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Working on project for Crypto News site similar to Hacker News
1 point by Jonesk79 1060 days ago | 10 comments
I'm not sure where to begin, looks like the ARC language hasn't been worked on since 2009? Are there any resources I could use or where do you recommend I start?

Thanks



1 point by akkartik 1060 days ago | link

Do you have much experience programming? That'll help tailor advice for your situation.

The first step is to get Arc running like you asked before. After that the next step would be to go through the steps in how-to-run-news in the Arc directory.

There's a lot involved in maintaining a site for a community at this point in time. A good language can only help so much.

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2 points by Jonesk79 1059 days ago | link

Yes, I have experience programming from years ago and recently started learning Python until I happened across Arc. I think it's neat and would be great for my project. Where is the how-to-run news in case I don't find it myself? Thanks

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1 point by akkartik 1059 days ago | link

It's right inside the arc3.2.tar file. Just cd into the arc3.2 directory after you expand it, and you should see it. It looks like this: https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki/blob/official/how-to-r...

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2 points by Jonesk79 1059 days ago | link

I run this code and check http://localhost:8080/ but nothing loads.

  arc> load "news.arc"
 
  #<procedure: load>

  arc> "news.arc"
  
  arc> nsv

  #<procedure:zz>

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3 points by Jonesk79 1059 days ago | link

I ran (load "news.arc") this time and it prints out a list of items prefixed with * redefining and 'nil' returns after the last item.

However, nothing happens at localhost8080 and when I run (nsv) it gives this message:

  The syntax of the command is incorrect.

  The syntax of the command is incorrect.
  
  The syntax of the command is incorrect.
  
  The syntax of the command is incorrect.

  'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
  operable program or batch file.

  load items: Error: "directory-list: could not open 
  directory\n  path: C:\\Users\\Hopet Ma'at 
  Amun\\Desktop\\arc3.2\\arc\\news\\story\\\n  system error: 
  The system cannot find the path specified.; win_err=3"

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2 points by rocketnia 1059 days ago | link

There are a number of system calls like (system "rm ...") in news.arc and other places. These run shell commands, and most of them only work on a POSIX shell. I'm sorry to say, I'm not sure anyone has ever gone through all these calls and made them portable so that news.arc can run on Windows.

If you use the Anarki master branch, I think a few of those calls have been replaced with more portable code, but not all of them. I've at least been able to get a server started up and showing content before.

I used to use Arc on Windows quite a bit, and I tried the web server a couple of times, but I never really used the web server. Nowadays I still use Windows, but I do a lot of my programming projects inside a Linux Mint VM using VirtualBox. I think running news.arc inside a VM like that would be one of the easier ways to get it working. Of course, learning to set up a VM like that could be a lot to figure out, but at least that's something a lot of people out there have already written up tutorials for.

Another possibility is to look for one of the many Hacker News clones that people have whipped up in other languages. You probably won't get to use Arc that way, but some of those clones may be better architected and better maintained than news.arc.

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2 points by Jonesk79 1058 days ago | link

I have found this and it looks promising. https://coderrocketfuel.com/courses/hacker-news-clone

My only concern is that it won't use the news.arc algorithm. In that case, I think I'd take the time to learn how to set up a virtual environment.

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2 points by akkartik 1059 days ago | link

Ah, news.arc doesn't work on Windows, unfortunately.

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3 points by krapp 1058 days ago | link

The Anarki fork should work, I run it in Windows.

https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki

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2 points by Jonesk79 1058 days ago | link

Ok, thanks

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