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by kovrik 3664 days ago
Also, I doubt they could handle it, their scope is huge: new OS, new programming language, networking, encryption, time, compilation, virtualization etc. I don't believe group of 5 unknown people can handle it.

Like, Urbit time: https://urbit.org/docs/hoon/library/3c/

Where the hell are timezones, Leap seconds etc.? They just store constants!
2 comments
Sanddancer 3664 days ago
Not only that, they are incorrect constants. The definition for :cet, for example, is only correct for non-leap centuries. 2000-2099 has an extra day compared to 1900-1999, or its partner :qad, which has the opposite problem and assumes any 4-year span has a leap year.

Of course, the language has other problems too, like 'moar' being used as a serious part of the language's grammar, or worse, more nebulous verbs like 'snag', which makes the language even more difficult to understand for non-native english speakers. It's just an utter mess.

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cronjobber 3664 days ago
> difficult to understand for non-native english speakers

Au contraire! They managed to almost eliminate any advantage that programmers who speak english usually enjoy.

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wolfgke 3664 days ago
> Au contraire! They managed to almost eliminate any advantage that programmers who speak english usually enjoy.

What are those advantages?

When I was young and my English was really bad, I simply learned the keywords just as mathematical terms (i.e. if, else, for, while, break, next, goto, gosub, signed, class etc.) - I mean, they aren't that many (say 40 and you've covered most mainstream programming languages that aren't really verbose (OK, COBOL is an exception, but who uses COBOL ;-) ). This really isn't much harder than learning mathematical terms as sin, log, cos, exp, cot, asec etc. even if you know no word of English.

What really makes programming hard when you are not sufficiently fluent in English is that lots of documentation is only available in English (this was the main problem I had). And I don't see how Urbit is going to change that.

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chris_st 3664 days ago
> documentation is only available in English

As a native english speaker, I'd like to politely disagree with this phrase! (and that was the GP's joke... since they're using so many made-up terms, it effectively isn't english).

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taneq 3664 days ago
Maybe their clean slate extends to calendars and other time measurement? :P
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kazinator 3664 days ago
Timezones are so last century. We have wobnits now. They are like nanoseconds, but that's just a metaphor which is dangerous if taken too literally.
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