan's saying: I'd like to do X, and aw's approach seems clunky. I think a new language would be better.
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As I see things, d0m, we pursue our own languages because there are certain improvements we want to make that take a complete rework of the language.
Python interop is a great example. Clojure-Java interop is possible because they both run on the same rather high-level platform, the JVM. Official Arc runs on the Racket runtime, and Python (at least CPython) is its own whole runtime, so there aren't many ways to bridge the gap except for the C FFIs and the kind of IPC aw's lang hack uses. One of the best ways to get a clean integration between Python and Arc would be to reimplement Arc and/or Python to run on the same high-level platform--and yet that means reimplementing a language, rather than improving an existing one.
Or does it? The reimplementations may already exist. If you could use Jython for your Python project, then you could probably achieve a good degree of interoperability with Jarc and Rainbow, which are high-quality Arc implementations for the JVM.
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But really I think Python interop was only one example, and your point was any that features we could put into the main Arc language should be put there. In that case, you'll need to define what counts as Arc.
There's an official release of Arc, maintained by Paul Graham, but keep in mind that he only updates once in a blue moon and tends to leave out features that aren't obviously necessary to him. A brief language implementation is one of his primary goals for Arc.
We do have Anarki, a community fork of Arc, but keep in mind that Anarki is held back a little by a desire to be similar to official Arc, so that the next time Paul Graham releases an update, it's easy to merge it in. This similarity also makes Anarki a bit more useful in practice, since it's compatible with most official-Arc code people write.
We could probably relax that policy on Anarki, but what big changes should we allow? I'd make radical changes and turn it into Penknife. Pauan would make sorta big changes and turn it into Arubic. It could be useful to make radical implementation changes and turn it into aw's ar, and akkartik may want to radically reorganize the project's file tree.
All in all, Arc's philosophy isn't well-defined and persuasive enough to drive us all toward the same future. Although we do want to make big changes, it's easy for us to be unsure about them or disagree. So we tend to experiment with big ideas by implementing them in our own language projects, where at least we know what we like.
If it helps, think of it this way: We don't make our own languages just to let Arc stagnate. We make our own languages so that we can improve Arc in various ways all at once. This fracturing is kind of unfortunate, but we still do build upon each other's ideas, so we're just advancing the state of the Arc in an unusual way. ^_^
Still, I suppose it means we have a community that's a little hard for non-language-implementors to appreciate. There are some less vocal people who talk about Arc only for Arc, like thaddeus and kens, but even then the topic can diverge to how our fractured Arc variants deal with the issue. :-p But you know, I wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe if the community were larger, we could have separate forums for in-Arc and around-Arc discussions.
I suspect that for the most common uses the disadvantages of providing language interoperability in the same process outweigh the advantages, and so personally I'd be surprised if implementing Python and Arc in the same runtime would have much impact on the uptake of Arc. I could be wrong of course... and then I'd be surprised :-)
With respect to there being lots of variants of Arc, I think about Arc as a personal programming language. Thus that it allows extensive personalization, and people publish many personal variants, is to my mind a feature not a bug.
This diversity of course raises its own issues: we're concerned not just with interoperability between Arc and other languages, but interoperability between variants of Arc! :-) But solving this provides a more powerful platform than one stuck with providing the lowest common denominator of standard language features to ensure interoperability.
I also think that the idea of personal programming languages remains largely unexplored territory. Thus if there is significant uptake of Arc, I imagine it may not come at the expense of other languages, but instead it could be for new uses. Because of this belief I tend not to pay much attention when someone says "Arc should have X because other languages have it", but I'm very interested when someone says "I'd like to use Arc myself, and I'd be able to if only it had X".
"I suspect that for the most common uses the disadvantages of providing language interoperability in the same process outweigh the advantages"
I've never thought of that. I'm used to using Racket stuff from Arc without hesitation, but then the stuff I use is provided with the Racket language, like parameters and regexes. Most of my non-Arc personal code is in Java or Groovy, and I'm very glad I can use it from Rainbow, but I haven't actually done that yet....
Still, I can personally attest that this kind of feature has played a role in my adoption of languages, regardless of whether I've used it. :)
Through-out this whole thread I've wanted to kick in and say: "boy I wish Arc was built on top the jvm, similar to Clojure's implementation", but then I also realize one might as well just switch to Clojure if that's what one wants.
