em-bee

i looked through that chat log. unfortunately over my slow connection it is painful to read. i had to manually copy it one section at a time because it would not load the whole thing at once and kept discarding and reloading sections that are out of view (that's why the slow connection made it painful, anyways, end rant)

i haven't read all of it in detail yet, but i get the gist, and in particular the conclusion. thank you.

i would go for something a little different, possibly a bit more complex DSL:

basically one key syntax feature i would like to have is the ability to run shell commands or red expressions and use their string output as an argument to another shell command:

like in bash:

    cmd1 arg1 $(cmd2 someargs)  arg3 $(cmd3) ...

    shell [cmd1 arg1 [cmd2 someargs] arg3 [cmd3] ...]

in addition to that every field in the DSL should also be replaceable with a red expression:

    mycmd: "command"
    shell [:mycmd arg1 :[1 + 3]]

that means we need a different separator for a sequence of shell commands. either ; or a line break. unless the command is nested in a red expression:

    var: [cmd1 arg --switch arg2] [cmd2 :var]

    ls -l [cmd1] [cmd2]

    [ls -l [cmd1]] [cmd2]

    ls -l [cmd1]
    cmd2

but if we allow any red expression then the first syntax would automatically be supported. we could not get rid of it even if we wanted to. whereas any other separator would require special consideration.

lastly, in an actual shell/repl shell [ ... ] would be wrapped around every line, so i would not have to write it every time.

these are just some thoughts. handling stderr and return values still needs consideration as well as high level data types. one of the limitations of todays shells is that commands can only pass strings, but i would like for commands to be able to return lists, structs, etc. elvish, nushell and others are exploring that space. one approach is that shell commands can return json that can be converted to native objects. some kind of wrapper for that would be interesting.

i am not actively trying to create a new shell, but i am exploring languages for their potential to design a shell language without having to reinvent the whole syntax from scratch.

red's ability to create powerful DSLs without having to parse everything manually is very interesting here. lisp is the only other language with the same ability that i am familiar with. (TCL too, but TCL doesn't have strong datatypes and that disqualifies it for me) . i think even in smalltalk this would be more difficult than red or lisp.

i would like to continue this discussion, but some things i would like to share are to personal to be posted here in public. though if you are interested, my email is in my profile. i don't need to know your identity so if you find an anonymous way to email me that would work just as well.

that out of the way here are some thoughts i can add: i am firmly on the side of integration and creating a diverse community. allowing a minority to isolate themselves by becoming a majority in their area/town is neither integration nor diversity.

on your reaction to criticism, all i can say is well done. the struggle here is that it is difficult to share all that within the limitations of text messaging among people who don't know each other, and i guess my excuse for having had any doubts is that i believe that to many people make the same arguments without having made an effort to question them unlike what you did.

i am curious about your objections against religions, but not to counter them but rather to find out how they relate to the objections i have myself. (maybe that too is something better discussed in private. discussions on religion don't tend to go well on HN)

when it comes to being comfortable with religious expression of others the trajectory matters. yours is going in the right direction. you made an effort to learn more and you did become more comfortable. i could not ask for more than that, so there is nothing for me to add.

i am sorry you have to struggle with your sexuality. that's something i wish noone should go through. i don't know if i can relate, all i can say is that i am uncomfortable as a man to be associated with the typical concept of masculinity. in a world where generalizations are common i find it difficult to differentiate myself from the typical/normal (or what is generally considered normal/average) male. unlike the ability to dissociate from a religion if you disagree with it and no longer believe, i can't dissociate from being male no matter how much i reject the idea of masculinity.

anyone who believes that sexual assault in marriage is ok has failed to understand their own religion. this is why i struggle with the idea that the public expression of affiliation should be considered hostile. i now understand why you feel like that, and with your experience i believe that your feelings are justified, but for me people who believe that assault is right or have other equally extremist ideas in my eyes are not muslims or christians or whichever other religion they claim to follow but have actually strayed from god because neither the bible nor the koran or other religions that i know of allow that. and anyone who is citing quotes in defense or as criticism is not arguing in good faith. but i am saying that as an outsider, not being muslim or christian myself.

i think i said enough controversial things now so again, any more i'd rather share in private.

so i am very happy to see a high level language get that potential. besides go only common lisp has that ability that i am aware of. others are either to low level (rust/c/c++) or to obscure. not even java does it, although java is common enough that it still keeps distribution easy enough.

to me this means now is a good time to start using red because now i can be sure that i'll be able to build tools that can be shared easily so i won't just be limited to create toys for myself.

