RFC - One word alias for require_relative

D

David Masover

I leave the trolls now alone to discuss my English skills and to
theorize about my job interviews and whatever other personal things
they may find. They're trolls, don't be to hard in judging them.

I can't resist...

Remember this, Ilias?

I hope you are aware that you have already crossed moral and legal
lines. [...]
I hope that the professionals within this group will intervene at some
point, if the "attacks" on my person continue.

And then:

You may want to research for "Defamation" / "Defamation of Character".

Your English skills aren't a problem; after all, Matz has good but not
flawless English also. Your conduct is... well, I suppose we can now add
"hypocritical" to the list.
 
D

David Masover

"He is obsessed by the minutiae of syntax and apparently uninterested
in actually writing programs - he needs to invent some `perfect'
language before he can do anything, and he's starting with the syntax.
It seems quite likely that he's just trying to avoid doing anything at
all by endlessly fiddling with syntax."

Now *that* sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Indeed it does, and this is probably why I respond to him as much as I do,
because I started out the same way.

This is going to be a long one. I'll try not to tell this story more than
once, because it's so long, and borders on actually being offtopic.



I wanted a language which was "fast enough", where "fast enough" meant "at
least as fast as Java, and better if it can approach C++", which compiled to
portable bytecode, preferrably bytecode for VMs people are likely to have
(Java or .NET) but a new VM would be acceptable, could run in 32-bit or 64-bit
modes, had flexible syntax with minimal verbosity, was extremely dynamic
semantically but ran as fast as static code, handled unicode well, had good
multiprocessing primitives (like Erlang)...

The list goes on. And on. And on.

I rejected Ruby at first because it was "too slow", and because I didn't see a
way it could be much faster, especially because I didn't quite understand the
difference between symbols and strings. Also, it runs from source, and didn't
seem to have any good compilers -- at the time, I thought I wanted to do game
development, and while I wanted my game to be almost automatically portable
(compile once, run anywhere, so I don't have to convince anyone to let me make
a Linux version), I also didn't want to actually ship source.

While I suppose I had a good rationale for almost every question I asked, I
followed a very similar pattern to Ilias. I'd get annoyed when people would
answer my real question instead of the one I asked, because then we'd be
arguing about architecture, not realizing how much I had to learn about that.
I would also wander from group to group -- I'm not sure I ever made an
appearance on Ruby-Talk directly, but I suspect I hit the IRC channel at some
point. I was really excited about Perl6 before it really was anything
resembling an actual language. I tried Squeak, and rejected it because 64-bit
support was experimental, and it seemed that it might be difficult to port
software between 32-bit and 64-bit, and even if it would work perfectly
eventually, the amount of work it was taking them to make a 64-bit Squeak VM
suggested that either the language was too difficult to port or the community
was too small to react to these kinds of changes in technology.

Basically, I spent my teenage years like this. I would often be tempted to
reinvent various wheels, and I still am.

But when it came down to it, when I really had to, I could program. It started
off really sloppy, and I actually still occasionally support programs I wrote
as a teenager. Still, I was able to get things done, at first mostly in Perl,
just little things, avoiding any project big enough that it would warrant The
Perfect Language.

The turning point was probably my first programming job, at a startup. For the
first time, I was forced to work with other people, and to actually program
roughly 8 hours a day, every day. For the first six months or so, it was
entirely JavaScript, running on HD-DVDs. For the next six months or so, it was
mostly Ruby -- Blu-Ray won, but we took our Rails backend for the HD-DVD stuff
and adapted it into a music widget.

The second time through, I saw a lot more of Ruby's brilliance. Plus, the
performance had improved significantly, to the point where it was still common
knowledge that "Ruby is Slow", but I could no longer see any major design
decisions which made Ruby _pointlessly_ slow -- any decisions that would tend
to make implementations slow weren't just carelessness, they were deliberate
tradeoffs between performance and programmer productivity.