Would have been be nice though. Smart move by Rich.
The way clojure implemented it allows for seamless integration between libraries. With clojure I can load and easily make use of any java code out there. I can use cron job libraries, database libraries etc. etc. And I really don't require much java knowledge, just a basic API used to call the library/jar file. This gets people on-board, hence larger community, building all kinds of kewl apps/libraries... More solutions, more knowledge base... Just more options.
With arc, the language syntax and base libraries are awesome, but you scratch your head more often, wondering" well how the hell am I supposed to do that. " And these problems/features are not small roadblocks... For example, if I need to use Arc connecting to oracle? - good luck, it's not going to happen.
If arc were built atop the jvm, the way clojure is... These problems all go away.
Thanks for the offer. I think real database connections to arc could only improve the adoption + user happiness levels, but I will suggest connecting to oracle was just an example for the point I was trying to make.
What I am suggesting is not new or even surprising. Arc has no depth for libraries. Rich solved this problem right from the get-go by having tight integration with java. Arc would have had similar success had it done the same thing - too bad really. And dropping into Scheme just doesn't cut it.
I'm suggesting users of arc will google things like 'arc oracle', or even 'scheme oracle' which returns jack. With Arc you get Nada for google answers + you get unanswered posts such as these.
step-by-step recipes to connect to a myriad of databases. This was made possible through Clojures tight integration with java. Clojure can import java libraries with 1 simple import statement.
Let's not forget that Clojure is a newer language than Arc - correct?
Now, I'm just looking at the title of the thread "Effort to make it easy to use in production?", and thinking - yeah, I can understand, that's why I moved over to Clojure and its too bad Arc didn't do this.
Sure I'm no expert in the programming language industry, but if I were to come up with a new spiffy language I'd rather do what Rich did. Arc could have been built atop the jvm - correct? It was just easier not to, considering arc was not about being practical, it was about attaining some elusive mystical idealized syntax that will be practical in, possibly, a hundred years from now.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but it just seems like the original poster wasn't getting much love, and I can appreciate what and why he/she was asking.
When I started work on my Arc runtime project, the first thing I looked at was what I thought would be the best platform to write the runtime on top of. Racket seemed to be moving away from Arc in some ways, so I didn't start with the assumption that Racket was going to be the right choice. I looked at a number of options, and concluded that as far as I could tell that Racket still had the best mix of features.
The JVM naturally has the advantage that it's easy to call Java libraries, but it has the disadvantage that it has no built-in support for tail call optimization or continuations. Since it's not particularly difficult to make use of libraries running in a different process, it would be easy enough for me to use Java libraries from an Arc implemented in Racket if I wanted to, and so I had no compelling reason to write ar on top of the JVM.
There is a long history of languages written for people who want to use the JVM but who also want to be able to use a less terrible language than Java: Jython, Groovy, Clojure, etc. Since Clojure is a particularly nice language, it didn't surprise me that it rapidly gained popularity among people who want to use the JVM.
For any particular project that I may be working on, there are a mix of features that I need for that project. If I were working on a project that primarily needed to call Java libraries and I didn't need the features unique to Arc, I would most likely use Clojure myself (or Rainbow or Jarc, if it turned out that one of those were suitable to my project). If I were working on a project where the features of Arc were important and I also needed to call some Java libraries, I'd likely write it in Arc calling out to Java libraries.
Since this is a forum for Arc, I answer questions primarily from the perspective of Arc. Since typically a hundred people will browse a forum for each person posting, I primarily answer questions for the majority reading. For example, if someone makes a statement that is wrong, I will say that they are wrong, so that someone else reading the forum isn't left with incorrect facts.
When someone complains about Arc, I tend to suspect that either there's something they want, or else they just feel like complaining. People wanting things is useful. If someone actually wants X and says so, and we come up with a solution for them, then we also help the hundred other people who want that thing as well. Other the other hand, and I'm not saying that anyone has actually done this, but if someone were to sit at a computer and type in a complaint that other people haven't done the work to make Arc a popular language faster than some other language has become popular, that doesn't strike me as being particularly useful.
