Frink

Thursday 25 November 2004 — This is 20 years old. Be careful.

Frink is a programming language by Alan Eliasen. It is really good at dealing with physical matters, tracking units along with numbers, so that physical calculations are really simple.

For example, how many gallons of gasoline have as much energy as a teaspoon of water (according to Einstein)? A line of Frink prints the answer:

teaspoon water c^2 -> "gallons gasoline"
3164209.862836101 gallons gasoline

The Sample Calculations are a hoot, ranging from frat-house liquor calculations to fart jokes to spam-debunking. And of course, the name of the language is from every geek’s favorite Simpson’s character. Frink will be the topic of one of the talks at the Lightweight Languages 2004 forum.

Comments

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andrew 7:23 AM on 26 Nov 2004
With the hurting and the killing...
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mikey 8:46 AM on 26 Nov 2004
From M*A*S*H, said to Frank Burns "You're a fink Frank, a Frink is what you are!"
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Bob 4:55 PM on 26 Nov 2004
Frink: You've got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving.
Scientist: How much time do we have professor?
Frink: Well according to my calculations, the robots won't go berserk for at least 24 hours.

(The robots go berserk.)

Frink: Oh, I forgot to er, carry the one.

Ha ha...
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andrew 9:31 AM on 27 Nov 2004
Elements of Online Decomposition:

- All political discussions will decompose into one or more parties accusing each other of being "Hitler"

- All technical discussions will decompose into hurling Simpson's quotes at each other.

- The entire Internet will eventually decompose into its lowest energy state: Pornography.
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Bob 3:48 PM on 27 Nov 2004
Andrew,

I just dug up the full Frink quote. I wasn't hurling it back at you.

Godwin's Law states that "you can tell when a USENET discussion is getting old when one of the participants drags out Hitler and the Nazis".

Frink, the language, seems kinda cool. In what must be as mandatory as showing that your programming language can produce "Hello World", Frink can do web programs as "Frink Server Pages". Joy.
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andrew 9:52 PM on 27 Nov 2004
Oh, I wasn't worried about the hurling, I was just laughing that the easy "in" that Ned gave us unleashed our inner need to relive The Simpsons.

I was also going to make a gratuitous reference to http://www.internotes.lotus.com to prove item three in my above post.

Anyway, to keep the Simpsons streamroller going, I will do some non-Frink Thanksgiving (food) references:

Moe: We'll have your best dish, stuffed with your second best.

Waiter: Very good sir, lobster stuffed with tacos.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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