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I agree that the metaphor was partially useless (perhaps poorly worded) - but it's not much better to think that the issue of choosing programming languages is

I agree that the metaphor was partially useless (perhaps poorly worded) - but it's not much better to think that the issue of choosing programming languages is purely objective. You could spend a very long time arguing whether Ruby or Python was better for a particular task, when the important thing is either of them will do a relatively good job for the task at hand and be a better choice than COBOL.

59nadir 10y ago
The fact that two or more programming languages are particularly suited for a certain task has absolutely no bearing on the general usefulness of having conversations about what languages are good for. It has absolutely no relevance to state that; the discussion didn't become more or less valid by that assertion. Discussions that are prolonged like that become long because people are not actually being _objective enough_. If you had an objective discussion about Python and Ruby you would conclude that yes, both of these languages have very broad ecosystems and are particularly suited for scripting (and glue work). Python is better suited for scientific computing, etc. Nothing about the scenario you speculate about invalidates good discussion about programming languages and I don't know what about the scenario makes you think it does.
- thomasfoster96 10y ago
  > Nothing about the scenario you speculate about invalidates good discussion about programming languages and I don't know what about the scenario makes you think it does. I agree - nothing invalidates good discussion on this topic. My point is that trying to decide the best programming language for a particular task (or trying to decide why one programming language is ill-suited) isn't something that always needs a perfectly objective answer.
  - 59nadir 10y ago
    > My point is that trying to decide the best programming language for a particular task (or trying to decide why one programming language is ill-suited) isn't something that always needs a perfectly objective answer. Ok, I hear that. I agree that you have to find a local maximum to settle at in these things. It's about being reasonable and pragmatic, after all.

59nadir 10y ago

The fact that two or more programming languages are particularly suited for a certain task has absolutely no bearing on the general usefulness of having conversations about what languages are good for. It has absolutely no relevance to state that; the discussion didn't become more or less valid by that assertion. Discussions that are prolonged like that become long because people are not actually being _objective enough_. If you had an objective discussion about Python and Ruby you would conclude that yes, both of these languages have very broad ecosystems and are particularly suited for scripting (and glue work). Python is better suited for scientific computing, etc. Nothing about the scenario you speculate about invalidates good discussion about programming languages and I don't know what about the scenario makes you think it does.

thomasfoster96 10y ago
> Nothing about the scenario you speculate about invalidates good discussion about programming languages and I don't know what about the scenario makes you think it does. I agree - nothing invalidates good discussion on this topic. My point is that trying to decide the best programming language for a particular task (or trying to decide why one programming language is ill-suited) isn't something that always needs a perfectly objective answer.
- 59nadir 10y ago
  > My point is that trying to decide the best programming language for a particular task (or trying to decide why one programming language is ill-suited) isn't something that always needs a perfectly objective answer. Ok, I hear that. I agree that you have to find a local maximum to settle at in these things. It's about being reasonable and pragmatic, after all.