Program config as a DNA strand

This is a technical followup to the post about mind-altering programming languages, which concentrates, iterates and extends on the abstract DNA part.

Do you know how DNA looks like from the point of view of Python programmer?
DNA is a list. Of genes, and fillers in between.

    [ GENE, GENE, GENE, None, GENE, STUFF, GENE, .... ]

By the analogy with software, one GENE is one option. Here None or STUFF is something that is not recognized and not used in the process right now, but may be used later even in a different place for a different purpose. This leads to very interesting properties of configuration described as a DNA strand.

Property One: Everything is Optional and Configurable

Usually it is a tough choice what to include into your program config, because an option a day keeps users away. But with DNA config it doesn't matter - you can encode everything - every bit of flexibility you wanted, every feature-creeper, forward-thinking matter. Don't bother yourself with restrictions - include everything.

Property Two: Indefinite Logical Groups and Namespaces

To make sense out of tons of information in a DNA strand, you need to concentrate only on the parts that are relevant to you. This is done by "masking" (or marking) parts of the DNA code according to your current task. When you apply a mask, all GENEs of DNA that are not used are cleared. You can have multiple masks for different programs. An awesome feature-creeper would be to figure out mask automatically during the program run (program explicitly marks sequences what it reads and what it skips).

Property Three: Non-linear Option Identification

Because DNA is a list, you may think that you need to know option position to access it. This is not necessary. Index in a DNA is the most straightforward way to lookup an option value, and mask is a tool to help explore and identify its position. But the true power comes from the fact that a option can be identified by just analyzing content. Option can be a single GENE in specific format, or it can be identified as a sequence of GENEs that pass some validation logic. This makes is possible to write generic configuration analyzers, which can read these sequences to detect configuration problems, patterns and meaningful values to produce nice visualization out of them.

Property Four: Application Types

In real world™ DNA is packed in chromosomes. Humans have 46. Potatoes possess 48. Zombies are somewhere in between. In a virtual world of coding it makes sense to use one chromosome per application type. For example, every Python web framework has a lot of common parts, common features and minor details in these features, so a variety of such frameworks can be encoded with a single DNA strand.

Exercise

It may sound too abstract, but try to think how to build a shared DNA strand for two or more mini web application frameworks in Python. Just remember that DNA code includes both hardcoded application features and modifiable configuration options. And as usual look at BoxCar 2D for an inspiration.

Programming languages that alter your mind

Today I went to Perl 6 site.
I left.
I can remember in details what brought me there.
I still shocked by the new world that opened before me.
Butterflies..

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NOTE: This is a not very positive post `about life`. Don't waste you time if you don't like such stuff.

The text below contains depictions of deaths by coding, too much letters, biased speculations, insight into psychedelic culture and a long way to the conclusions you're may not be ready to face with. You've been warned.


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Let's face it - programming languages alter your mind. They affect the way people think and solve problems. It creates problems in life and relationships. Languages are addictive, they provide a lot of fun to entertain one's brain well beyond solving simple crosswords and moving sprites of monsters on the screen through the means of other sprites guided by the mouse-type manipulator. And while programming languages are fun, they are also harmful and even toxic.

A language is toxic when it doesn't match your expectations, such as were mine that resulted in filling Python bug #17426 (which I called the subzero wart, but that doesn't really matter). A language is harmful when it requires you to remember yet another thing from its "funny" behavior, and for that purpose you need to sacrifice a mem cell that was dedicated to store the name of your girlfriend's favorite flowers. It is harmful if it affects your mood, and you get butthurt when you read bad things about it.

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Programming can be fatal for a girlfriend, relatives and the person in general. Much like eating mushrooms. I was only at two funerals of people below the age of 25. Both of them died of pneumonia, because both were not attentive enough to the symptoms of the cold they got, and that's because their attention was completely absorbed by tasks they needed to complete for their jobs. Their body failed, because their brain was unable to dedicated resources to timely response to the alerts of life sustaining system.

That's why people quit programming. That's why salaries are so high. But that doesn't mean other jobs are not harmful either. Low salary can be much more harmful in many ways leading to low self esteem and to even more complicated problems with relatives, friends and society. Did I say mushrooms can do this too?

