Building a Programmer's Rosetta Stone

Did you ever run into the problem where you knew how to do something in one programming language, but really needed to do it in another? That's what Rosetta Code is all about. A variety of programming tasks are solved using as many languages as possible. You can examine existing tasks, or create your own.

I don't know about firehosing it

But would you mind if I submitted it to Technocrat?

Re:Pointless, don't bother!

Right now it may be "pointless" for someone looking at it. It is certainly not "pointless" for contributing to it. Posting it to /. , technocrat, and similar means that it will get exposed to a lot of potential contributors.

I made it through!

Whatever was keeping me out is either gone or something, but I have access now. Since I am attempting (yet again) to teach myself coding I am very excited about using the site and will be voting you up in the hose;-)

Erm...

You're itchin' for a fight with Cupertino, is that it?

No Fair!

A lot of the tasks assume imperative programing, e.x. assigning values to an array. This should be about algorithms that we can all implement, not code fragments that assume a particular style of programing.

Re:No Fair!

I would be happy to see other types of programming represented in Rosetta Code. I only included what I already knew. Rosetta Code should be about many things I don't already know. Once the server's no longer slashdotted, stop by blog.rosettacode.org [rosettacode.org], and I'll make a point to bring up how to add your own programming tasks. (Really, you just have to add a template to the top of of the page. But there are some guidelines.)

Re:No Fair!

I program in Malbolge, you insensitive clod!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge_programming_ language [wikipedia.org]

I hope next windows ver will be coded in Malbolge and open source.

Here's better

Did you ever run into the problem where you knew how to do something in one programming language, but really needed to do it in another?

There are also programs that can be compiled or run by several different compilers/interpreters: [nyx.net]

Re:Here's better

Oops, I broke the link. Here it is: polyglot programs [nyx.net]

It may prove useful.

But as a seasoned programmer I also know that some tasks can't be ported. A more efficient method is to actually resolve the problems at link time since most object files doesn't really care about which language you use. Some tasks are better off in one language than in another and porting the "problem" may prove a herculean task ending up as the major time-consumer for a project.

Of course there are also cases when you will need to port the solution to a different language. This may be the cause when the project specifications requires a specific language like Ada.

As with all programming; your mileage may vary.

Re:It may prove useful.

But as a seasoned programmer I also know that some tasks can't be ported. A more efficient method is to actually resolve the problems at link time since most object files doesn't really care about which language you use.

If you look at the programming tasks [rosettacode.org] the website attempts to translate, you'll notice that they are extremely basic and generic. I don't think the aim of the website is to translate some complex library into another language; rather to provide a learning resource where programmers can see how to map simple tasks from one language to another, which presumably will help them better understand a new language. Remember that the original Rosetta stone was used for a similar purpose.

This site could be useful, but MediaWiki doesn't seem the best tool to use, and the content so far is rather sparse. I'm uncertain whether this will prove a success; it's an interesting concept, but many interesting concepts have fallen by the wayside.

Re:It may prove useful.

Just out of curiosity, why not? And what would you suggest instead?

A Wiki is essentially just an editable website. It must be manually ordered; tables of contents put in, pages linked to other pages, and so forth. This is find for data that has a very general structure, such as an encyclopaedia or a manual of some kind. But the Rosetta Stone concept is highly structured, cross-referencing programming languages with programming problems, and it seems to me as if this cross-referencing would be better done automatically, rather than making several Wiki pages and maintaining them manually. The site concept would be better suited to some sort of customised CMS, or perhaps something designed from scratch.

Usage

I'm not sure the right idea is to "know how to do something" in a particular language. If programmers are encouraged to learn algorithms specific to a particular language, how will they ever adapt once their pet language sinks? (By using an algorithm repository to re-learn rote code?)

At any rate, I think this site has already encountered a problem which is only going to escalate as it grows: code isn't cross-indexed properly at all. For example, there are many "programming tasks" with solutions in C, but there is nothing on the C page. I think this problem stems from the fact they used MediaWiki.

MediaWiki's great for something like... well, Wikipedia. But it doesn't support a cross-referenced database like this. The wiki concept is good for this site, but the server needs to be running some software designed better to the task.

Re:Usage

I'm not sure the right idea is to "know how to do something" in a particular language. If programmers are encouraged to learn algorithms specific to a particular language, how will they ever adapt once their pet language sinks? (By using an algorithm repository to re-learn rote code?)

But this kind of thing should be very good for someone learning a new language - you know how to do it in one language, now you're looking it up in another one... like learning the most common phrases first when learning a natural language.

I hope this project will amount to something; it can be really useful.

if you like this...