64bit is the next big thing on the roadmap. so no need to worry about that. it will happen.

i found the call documentation. that's a good start, but that is pretty much what every other language also provides. what is still needed is a wrapper that allows me to write

    somestr: some command --with arguments

i have worked with lisp and smalltalk and also TCL so i am aware of course.

with so many other interesting languages, it's hard to justify investing more time into learning Red in particular

i actually find red in particular one of the more interesting languages. alongside lisp and smalltalk. haskell, erlang and ocaml are also interesting, but for shell use i am specifically looking at languages that use whitespace as an argument and value separator and which allow complex expressions to be written on one line, since that happens often in shell commands. that reduces the list of interesting languages quite a lot. if you know any others that you think are worth learning, please share.

btw, your website seems to be down.

it's on the milestone for 1.0. and according to the roadmap 1.0 is a solid year of work. it's likely not the only thing they want to do for 1.0, but i guess self-hosting is a big chunk

otherwise we could just say nobody is responsible because it was all someone else. but if that someone else is not alive anymore then it is up to the current society to step up and fill in. guilt is not required. would you help orphan children whose parents died in an accident even if you were not involved? then why not help these people who have been deprived of their land and are now without the ability to govern themselves? the people of israel got their ancient homeland back after 2 millennia and were allowed to form a sovereign nation long after anyone could reasonably be called responsible for taking their land away. so why not do the same of the native american nations too?

the question is not: are you responsible? but: is there a wrong that needs to be fixed, and are you in a position to contribute to fixing it?

but to your last point: this has nothing to do with being upset about supersonic jets. actually i believe as far as it is reasonable native americans would be upset about noise pollution too, so you would probably be arguing their side here anyways.

the mark of a good discussion is that you can respond to a contrary opinion without getting triggered by it.

you seem to have decided that this is progress, but others are clearly not convinced. for myself i don't know if this is the progress we need. but then i believe that the most important progress we need to make is to be more civil to each other and work towards social unity, so that we can discuss technical progress without constantly getting angry at each other, because that, in the end is the biggest obstacle to any progress.

so instead of being part of the problem and making things worse by complaining, try being a part of the solution and engage with the commenters in an earnest but well meaning manner. disagree, ask them to substantiate their claim, or provide counter evidence, but don't derail the discussion with a futile rant.

i have seen it work in china, and i can tell you that chinese kids are not angels, no matter how wealthy the parents are. actually the more wealthy the more likely those kids are misbehaved because those parents come in with a lot of entitlement that their children inherit.

furthermore the name montessori is not protected, so there are a lot of fake schools out there. therefore i suggest you look at the actual method and reason through the claims of why it is working.

the magic way that you are looking for is to give each child individual attention and then let them work by themselves. kids are disruptive most often because they are bored. children in a montessori class are never bored because they can choose themselves what to work on. that montessori works can therefore be reasoned from first principles. it does what everyone recommends: give more attention to children, and give them work that they are actually interested in.

if you object to that then i'd request that you provide actual evidence of the method failing instead of repeating claims without substantiating them.

and i don't know what XI has to do with that. politics doesn't affect how people interact. not that quickly anyways. i was around when the big exodus happened in the mid-10s, and after covid china opened up instead of closing down. i don't even need a visa anymore if i just want to visit china. so even by that measure china has become friendlier. but that's not the kind of friendliness i mean.

no time now to respond in detail. i'll come back to that. but it appears you have a great deal of experience to share, so i'd like to ask up front to please share more.

just one thought that may indicate where my response might be going. being uncomfortable with other some people is something that makes me question my own feelings and beliefs first of all. why do those people make me uncomfortable, and what can i do about it? but to understand your discomfort i would really like to learn more about your experience.

another aspect of this discussion is the question of where the future of our society is going and how we best deal with conservative elements that reject change. anyways, i'll probably need a day or so for a more thoughtful response.

but that is very subjective and projects a fear that in my opinion has no basis in reality. i have felt the discomfort myself, even as a man, and i have asked myself where does this discomfort come from. my conclusion is a bit difference than yours.

first of all it helps to look into the history of this culture. as you notice that this is not specific to muslims, but is in fact historic to our own culture as well, what the amish are doing today was the norm in the western world just a few centuries ago. we all did it, and therefore it is not an immigrant problem.

the headscarf in particular was commonly worn by women even less than a century ago. there is nothing sexist or homophobic about it. it's culture. correlation is not causation. i'd argue that most women in the western who still wear these do it by choice, not because they are forced by their husband. for many it's a fashion statement. an outward representation of their personal belief (as an islamic or amish woman).

if you look closer you will also find that many muslim women in the west do not cover their hair, but normally you can't see them because without the headcover you would not even know they are muslim.

it is also worth considering that in part the intention of covering up was for the protection of women. the scary part for me is who they needed protection from. but our western society is plenty misogynistic still, we have just become better at hiding it.

and are likely to be hostile to my existing.

this i find completely baffling. why would they be hostile to you? i believe if you talk to these women and get to know them and learn their motivations that will help you get a better perspective, and alleviate your fears.