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Programming can be fatal even for the people with positive strong attitudes to pursue their own goals in life. If taken without prescription or without negative sides of the daily jobs in bad companies, programming becomes addictive - fun for one who practices and a loss for the human society. Ignoring everything around, being busy with developing your own _____ (framework, game, startup, social network, ...). A loss that happens when a person is leaves the job to pursue its virtual dreams about programming. Dreams disconnected from reality. And reality is something that you've completely ignored and skipped while being buried under the pile of daily tasks at your big corporation. Did I say that mushrooms can cause this too?

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Real life is tough. It requires interaction with people, responding to signals and basically you start to forget your ideas, dreams and become more far away from your goals. New ideas are less likely to visit you, because maintaining a business requires a mindset of a library with shallow functions, not a scientific library with modelling algorithms. Maintaining a business is reinventing the bicycle. Over and over, day after day. Pursuing your dreams is reinventing the bicycle. Over and over, day after day. That keeps people busy, and the progress slow.

Programming languages can make the world less harmful and more close to the reality. Programming languages that are accessible, that save time and don't have a tough legacy. Enabling people to adapt them, discuss them and invent their own. If people can not invent ideal programming languages by themselves, by calculating, by using maths and inductive reasoning - they should try genetic algorithms. Did I mention that mushrooms can mutate?

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The more experience I gain, the less I want to learn the peculiarities and differences between the languages. I just want them to work and I'd gladly outsource the task of inventing such working language to genetic algorithm. Algorithm where I involved as a social actor that makes selection based on shared experience with other actors. Genetic algorithm is where you have a set of parameters written into one long line. Mutation is a change of some or all of these parameters - sometimes completely random, sometimes guided. If your programming language has parameters - syntax, functions, modules, features - you can describe it using this long line called DNA.

To apply genetic algorithm you need a selection method - this is a shared user experience. You need an identification for the language a DNA sequence, but also a registry of names for and versions for human consumption. You need to abandon backward compatibility excuses and start building reusable components that will become new parameters in the language DNA sequence.

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It starts to get late. Tomorrow there will be a new day, new karma and new ideas, so I need to finish this today. If programming languages can alter you mind, you can use this mind to alter the language. It is well known that when you look into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you, but it is less known that it is an iterative process. Did I mention that shrooms can give you powers?..

Let me say goodbye and wish you all the best, dear reader. I hope you had a good trip, and now enjoy the expanded state of your mind and consciousness. Did I mention mushrooms? Right.

About Environment

In Python applications environment is often an ambiguous term that needs clarification. In general sense `the environment` is system environment with PATH and friends accessible from os.environ within Python. But in Python applications it can mean different things.

In Trac `the environment` is a directory with settings, database and other files related to one Trac site.

In SCons `the environment` is a structure in memory that holds dependency trees, helper functions, builders and other stuff. It is written to disk only for caching.


Quite many other applications have some kind of environment for their own purpose with meanings close to either Trac or SCons, which often confuses newbies or strangers who are not aware about the context. Software development clearly needs more specific terms in English to make people write and read in the same language without those excessive contexts.

Wanted: Language Transition Function Matrix

The scary name doesn't follow any complicated topic from linear algebra. It merely outlines an idea of a tool for PHP to Java to Python person who wants to get a familiar API on whatever platform the work needs to be done at the moment.

Organized as a snippets repository in matrix form (ok, let's put 'table' for 'matrix') it could conveniently display snippets in a target language that serve as an analogue of functions of a source language. For example, PHP function string file_get_contents($filename) is presented in Python as a :

def file_get_contents(filename):
    f = open(filename)
    try:
        r = f.read( )
    finally:
        f.close( )
    return r

Hovering the PHP API function name could popup a small DHTLM window with function description and a link to official documentation. Main link outside the popup area leads to user content. The resource is a collaborative area that reflects the state of language mappings between different language APIs, allows users to submit their own versions, vote, comment, refactor comments and narrow the scope of original API. It could also allow to work out and point best practices of using languages in specific areas.

I do not know of any resource like this one yet.