4 ms·

Did you read the FQA I linked? That type of thing does actually matter, allows people to avoid, or think twice about using certain language features and impart

Did you read the FQA I linked? That type of thing does actually matter, allows people to avoid, or think twice about using certain language features and imparts a vast amount of wisdom to anyone wondering about some of the dark sides of C++'s design. C++ made some very interesting headway in terms of language design and we can all learn from the areas where things didn't work out quite as intended. Since some people (maybe not you) actually make new languages and rely on this type of discuss to help them create better languages in the future, it's absolutely vital that such criticism continues. Can you imagine a world where we were all stuck with COBOL, ALGOL and ADA because no one bothered to write any criticism outlining the areas where these languages weren't sufficient? Are you really claiming that everything from http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD660.html http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EW... to http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html is all useless nonsense that helps no one?

axod 17y ago
Creating a programming language isn't hard. It's not rocket science. It's just a mechanism for us to express ideas and to execute machine language on a CPU. Good programmers can decide for themselves what to use, what is ugly, what is crap. Just like a poet steers clear of ambiguous 'bug prone' words.
- djcapelis 17y ago
  Creating a programming language isn't hard. Creating a good programming language continues to be a large challenge that benefits from learning where other languages failed. I'm not frankly even sure what you're arguing anymore. You're way out there if you think that language design is all completely irrelevant to anyone. And frankly, as a programmer, I value my colleague's opinions on different languages so I don't have to go running off to investigate every new harebrained language myself.
  - axod 17y ago
    Is creating new programming languages a worthwhile thing though? Are we as programmers restricted unreasonably by programming languages? I don't think we are. Perhaps some feel so if they don't have enough programming experience and aptitude.
    - djcapelis 17y ago
      Perhaps if you'd read more criticism of existing languages you'd be able to more clearly see the needs for new languages to address certain issues and new technology challenges. I think many programmers would have told you they didn't feel unreasonably restricted by COBOL, ALGOL, ADA or FORTRAN as well, but I sure am glad different people felt annoyed enough with those languages to write some new ones.
      - axod 17y ago
        Point is, if they hadn't created new languages, we'd still have all we have today. It'd just be in those languages. Some people will always whine and moan about any language, but in every case there's a work around for any dislike they have. If they're a good programmer they'll be able to work out a solution. It's like a builder moaning that he can't always build on perfectly flat stable ground. What 'new technology challenges' do you mean? The fact that suddenly in the last few months we've been able to switch to 'realtime' web! Which is a marvelous technological achievement never before seen in computing? It's all buzz words and bs.
        djcapelis 17y ago
        You really don't think there's been any progress in programming languages in the last 30 years? I think there has, and I think there will continue to be progress. The area that seems most likely and is getting the most attention right now is concurrency, an area that many existing mainstays handle fairly poorly. We may not need a whole new language to address these deficiencies, but certainly different language design concepts, principles and frameworks may need to be incorporated into future versions of languages to provide their continued usage in the new manycore environment we seem to be kicking and screaming our way into. Certainly I can and have written multithreaded code in C, C++ and many existing languages, yet I can see the value in exploring ways to make that easier. Can't you?

axod 17y ago

Creating a programming language isn't hard. It's not rocket science. It's just a mechanism for us to express ideas and to execute machine language on a CPU. Good programmers can decide for themselves what to use, what is ugly, what is crap. Just like a poet steers clear of ambiguous 'bug prone' words.

djcapelis 17y ago
Creating a programming language isn't hard. Creating a good programming language continues to be a large challenge that benefits from learning where other languages failed. I'm not frankly even sure what you're arguing anymore. You're way out there if you think that language design is all completely irrelevant to anyone. And frankly, as a programmer, I value my colleague's opinions on different languages so I don't have to go running off to investigate every new harebrained language myself.
- axod 17y ago
  Is creating new programming languages a worthwhile thing though? Are we as programmers restricted unreasonably by programming languages? I don't think we are. Perhaps some feel so if they don't have enough programming experience and aptitude.
  - djcapelis 17y ago
    Perhaps if you'd read more criticism of existing languages you'd be able to more clearly see the needs for new languages to address certain issues and new technology challenges. I think many programmers would have told you they didn't feel unreasonably restricted by COBOL, ALGOL, ADA or FORTRAN as well, but I sure am glad different people felt annoyed enough with those languages to write some new ones.
    - axod 17y ago
      Point is, if they hadn't created new languages, we'd still have all we have today. It'd just be in those languages. Some people will always whine and moan about any language, but in every case there's a work around for any dislike they have. If they're a good programmer they'll be able to work out a solution. It's like a builder moaning that he can't always build on perfectly flat stable ground. What 'new technology challenges' do you mean? The fact that suddenly in the last few months we've been able to switch to 'realtime' web! Which is a marvelous technological achievement never before seen in computing? It's all buzz words and bs.
      - djcapelis 17y ago
        You really don't think there's been any progress in programming languages in the last 30 years? I think there has, and I think there will continue to be progress. The area that seems most likely and is getting the most attention right now is concurrency, an area that many existing mainstays handle fairly poorly. We may not need a whole new language to address these deficiencies, but certainly different language design concepts, principles and frameworks may need to be incorporated into future versions of languages to provide their continued usage in the new manycore environment we seem to be kicking and screaming our way into. Certainly I can and have written multithreaded code in C, C++ and many existing languages, yet I can see the value in exploring ways to make that easier. Can't you?