I had to learn, the hard way, that there is no "perfect" language. While I can
think of some things I wish some language did that no languages do yet, I no
longer believe that there could ever be a language which is semantically
"better" than all other languages in all ways. One thing many people on this
list will be familiar with is Ruby vs JavaScript -- and I have to say, there
are tons of things I miss about each in the other, and some of them are
mutually exclusive. I like that every interaction with an object in Ruby is
actually sending it a message (a method call, usually), but that's
incompatible with JavaScript's idea that objects are just hashes of methods
and values.

That, and I actually learned to program.

The biggest change in my thinking now is that, when I was a teenager asking
the kind of questions Ilias does, I wasn't speaking from experience where a
given construct actually bothered me. It just bothered me from some idealistic
standpoint which had no connection to any program I have ever or will ever
write. These days, when I complain that (for example) autoload didn't actually
call the system require, I actually do have a good reason for wanting to
intercept the behavior of autoload.

That is, I've gone from being an idealistic, dogmatic, theoretical programmer
to being an actual, practicing, empirical programmer. It just took me five or
ten years, and I probably made some enemies along the way.



So as rude and arrogant as he is, and as little as he deserves (or wants) my
pity, it's kind of painful for me to see Ilias making the exact same mistakes
I did, and then grew out of -- and frustrating when he refuses to hear a word
of it.

Hopefully this is useful, or at least interesting. Thanks for your patience,
whoever's actually read this far. At the very least, now you see why it's so
hard for me to actually not feed this troll.
 
R

Ryan Davis

[...the actually interesting bits...]
=20
So as rude and arrogant as he is, and as little as he deserves (or = wants) my=20
pity, it's kind of painful for me to see Ilias making the exact same = mistakes=20
I did, and then grew out of -- and frustrating when he refuses to hear = a word=20
of it.
=20
Hopefully this is useful, or at least interesting. Thanks for your = patience,=20
whoever's actually read this far. At the very least, now you see why = it's so=20
hard for me to actually not feed this troll.

Yeah... but...

% curl -s http://legacy.lazaridis.com/resumes/lazaridis.html | grep -i =
years
<li>20 years - Solving Technical Problems Abstractly </li>
<li>18 years - IT Business </li>
<li>15 years - Software Developement </li>
<li>12 years - Product Management </li>
<li>10 years - Digital Electronic Design </li>
<li>05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain) </li>

(not that I believe Ilias)
 
K

Kane Williams

unsubscribe
Date: Fri=2C 17 Jun 2011 15:19:57 +0900
From: (e-mail address removed)
Subject: Re: RFC - One word alias for require_relative
To: (e-mail address removed)
=20
I leave the trolls now alone to discuss my English skills and to
theorize about my job interviews and whatever other personal things
they may find. They're trolls=2C don't be to hard in judging them.
=20
I can't resist...
=20
Remember this=2C Ilias?
=20
I hope you are aware that you have already crossed moral and legal
lines. [...]
I hope that the professionals within this group will intervene at some
point=2C if the "attacks" on my person continue.
=20
And then:
=20
You may want to research for "Defamation" / "Defamation of Character".
=20
Your English skills aren't a problem=3B after all=2C Matz has good but no= t=20
flawless English also. Your conduct is... well=2C I suppose we can now ad= d=20
"hypocritical" to the list.
=20
=
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

On Jun 16, 2011, at 23:49 , David Masover wrote:

[...] - (story of Mr. Masover's live, which I've not read)
So as rude and arrogant as he is, and as little as he deserves (or wants) my
pity, it's kind of painful for me to see Ilias making the exact same mistakes
I did, and then grew out of -- and frustrating when he refuses to hear a word
of it.
[...the actually interesting bits...]
Hopefully this is useful, or at least interesting. Thanks for your patience,
whoever's actually read this far. At the very least, now you see why it's so
hard for me to actually not feed this troll.