Also check out 99 bottles of beer [99-bottles-of-beer.net] and Hello World Collection [roesler-ac.de].

Re:if you like this...

Also worth looking into is LiteratePrograms [literateprograms.org] which provides a wide range of algorithms written (and documented - hence the "literate" part) in a wide variety of languages. Currently there are over 50 different "Hello World" programs in different languages, including such things as AliceML, AspectJ, Haskell, and Oz, as well as all the usual suspects. More to the point, it also includes a decent variety of more interesting algorithms, including basic sorting algorithms (quick sort, merge sort etc.) in a wide variety of languages, right the way up to a basic GUI file manager in GTK. It's a Wiki, and still growing, but it seems to be well ahead of RosettaCode at the moment.

One task that isn't on there

"How to bring a hooker back to life" Damn, I really neede....I mean, was interested in how you would do it in Perl, for curiosity's sake....

Should I be impressed?

The site has absolutely no real content. There are only a couple of pages on the whole site. The most advanced thing found there is something along the lines of how to open a file with mIRC scripting [rosettacode.org] (no C/C++/Java) and that bash scripts (usually) start with #!/bin/bash [rosettacode.org]. Oh, please. Should I be impressed?

Been Done

It's already been done. Planet Source Code [planetsourcecode.com] does this already, and it's been around for ages. You can find code examples and complete projects.

Then for projects in the .NET set there are a number of online translators that do C#VB.NET. Very good for moving code between different types of projects.

Now, something that would be truely useful would be a service that would do translations from a wider variety languages.

Re:Been Done

Planet Source Code is not that hot. There's heaps of trivial examples that just aren't done very well - like a "new" PHP4-style class for connecting to MySQL which hard-codes "localhost" for the server name. I guess the guy hasn't heard of mysqli [php.net]?

The quality of the writing itself is pretty bad, too. People who are purporting to teach you something ought to be a bit more... well... literate.

Neither am I inclined to be overly impressed when a site throws 175+ JavaScript and CSS errors in Firefox in just the first 2-3 pages. (I didn't bother counting the errors after that point.)

Will they support these programming styles ?!?

http://jody140.dsl.frii.net/SWE/ProgEvol [frii.net]

Don't see much use

Any piece of code for which you can do a literal enough translation that looking at the mapping would help you, is trivial anyway. Any larger piece of Haskell would probably take huge amount of, say C, and the translation wouldn't make it one bit easier to understand.

The only help the service will be is for beginning programmers who need to learn the syntax, but really, how long does learning a language's syntax take anyway?

Couldn't find it...

I was looking for some code to help me load-balance a busy server that was just posted on Slashdot ... all I found was code for this old Applesoft BASIC wiki server.

New?

Although the idea seems nice, it still has a long way to go. The site currently only contains a few mIRC and bash scripts.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to when it's filled with code from different languages.

PS: an applet or an IDE plug-in like those from Koders [koders.com] would be really cool.

Simple Tasks - Not Progamming Wars

Strikes me that the "Rosetta Stone" should concentrate on algorithms and not religious solutions ... "99 Bottles" is good because it allows so many variants on a simple task .. a little like a "meta-hello-world" ...

How may ways do *you* know to solve the "Hello World" problem?

I've Been Working on This

I've been working on something like this for a while. Basically, the idea was to represent common tasks in various programming languages. The tasks are things like performing some operation on every element of a sequence, doing file I/O, defining recursive functions, etc.

Some of what I made is up on http://inglorion.net/documents/plcomparison/ [inglorion.net]. Eventually, I got tired of writing the C and Java programs. On my home machine, I have some more examples; like an implementation of the filter (AKA delete-if-not) function, a math formula internal-representation-to-text translator, and a TCP echo server, but I still have to write some of the programs, as well as the documentation for these.

Anyway, just thought I should share. :-)

maintainability

This may be all fine and well for writing a program, but what about maintaining the code... for anyone else trying to do anything with the code, it would be a huge headache... especially once the original programmer left. Completely unmanageable for projects of any decent size.

Right tool for the job

Nice idea, some concepts (string functions, (associative) arrays, file I/O) may be portable across some languages and in these cases rosettacode will be useful.

But I think the actual problem is not given due value. Sometimes performing the same task in the same language requires different code on different platforms. Examples: Reading a file bigger than 4 Gigabyte in gnu-flavored C++ on mac, linux, windows; figuring out the total number of sectors on disk, etc.