I'm not against complaining. Complaining is often a useful first step towards finding a solution. However, while I'm not trying to pass judgement, I am trying to discern whether someone is complaining because they just want to complain or because they want a solution.
Again, when I answer a question, I answer a question primarily for people in general reading the forum; and from the perspective of people wanting to use Arc. Thus if Clojure is a better solution for you for most of the projects that you work on, that's fine, I agree you should use Clojure. However when I read "for example, if I need to use Arc connecting to oracle? - good luck, it's not going to happen" my immediate concern is that someone else is going to read that and might be left with the impression that it's prohibitory difficult to connect to oracle from Arc... which, while it's certainly harder to connect to oracle from Arc than it is from Clojure, isn't all that difficult.
Being difficult or easy is a relative thing. The hours of investment by grade-a developers contributing to making these production grade feature-x's in other languages leads me to feel pretty comfortable suggest that having them,
or a dozen other similar feature-x's would not be all that easy.
Sure, if you have spent hundreds of hours doing low level hacking between racket<->arc you can suggest these things are not all that hard, but the reality is that many of these feature-x's are just not going to happen.
Chances are that mainstream features are not a priority for the members here... And that's my message to the OP: go use Clojure or something having the features you want. I say this from 2 years of following arc, the arc forum and its members. There are probably a dozen submissions/comments about db connects and FFI, yet to this day nothing works.
The people on this forum, who know me, know I like the arc language, often promote it and that I'm not here to tear it apart, but I'm going to be real about it and make sure the op gets the right message (from my perspective).
> "If you like the Arc, then instead of complaining that other people aren't figuring out what you'd want to use for you, why not take the time to help and describe what you would need in a db connection library and FFI?"
I'm thinking if you re-read the thread starting from my first comment (http://arclanguage.org/item?id=14539), you'll hopefully come to understand that I haven't been complaining, but rather I have been defending/substantiating my suggestions and thoughts.
As for why I don't take time to describe some spec, well because I'm not asking for anything and I've chosen to spend the bulk of my time learning Clojure and building applications. I guess you could say I take my own advice.
> "If you want some love on the forum, there's an easy way to get that:make a useful contribution."
It's pretty obvious, based upon your replies, that you don't see my posts as valuable contributions, but maybe you'll come to understand these posts are intended to help the OP rationalize his topic, not to gain some form popularity/acceptance with or by you.
If you like the Arc, then instead of complaining that other people aren't figuring out what you'd want to use for you, why not take the time to help and describe what you would need in a db connection library and FFI?
Or, you could add a page to the wiki describing the ways that Clojure is better than Arc.
If you want some love on the forum, there's an easy way to get that: make a useful contribution.
If the JARs are in the classpath, the classes are just as accessible as any standard platform class like java.util.Map. I give a demonstration here, where I explain the custom interface I built so I could sometimes use the same code on both platforms: http://rocketnia.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/lathes-arc-to-impl...
Since then, Jarc's actually added Rainbow compatibility functions, so you might be able to get away with writing code just for Rainbow without leaving Jarc too far behind. Rainbow's faster, but Jarc has a more straightforward implementation.
I recommend having one of the JARs be a language with eval, like Groovy, JRuby, or Clojure. Jarc and Rainbow convert certain values to/from Arc in ways that are nice most of the time but sometimes lose precision, like the distinction between Boolean.FALSE and null.
Bravo. I'm bookmarking this comment. Next time we get a question about fragmentation I'll point to the final section.
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I didn't plan to hack on programming languages when I started playing with arc. Creating new languages/implementations is an occupational hazard of hacking on arc. Or maybe it's a pleasant side effect that we get for free (a viral - and rapidly mutating - language). Depends on how you look at it.
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I think it's beneficial that these variants aren't splitting off into their own communities. They're able to recombine features from each other. wart stole its iteratively-refined interpreter cond from ar. Pauan's gotten me thinking about message passing.
Hmm, it sounds like there are three pieces to the puzzle:
a) Can one use Arc to call Python and call Python from Arc? Yes.
b) Could you, if you wanted to, learn how this is done and package it up in a way so that it would easy to use? Sure, you could do that, if that was a way that you'd like to contribute.
c) Would this encourage more people to use Arc? I don't know. This forum might be the wrong place to ask that question, since people here already use Arc.
