May 04, 2003

What the heck is: The pending topic list

Figured I'd add this as a list of the topics I've got on the list to talk about at some point. If there's something you'd like that isn't here, add it in as a comment, please.


  • Tied variables
  • Tail calls
  • Garbage collection and Dead Object Detection (Yes, they are separate things. Really)
  • ASTs and Interrupt routines
  • Async I/O
  • Threads
  • Registers
  • Exceptions
  • JIT
  • CPS (Continuation Passing Style)

Not, mind you, necessarily in this order. The discussions will be both an explanation of what the thing is as well as why you'd use it. (Which is why threads are on the list, for example, though folks probably know what they are)

Standard "I'm a grumpy engineer and hardware guy" perspective applies, of course. :)

Posted by Dan at May 4, 2003 04:28 PM | TrackBack (0)
Comments

this is all going to go into a book, right?

"Dan Explains The World" or somesuch?

:)

Posted by: sungo at May 4, 2003 04:38 PM

I'll call it "Hiding in plain sight: Cool CS things your prof tried to hide from you with Pavlovian Conditioning" :)

Seriously, I'm probably going to give a talk on this stuff at YAPC::EU this year. Though given the number of words I've written on all this so far, I might end up with something near book length by the time I'm done. Now if I could just do that for the book I'm supposed to be writing...

Posted by: Dan at May 4, 2003 05:37 PM

don't worry about it, i'm sure whoever you're writing the book for will be just as happy with a book length set of essays on cool stuff you learned while writing parrot as they would be with a book length pile of text on the topic you actually agreed to write about ;-)

Posted by: garrett at May 4, 2003 05:56 PM

Perhaps you should add another for JIT?

Posted by: Boots at May 5, 2003 02:18 AM

JIT. Good point. On the list, and I'll update the main entry.

Posted by: Dan at May 5, 2003 10:03 AM

It may not fit in with the rest of the list, but how about a short explanation of continuation-passing style?

Posted by: Gnomon at May 5, 2003 10:22 AM

CPS is now on the list, and I added a link to Lambda on the main page.

Posted by: Dan at May 5, 2003 10:41 AM

The Y-Combinator always twists my brain in knots every time I try and understand it.

Also, what about a more mundane topic like dynamic loading? It's somewhat interesting that Perl can extend itself dynamically loading BerekelyDB. It's more interesting that Parrot is designed to extend itself dynamically by loading in Python bytecodes (and thus support Python semantics instead of misinterpreting Python programs with Perl semantics).

And some "small" topics that deserve at least a paragraph if not a full essay. (All in the name of completeness ;-)

Static vs. dynamic typing / early vs. late binding? Specifically, something that describes the interaction of compile time vs. runtime and macro expansion in an environment that supports eval would be quite nice.

Dispatching?

Thanks!

Posted by: ziggy at May 5, 2003 11:15 AM

Link to lambda has a / where it should have a dot.

Posted by: malte at May 6, 2003 07:06 AM

Lambda link is fixed--thanks malte. I'm also adding "Lexical variables" to the list for later explanation.

Posted by: Dan at May 8, 2003 10:19 AM