The thing is, as a native, I don't have a choice to be here, whereas immigrants do

which choice are you referring to here? the choice to not cover their head? the choice to go against their own beliefs? the choice to disagree with their husband/family? those that have the choice and and to do it, are doing it. those that don't either don't have the choice or choose not to. it's up to us to get to know them to understand the difference.

why am I assumed to be the 'stronger' one?

stronger in numbers. we are the majority still.

why should ethnicity and religion override any other power dynamic?

which other power dynamic? religion still is the strongest power dynamic in every society. even in the west. atheism is effectively a religion too. it's just another belief. trying to suppress religious expression means to remove religious freedom. do we really want that? what if it is your beliefs that are being suppressed? you would not want that. we have to allow for others to follow their beliefs even if they contradict ours. but we have to learn to get along because rejecting people for their beliefs only pushes them into extremism.

thank you for recognizing that. i believe this helps us have a reasonable discussion about this topic. let me also add that neither my beliefs nor any premises they are based on are set in stone. they are open to be challenged provided the challenge makes a good argument or presents new evidence that i was not aware of. i have certain goals in mind or rather a vision of how our society should develop that influence my beliefs, and maybe we should talk about those too, but for now let me address your direct comment.

Is this a universal principle? Does this come with any limits at all?

universal, maybe, unlimited, i don't think so. it's more about balancing. on average minorities are weaker, have less strength to protect themselves or to lobby for their needs. etc. maybe accommodate is not the right word, probably support is a better way to express what i have in mind.

but how we accommodate or support depends on the circumstances. allowing kids to disrupt the class because they are disadvantaged is not accommodating or supporting them. what we actually need to look at is why they are disadvantaged, and fix that. not an easy task. but for the classroom example specifically there actually exists a proven solution, namely montessori. without going into details montessori allows teachers to accomodate each child individually without requiring a better teacher student ratio. one montessori teacher can handle 30 children.

but let's get back to integration in society. if you allow me to read that into your comment, your choice of example suggests that you understand accommodating as lowering our standards. (and that's why i now think accommodating was a bad word choice)

i definitely do not believe that we should lower our standards. we should be less rigid maybe, and less punitive and more educational when standards are violated.

but as the majority we also need to learn about these minorities, their background, their culture, why they came here, etc. we need to approach conflicts with an attempt to understand and work with them to find a way to live together.

btw, i moved to a developing country precisely because i wanted to get a first hand experience of the culture there and understand where these people are coming from, what attracts them about europe or other developed places, and what is holding the local development back.

It is the weakest in society (women, children) that bear a disproportionate burden of allowing large amounts of immigration from third-world countries.

i am not comfortable with that statement. first of all what would the burden be that children have to bear here? are you talking about problems in school with classes being dominated by children that do not speak the local language? if that is it then well, the solution is to invest more money in education. train teachers, realize that it doesn't make any sense to teach children in a language that they do not understand, etc. the need for education reform has been discussed elsewhere, and that's a global problem. the challenges caused by immigrant children only make that reform even more pressing.

as for the burden of women, again, please explain what you mean. if you are talking about violence at least in germany the majority of violence against women still comes from germans, and even though immigrants are over-proportionally represented in the statistics, most cases of violence happen at home which means that they are not cases of immigrants against german women. those cases are the absolute minority but they are grossly over-represented because local women are much more likely to report such violence than immigrant women and furthermore are the causes for violence more likely the socioeconomic status of immigrants, and their lack of integration (many young refugees come without their family and are not only not integrated locally, they are not integrated at all, so immigration itself is not the root cause) therefore i do not see that as a fair claim that women bear a disproportionate burden through immigrants. unless you mean something else, but then please share what you mean here.

as i said, i am open to have my beliefs challenged, so feel free to question anything i say. i am here to learn and i am looking forward to an educational discussion.

even as a german i have not felt welcome anywhere in germany (i grew up im austria).

i have been around the world and lived in a number of countries. i felt more welcome in china and even in the US for example than anywhere in europe

the majority needs to welcome and support the minority.

and it's not that there is no burden on the immigrants. they still have to learn to understand the local language, culture, rule of law, etc...

we should learn from each other and take the good from each. the burden for that is on both sides.

life experience matters, and robin williams certainly had life experience at that point. i am in my 50s and i am only beginning to be able to translate my own life experience into some kind of wisdom that maybe can be shared.

PUT is idempotent but not safe.

this is not an out of touch view. on the contrary. what is out of touch is to believe that Open Source is perfect as it is, and nothing should be changed about it.

the problem that FUTO is trying to address is the commercial exploitation by large companies (like AWS) at the expense of the original creators. a problem that several companies (redis, mongodb, elasticsearch, zerotier, terraform, vagrant, and many more...) in recent years had to face, causing them to change their license.

it's a problem that bruce perens is also trying to address: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38783500 "What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it"

btw: i recently asked bruce about this and he said that AI now changes everything and he wants to wait and see how that will affect Open Source.

it is not obvious that FUTO's approach is the right one. it is an attempt at addressing the problem, and i expect that it will take more such experiments to shake out what the best approach to this problem really is.

i wrote about this before:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=em-bee%20futo&type=comment