jordandanford

Many interpreted programming languages are implemented in C: Python, Ruby, Lua, Io...

Lift is a powerful web framework which makes use of many of Scala's functional and object-oriented features, so it'd be worth looking at the Getting Started guide: http://simply.liftweb.net/index-Chapter-2.html#toc-Chapter-2

Mac OS X is generally seen as the most visually appealing OS, so I figure that's likely to be the reasoning

Wow, you're pretty sheltered if F# is the weirdest language you've ever seen

As an alternative, try Sublime Text 2, which is much more modern and can actually use TextMate resources (themes, language support, etc.) – http://www.sublimetext.com/2

Here's a neat example of Flash integration, and it's cool in its own right: http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata

I've always gotten the impression that Lua has a somewhat anemic standard library and a somewhat limited set of abstractions, in contrast to the things that draw me to Python – is this still accurate? Python, Ruby, etc. have a wide range of built-in functionality, which allows them to stand on their own, whereas Lua seems to be intended for use with C programs and libraries, keeping it in the game/scripting world. Are these assumptions still accurate? (Also, indexing from one is just frustrating when almost everything else is zero-based!)

Verizon has a lot of choices, but something from the Droid line is probably your best bet. If you want a physical keyboard, then I'd recommend the Droid 3 (http://engt.co/k9nRy4), but if you're fine with an onscreen one, then I'd go with a Droid X2 (http://engt.co/lUahHe) or Droid Charge (http://engt.co/jPK3k6) – the X2 has a faster processor and arguably nicer design, but the Charge has a gorgeous screen and 4G support, so it's up to you there. Bottom line: Droid 3 for physical keyboard, Charge or X2 otherwise.

DotCloud is pretty flexible and has open registration: www.dotcloud.com

The only legitimate way to install apps is through the App Store, so you should check out the process – http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/

It doesn't need to make a bold statement, it's about being small and well-designed. Performance wise, C++ is still far ahead, but Go is substantially easier to use.

I've been experimenting with Go, and I feel like you're expecting something different than what it's supposed to be. In my opinion, one of its strengths is its simplicity – it may not always be elegant, but it's consistent and readable, and there's usually one obvious way to do things (similar to Python). For some areas of programming, it strikes a nice balance between performance (native compilation) and usability (garbage collection, concurrency, etc.) for making fast, reliable software. Spend more time with Scala if you want a large, fancy language.

I understand the idea behind it, but I don't feel like it's any clearer than "foo = [1, 2, 3]; foo[0] = 1" (in Ruby, Python, or something similar). This was even changed in Perl 6 because the different sigils just increased obfuscation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl_6#Sigil_invariance

I guess my problem with something like that is that conceptually it doesn't make much sense. There's no obvious reason why assigning an array to a scalar variable would give its length – it doesn't really feel clear or elegant, just unexpected.

I tried both for a while when I was getting into programming, and one huge thing that has always bothered me about Perl is the strange behavior with changing sigils. Here's what I mean:

$foo is a scalar

@foo is an array

$foo[0] is the first element of @foo, instead of @foo[0]

As far as I know, Larry Wall's rationale as a linguist was that in English, one would say "this apple" and "these apples", but "this third apple" instead of "these third apple". The problem is that code isn't a human language, and obeying these rules doesn't make sense and puts additional cognitive strain on the programmer. Basically, having different syntax quirks for scalars, arrays, hashes, and file handles makes code unnecessarily weird, especially when combining them for things like multi-dimensional arrays.