Wow, this (off-topic, off-context, my-personal-experiences-to-others-
by-brute-force) Troll is really a special one.

Get serious, Mr. Masover.

The only troll you feed is yourself.

And it seems that I make you very hungry.
Yeah... but...

% curl -shttp://legacy.lazaridis.com/resumes/lazaridis.html| grep -i years
        <li>20 years - Solving Technical Problems Abstractly </li>
        <li>18 years - IT Business </li>
        <li>15 years - Software Developement </li>
        <li>12 years - Product Management </li>
        <li>10 years - Digital Electronic Design </li>
        <li>05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain) </li>

(not that I believe Ilias)

$ CopyAndPaste -shttp://lazaridis.com/244.html

25 years - IT Business, Solving Technical Problems Abstractly
15 years - Software Developement
10 years - Digital Electronic Design & Product Management
05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain)

..
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

I leave the trolls now alone to discuss my English skills and to
theorize about my job interviews and whatever other personal things
they may find. They're trolls, don't be to hard in judging them.

I can't resist...

Remember this, Ilias?

I hope you are aware that you have already crossed moral and legal
lines. [...]
I hope that the professionals within this group will intervene at some
point, if the "attacks" on my person continue.

And then:

You may want to research for "Defamation" / "Defamation of Character".

Your English skills aren't a problem; after all, Matz has good but not
flawless English also. Your conduct is... well, I suppose we can now add
"hypocritical" to the list.

I am *responding* to "collaborative trolling attacks".

No defamation at all.

It is now within the archives:

You and the others, are... trolling within my threads.

You *are* the real trolls, by definition.

Simple as that.

..
 
K

KlausG

"require_relative(_to_this_file)" in a single word, ideally with 7
chars

This is the topic.

Is it really so difficult for you people to solve a given problem,
even if you personally don't agree that it is a problem?

No, it's easy. Here are some 7 letter words:

1000.times.collect { 7.times.inject("") { |w,c| w <<
(97+rand*26).to_i.chr } }

Choose one that suits you and use it with the alias method

--klaus
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

This is a simple Request for Comments.

Scenario:

require_relative 'lib/alter'
require 'alibrary'

Some project manager complains about "require_relative", and asks you
to find a one-word alias.

Which name would you select and for what reasons?

Requirements
must:
* one word

optional:
* ideally a 7 letter word

My own suggestions didn't pass the requirements.

I order the list

involve 'lib/alter' # 2011-06-16 by Sam Duncan
locally 'lib/alter' # 2011-06-11 by Rob Biedenharn
uniload 'lib/alter' # my
request 'lib/alter' # my
include 'lib/alter' # my
relative 'lib/alter' # my

-

Original situation of headers

require_relative "lib/baselib"
require "sinatra"

Use of "involve" results in very clean headers:

involve "lib/baselib"
require "sinatra"

-

Applying the change:

module Kernel
alias involve require_relative
end

-

Btw: I am the project-manager (on my own project), and as I'm alone
for now, I had to fulfil the role of the executing project-member as
well (posting this RFC here).

This thread gives additionally some valuable insights subjecting the
topic "trolling" and "trolls", uncovering some "trouble-makers" of
comp.lang.ruby (or ruby-talk).

Many thanks to the very few people which managed to stay in-topic and
in-context.

Time to close this thread.

..
 
G

Gary Wright

I can't believe I'm adding to this conversation...

Ruby already has an idiom for naming two related methods so how about:

require "a/b" # the usual
require! "a/b" # require relative to __FILE__
 
M

Matthew K. Williams

Damn. Okay, never mind.

Of course, I'll just be happy with require_relative, anyway. It seems
quite descriptive of its functionality, and succinct enough for my
purposes.

Exactly. While I'm an old unix hack, I really like the descriptiveness of
this method. I know *exactly* what it's doing, without having to learn
some new obscure word.

