buckwild

I've never tried it before or even looked into it for that matter, but I recall this capability being available in Google Hangouts.

Totally true. I caught myself exploring some of the "old" links myself.

I second this. I'm a scientist who also happens to program (as more of us are finding we need to do). The two languages I use the most are R and Python. Most of the time, I don't even give Ruby a second thought because it seems to be primarily geared towards web development. In general, I shy away from web development, but I know that Python is more than capable if I wanted to try it out. There really doesn't seem to be any incentive for us to learn Ruby.

Have you ever worked in the finance industry? Those guys will kill their own family if it will get them a $5K raise.

I worked in the california mortgage industry before going to college. These guys would convince families living paycheck to paycheck to buy/refinance REALLY expensive homes. If they were on a 30 year fixed, we get them on an option-arm. If they are on an option-arm, we get them on a 30-year fixed.

This is all typical finance stuff. But here comes the kicker--they would actually outright LIE about interest rates and had a few shady notaries to back them. They would say you have a 1% interest rate (for 30 years) when it was really a 5 year option-arm and screw people. The worst part is, CA has some sort of law that protects mortgage lenders from unhappy customers after 5 years time (exactly when the 1% interest rate would fly to the market rate). Needless to say, several people left the company when we found out. Some folks reported them to the BBB--I don't know what happened to those scumbags though. I really hope people like that stay out of science.

A lot of times, I really don't think there is a need for a whole new language. I use R and python for scientific computing all of the time. There are packages which have been well validated and a community of folks who support the software. Making a new language may be interesting, but if it doesn't really bring anything new to the table, it's just asking for a micro-niche user base (just think of the million and one web frameworks out there).

Julia looks interesting, but I don't see anything that makes me jump up and say, "I want to use that!" Everything I have seen so far can already be done with R, Python, or a combination of the two. If there are a few minor drawbacks to any process in R or Python, I would rather live with it than learn yet another language. Speed is not an issue -- if it is then I am likely coding incorrectly. If I have coded correctly, then it is worth taking the time to create a C library (and since everything else is in perspective, this is just "monkey coding" and never takes as long as we think).

I wish all of the folks who are bright enough to create their own language would voice their wants and needs to the existing coding communities to see if their needs can't be met rather than making something brand new. This kind of community interaction is crucial for a language to mature. Wouldn't you rather have a few very mature languages rather than a million young ones (each of which has its own pros and cons)?

In production ;-D

Take the fortune 500 approach. It's not a bug unless customers complain.

I've only tinkered with objective-C and I'm not even comfortable saying I "know" the language, but does anyone else think some of this code is surprisingly concise?

Thanks SkyMarshal, I use Play all of the time. I've never tried Lift though--I might give that a go soon as well. I'm curious about whether or not there is a framework of Clojure however. From the responses, it seems like Noir is the popular solution these days :-)

Does anyone know of a good web framework for Clojure? Perhaps a rails of django equivalent?

I love using Java for the exact reason the author claims Clojure is so powerful--the magnitude of libraries.

If a decent web framework is available, then I would be inclined to give it a go.

What a great idea! Thanks!

This line made my day:

Back then, real systems programmers did hexadecimal arithmetic – today, “there’s an app for it!”

It shows un-professionalism. Users will associate that character trait with the company.

What would you think if you received a similar email from Apple or Google?