Also, we should accept that not all languages can do everything. Try creating an array of functions in VBA. Or (also in VBA) even simply breaking out of a loop, for that matter. Try exceptions in ANSI pascal or ANSI C. Try using pointers in Java. Try writing a GUI windowed interface in ANSI Pascal (no, Turbo Pascal doesn't count). Try recursion in GWBasic (this is actually possible).

I see this ending up as an effort to shoehorn concepts unique to one language to another language (building web sites in COBOL *shiver*). Rather than using the wrong tool, it will pay off to actually learn the other language.

Re:Right tool for the job

Years ago my copy of Kruse's "Data Structures" came with examples of how to do all the then-hip dynamic data structures (linked lists, trees, etc) in languages without pointers. This became useful when writing high-level Fortran-77 programs, as it allowed moving beyond Gomputed Goto and Arithmetic If for algorithms. In the same vein "Numerical Algorithms" (Teukolsky, Vettering, et al.) showed how to get decent array performance and add various oversights (such as complex numbers and complex arithmetic) to C-type languages.

>>>I see this ending up as an effort to shoehorn concepts unique to one language to another language (building web sites in COBOL *shiver*).

I once saw a series of cgi-bin routines written in Fortran-77 because that's what the web-site designer knew, and the schedule was too tight for her to learn Perl in time. (for those of you who started programming after compiled languages gave way to Python/Perl/Ruby/WombatCode6000, get a copy of G77, and try to compare two strings of different lengths) It's no big deal; given enough time one Turing-complete language can accomplish the same work as any other Turing-complete language. It's just the degree of pain you're willing to endure that's the limiting factor.

As for the F77/cgi-bin programmer, She's a full professor now (though not in Comp. Sci, alas),

In a more focused form

Sourceforge has hosted to Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook project for a while now. It does something similar, filling out "Perl Cookbook" recipes for a fairly wide range of languages...

http://pleac.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

This is the reason why software sucks

We are always reinventing the wheel, recreating frameworks and libraries from codesnippets. software has failed, if it succeeded then we could just "connect" together from a library of existing "components" / "objects" but no, we have too much fucking ego so we have to always "create" something, must create must create, how about no? Just "BUILD"!

Are you really afraid to accept that software is a BLUE COLLAR job today? I think that is why we MUST (re)CREATE something every fucking time.

It is like an arms race, proliferation of code.

Implement it once and reuse it many times. Yes I know it is the holy grail but this is not a TECHNICAL problem, it is more of a POLITICAL problem. This is why software will continue to suck. /Rant

How about the shootout?

I didn't look at the site (/. effect) but the Shootout [debian.org] sounds like a good place to get a list of tasks implemented in several languages. You even get arbitrary, but still usefull, metrics like the line-of-code count, run time and memory usage. If someone has time to waste coding trivial tasks in his favorite language, he should contribute to the shootout. I did and I must admit I got a kick when a few well placed suggestions cranked the performance of my entry [debian.org]. Today Common Lisp is faster than Pascal and OCaml, tomorrow we beat Fortran and C++!

Software Rendering in Four Languages

http://code.icarusindie.com/ [icarusindie.com]

The tutorials there show how to do software rendering in Javascript, PHP, C++ and Java. In Javascript, C++ and Java it gets into advanced raycasting. All three languages have a wolf3d clone.

I was working on something exactly like this...

I called it ScriptNexus: http://www.scriptnexus.com [scriptnexus.com]
I wanted it to literally do things in "real-time" too.
My mind wandered though, so I mostly use it to do .htaccess files [scriptnexus.com] and write quick proposals [scriptnexus.com] from time to time. It's still a feasible idea though. Someday...
HELLO WORLD examples (you can use the drop-down menu to change languages):
http://www.scriptnexus.com/code/all/hello/text [scriptnexus.com]

Syntax Across Languages

Once you get beyond syntax you start delving deep into the particular style of a language, which frustrates attempts to compare. A very good 'Rosetta stone' for programming languages already exists:

http://merd.sourceforge.net/pixel/language-study/s yntax-across-languages/ [sourceforge.net]

But...

But all Real Programmers know all languages! At least that's what Slashdot keeps telling me...

AC: Stupid article, the guy could have used Haskell and solved his problems
BB: But maybe he didn't know Haskell?
AC: Then he deserves get fired!

Nice idea, but

It's a nice idea, but I wonder if a wiki is the right way to go about it. I was toying with the ideas years ago, to have a table for many similar constructs in various procedural languages. e.g, how to do a print, while loop, for loop, if-then-else statement in various languages. With examples of their use.