Matt
 
R

Ryan Davis

On Jun 16, 2011, at 23:49 , David Masover wrote:
=20
[...] - (story of Mr. Masover's live, which I've not read)
=20
So as rude and arrogant as he is, and as little as he deserves (or = wants) my
pity, it's kind of painful for me to see Ilias making the exact same = mistakes
I did, and then grew out of -- and frustrating when he refuses to = hear a word
of it. =20
[...the actually interesting bits...] =20
Hopefully this is useful, or at least interesting. Thanks for your = patience,
whoever's actually read this far. At the very least, now you see why = it's so
hard for me to actually not feed this troll.
=20
Wow, this (off-topic, off-context, my-personal-experiences-to-others-
by-brute-force) Troll is really a special one.
=20
Get serious, Mr. Masover.
=20
The only troll you feed is yourself.
=20
And it seems that I make you very hungry.
=20
Yeah... but...
=20
% curl -shttp://legacy.lazaridis.com/resumes/lazaridis.html| grep -i = years
<li>20 years - Solving Technical Problems Abstractly </li>
<li>18 years - IT Business </li>
<li>15 years - Software Developement </li>
<li>12 years - Product Management </li>
<li>10 years - Digital Electronic Design </li>
<li>05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain) =
=20
(not that I believe Ilias)
=20
$ CopyAndPaste -shttp://lazaridis.com/244.html
=20
25 years - IT Business, Solving Technical Problems Abstractly
15 years - Software Developement
10 years - Digital Electronic Design & Product Management
05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain)

One problem ilias... that's _not_ a resume (resumes actually mention =
companies) and nobody here believes a word of it. You couldn't code =
yourself out of a wet paper bag if your life depended on it (in _any_ =
language).
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

I can't believe I'm adding to this conversation...

Ruby already has an idiom for naming two related methods so how about:

require "a/b"        # the usual
require! "a/b"       # require relative to __FILE__

This could become my new favourite.

"!" is used as a convention, to clarify that a method "modifies the
object"

"!" could be used for stand-alone functions (e.g. the "flat" Kernel
functions which do not operate strictly on an object) to clarify (by
convention) "you should know what you do, possible risks" or simply
"alternate implementation".

And with an additional space, headers look clean, too:

require! "lib/baselib"
require "sinatra"

Yes, this could be the "winner".

..
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

One problem ilias... that's _not_ a resume (resumes actually mention companies)

Is this so? I've seen many which mention the employers/customers
anonymous, with an "references on request".
and nobody here believes a word of it.

I don't care what the masses think and believe, especially those of
your kind.
You couldn't code yourself out of a wet paper bag if your life depended on it (in _any_ language).

You're getting ordinary.

You can do better.

(but the thread is now closed, possibly in the next one)

..
 
P

Phillip Gawlowski

Is this so? I've seen many which mention the employers/customers
anonymous, with an "references on request".

You worked only on NDA'd projects for 20 years, and you can't even
mention past *clients*? Yeah, right.
on it (in _any_ language).

You're getting ordinary.

Well, let's get a little less ordinary: Why did you leave Siemens a
year after finishing your training as electrician? Provide the
Arbeitszeugnis[0] of your time at Siemens.

What happened to your first attempt at self-employment? Provide the
name and (expired by now, alas) registration of the business, or the
district court where the business was registered.

What's your further education after you made it to journeyman electrician?

Why didn't you decide to visit a Fachhochschule[1] to gain academic credent=
ials?

What are your certifications in programming, program management, and design=
?

Until proven otherwise, we are free to assume that:

A) Siemens fired you (an extraordinary event back in the late 1980s,
since Siemens was like Japanese car makers in that time: If you were
good, you were set for *life*).
B) You don't have any credentials in software development.
C) You aren't qualified to be admitted to a Fachhochschule.
D) You never worked since you were fired by Siemens, living off of
unemployment grants.


Explanations for non-Germans:

[0] An Arbeitszeugnis is a diploma of sorts which details how well--or
not--an employee behaved and worked during their time at an employer.
It's by no means confidential (though private, and Ilias can't be
compelled to provide the Arbeitszeugnis).

[1] A Fachhochschule is roughly equivalent to a technical college in
the US, and allows those without the necessary credentials in second
level education (called "Fachhochschulreife", which is usually *not*
attained if you visited a lower rung,
not-very-intellectually-demanding school called "Hauptschule", or if
one wasn't good enough to visit the 10th year of schooling at a
"Realschule") to attain a degree in a field related to their trained
job after some time spent working in their learned field. Usually,
expertise can be provided in a less formal manner, for example
references to clients that one worked for, if one wants to study in a
field that one didn't train in.

--=20
Phillip Gawlowski

A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start,
and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.
=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Leibnitz
 
J

Jason Roelofs

=20
=20
I don't care what the masses think and believe, especially those of
your kind.

Yes, EVERYONE in this list already knows this, Ilias. But it makes one =
wonder, if you don't care about what people like us think and believe, =
why are you even here in the first place?

If only you were capable of ever listing to yourself, much less anyone =
else, the world would have been saved your inane trolling. But alas, =
this is simply entertainment now. The question now is: How far can Ilias =
go in self-affirming his own uselessness?

Of course for myself the definition of insanity comes to mind. No-one =
can show Ilias who he really is, so I shall stop trying.

Jason=
 
T

Tony Arcieri

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

2011/6/17 Ilias Lazaridis said:
05 years - Public System Analysis (Open Source Domain)

That's quite the euphemism for "trolling mailing lists". I'd say the fact
you put it on your resume makes you a professional troll, but professionals
get paid.
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

Is this so? I've seen many which mention the employers/customers
anonymous, with an "references on request".

You worked only on NDA'd projects for 20 years, and you can't even
mention past *clients*? Yeah, right.
You're getting ordinary.

Well, let's get a little less ordinary: Why did you leave Siemens a
year after finishing your training as electrician? Provide the
Arbeitszeugnis[0] of your time at Siemens.

What happened to your first attempt at self-employment? Provide the
name and (expired by now, alas) registration of the business, or the
district court where the business was registered.

What's your further education after you made it to journeyman electrician?

Why didn't you decide to visit a Fachhochschule[1] to gain academic credentials?

What are your certifications in programming, program management, and design?

Until proven otherwise, we are free to assume that:

A) Siemens fired you (an extraordinary event back in the late 1980s,
since Siemens was like Japanese car makers in that time: If you were
good, you were set for *life*).
B) You don't have any credentials in software development.
C) You aren't qualified to be admitted to a Fachhochschule.
D) You never worked since you were fired by Siemens, living off of
unemployment grants.

Explanations for non-Germans:

[0] An Arbeitszeugnis is a diploma of sorts which details how well--or
not--an employee behaved and worked during their time at an employer.
It's by no means confidential (though private, and Ilias can't be
compelled to provide the Arbeitszeugnis).

[1] A Fachhochschule is roughly equivalent to a technical college in
the US, and allows those without the necessary credentials in second
level education (called "Fachhochschulreife", which is usually *not*
attained if you visited a lower rung,
not-very-intellectually-demanding school called "Hauptschule", or if
one wasn't good enough to visit the 10th year of schooling at a
"Realschule") to attain a degree in a field related to their trained
job after some time spent working in their learned field. Usually,
expertise can be provided in a less formal manner, for example
references to clients that one worked for, if one wants to study in a
field that one didn't train in.

--
Phillip Gawlowski

A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start,
and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.
               -- Leibnitz
 
I

Ilias Lazaridis

On 17 Éïýí, 23:15, Phillip Gawlowski <[email protected]>
wrote:
[...]

What about this:

I'm a 13year old kid, which likes to play with the regulars on the
language forums.

Now, the thread has reached 100 posts, its _really_ time to close it.

Have fun, confused soul!

..
 

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