For example:
for loop

C:
for ([var] = [startvalue] ; [var] < [endvalue] ; [var]+= [incrementvalue]) {
statements
}

Fortran:
DO [var] = [startvalue], [endvalue], [incrementvalue]
statements
continue

Perl:
for ([var] = [startvalue] ; [var] < [endvalue] ; [var]+= [incrementvalue]) {
statements
}

Korn shell:
The for-loop in the shell iterates over lines in a list or file. It can be simulated using a while loop:
[var] = [startvalue]
while test [var] < [endvalue]
do
statements
[var]=`expr [var] + [incrementvalue]`
done

Since some languages have the same token for different tasks, you would need cross-references in various positions. E.g. in perl:
for (i=0 ; i<n ; i++) or
for $var (@array), this would translate to foreach in other languages

The way I picture it, is a mainmenu where you select the languages you want to compare. Then you get a list of the statements side by side. Or you can search for a particular token.

Does anyone know if such a site exists?

Heh, heh... A little translation needed here...

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

So much for THAT idea...courtesy of /.

While you wait

for the site to come back, you can use this [wikibooks.org].

PHP at its finest

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /home/mike/public_html/includes/Exception.php on line 139

Akima's infamous spline?

That's one thing I want to see rewritten in several different languages.

Just so I can make sense of the damn thing and I won't look at my call to ITPLBV() and wonder, "What the fuck does THAT do?"

PLEAC

There is the PLEAC (Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook) which uses (or should use) the same examples for many programming languages.

Many languages are close to complete the provided examples.

VSS abstracting between C# and VB.net

I read somewhere that Microsoft actually has an internal version of SourceSafe that does, in fact, attempt to treat VB.net and C# as two different presentation layers of the same underlying code, and allows you to work on a file using whichever of the two languages you prefer. In other words, two developers can check out the "same" code from the repository -- one, as VB.net, the other, as C#. If #1 commits changes, VSS semi-compiles it to intermediate code and treats the VB.net code as nothing more than a presentation layer. When #2 updates his copy, it decompiles the code on the server to C# and updates HIS copy.

Unfortunately, Microsoft discovered that it's a lot easier to describe on paper than do in real-life, because the devil's in the details. Apparently, the system had to make changes to code at commit time (officially, things like formatting), and those changes botched things up *just* enough to destroy its users' confidence in the system (in reality, it unnerved developers 99% of the time, and really screwed something up about .1%, but the combo was lethal anyway). That, and the fact that VSS is kind of brittle to begin with & likely to be replaced by something else as soon as Microsoft can figure out what to replace it with...

I've got a Rosetta Stone I use for programming...

This idea makes sense, (even if the site sounds like it's empty and poorly designed), but only if you are comparing similar languages. For web scripting, I learned PERL first, and recently made the switch over to PHP for most of my new website stuff. Due to the old stuff still needing periodic work, I'm constantly going back and forth between the languages, and a cheat sheet showing me the syntax diffrences and basic fundamentals is invaluable for me.

Even if this site was fully fleshed out, you would still never get past the initial learning curve of a new language with just a list of ways to do all the particular tasks. It would be useful while learning it, but you still have to learn the new language.

CodeCodex

While I haven't been able to take a look at the Rosetta Stone project, it seems like it might be similar in spirit to the Code Codex [codecodex.com].

Already done

I did a simple look-up of one of these waay back when: http://mike.dewolfe.bc.ca/rosettastone.asp [dewolfe.bc.ca]

Re:Great! It as close as you can come...

> to having a psuedocode compiler!

And what standard for psuedocode are we going to use? I once worked for an old-fart IMB 360 assembly language programmer turned CTO, and for a while he had us (I'm not making this up) using a program that used a psuedocodish language to produce flowcharts, which could then be used to document programs written in a 4gl (Progress). He did not see the irony or humor in this.

Re:minus 4, T8oll)

I had to get it started. My hope is that other people will contribute with languages (and tasks) that they know.

Re:Not a Bad Idea

Knowing how things are done in one language and seeing how they're done in other languages, gives you a perspective on those other languages. You can see how some other languages are similar to ones you already know, or you can see how totally messed up some languages are.

Aside from that, I hope to have a programming encyclopedia grow around all of the incidental links. (Each programming example links to a local wiki page about each of the software tools used, be they compiler, interpreter, library or platform.)

Re:Internal Server Error? A true Rosetta error

I like this site! The following page comes up when I try to access the site

It's called The Slashdot Effect [wikipedia.org], and it happens from time to time. Try again later.

Re:Internal Server Error? A true Rosetta error

You get a 404? I get only a 403! That's unfair! :-)

Re:Towers of Hanoi

I created a page that lists all the similar sites [rosettacode.org] that Slashdot users mentioned in their replies.