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No, I'm implying that people are either too egotistical or that they overestimate their insights, or both, when they create a new language. These days it seems

by Annatar 10y ago

No, I'm implying that people are either too egotistical or that they overestimate their insights, or both, when they create a new language. These days it seems like there is a new language every 15 minutes. It's getting to be ridiculous. And the worst part of it is, no such language covers all problems effectively; they all have flaws in one way or another... so the next guy comes along thinking he can do it better, and just repeats the mistake of his or her predecessor(s). Instead of realizing that this would just exacerbate the problem, they go ahead and make it worse. I guess they're actually implying that people who have felt that pain are just not smart enough. It is extremely difficult to solve a complex problem in a simple manner. One literally has to be a genius with a lifetime of experience and insights from that experience in order to be able to pull that off, and even then, it doesn't always work and requires multiple iterations, and lots and lots of experimentation. Case in point: Go, still a work in progress by exactly such people. That should be instructive, but it seems that it isn't.

sanderjd 10y ago
> And the worst part of it is, no such language covers all problems effectively; they all have flaws in one way or another... Which is exactly why you don't try to create a language that covers all problems effectively, you define the problems you'd like to speak to. If you have defined those problems in such a way that they are shared by many people, and if you solve those problems in a way that many people find effective, then you may have created a compelling solution. How does that exacerbate "the problem"? Honestly, what even is "the problem"? Why does it bother you that there are new languages created? The "literal geniuses" from the Bell Labs era experimented a ton, and that was a great thing then, and remains a great thing now. It's always valuable to point people to prior art, but it makes no sense to bemoan research and experimentation.
- Annatar 10y ago
  Honestly, what even is "the problem"? Why does it bother you that there are new languages created? The problem is that new languages have such fatal flaws, that they make the problems they are trying to solve even worse. The second, and much more serious problem, is that it takes at least ten years to truly master a programming language. Humans only live about 70 years on the average, which means that it is impossible to keep up with every new language that comes out. I mean I live for this stuff, but I would literally have to be chained to the computer my entire life without time for anything else. That is nonsense. Anybody who thinks they have mastered a computer language in less than ten years is either a genius, or unbelievably egotistical and arrogant; and knowing a whole bunch of computer languages in a perfunctory manner, enough to make one dangerous leads to a really shitty job of sorting out that mess afterwards... that's the problem. My problem, and likely other people's problem.
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    But you don't have to learn all of them... If you think a new language makes the problems its trying to solve even worse, you definitely shouldn't bother with it. But many others may disagree with you, and decide to invest that 10 years in really learning it. There is no problem with this. What I don't understand about your position is its absolutism. You keep talking about people being egotistical and arrogant, but it seems like you're the only one on this thread being those things, by claiming your subjective opinion as objective fact, and then making ridiculous hyperbolic statements about throwing people in jail based on it. It's not a contradiction for you to personally dislike a language's philosophy and for that language to have been a worthwhile creation and valuable to many people. Your feelings about different languages are just, like, your opinion man.
    - Annatar 10y ago
      But many others may disagree with you, and decide to invest that 10 years in really learning it. There is no problem with this. Just wait until you invest ten years of your life to master a language, only for everyone else to move on to the next new trend, with you stuck holding the bag. AngularJS, Rust, and node.js, is it? I can't wait to ask you how you're feeling about all that time you invested into all of those, when all the kids move on to something else and they're no longer popular, for no reason other than the newcomers' ignorance, or because something shinier came along, but didn't actually add any value, just re-implemented the old thing in a worse way. We can then have a discussion about how you're feeling, having wasted a decade or more of your life away on what will then be perceived irrelevant. That's of course under the (optimistic) assumption that HN is still going to be popular in ten years...

by Annatar 10y ago

sanderjd 10y ago

> And the worst part of it is, no such language covers all problems effectively; they all have flaws in one way or another... Which is exactly why you don't try to create a language that covers all problems effectively, you define the problems you'd like to speak to. If you have defined those problems in such a way that they are shared by many people, and if you solve those problems in a way that many people find effective, then you may have created a compelling solution. How does that exacerbate "the problem"? Honestly, what even is "the problem"? Why does it bother you that there are new languages created? The "literal geniuses" from the Bell Labs era experimented a ton, and that was a great thing then, and remains a great thing now. It's always valuable to point people to prior art, but it makes no sense to bemoan research and experimentation.

Annatar 10y ago
Honestly, what even is "the problem"? Why does it bother you that there are new languages created? The problem is that new languages have such fatal flaws, that they make the problems they are trying to solve even worse. The second, and much more serious problem, is that it takes at least ten years to truly master a programming language. Humans only live about 70 years on the average, which means that it is impossible to keep up with every new language that comes out. I mean I live for this stuff, but I would literally have to be chained to the computer my entire life without time for anything else. That is nonsense. Anybody who thinks they have mastered a computer language in less than ten years is either a genius, or unbelievably egotistical and arrogant; and knowing a whole bunch of computer languages in a perfunctory manner, enough to make one dangerous leads to a really shitty job of sorting out that mess afterwards... that's the problem. My problem, and likely other people's problem.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  But you don't have to learn all of them... If you think a new language makes the problems its trying to solve even worse, you definitely shouldn't bother with it. But many others may disagree with you, and decide to invest that 10 years in really learning it. There is no problem with this. What I don't understand about your position is its absolutism. You keep talking about people being egotistical and arrogant, but it seems like you're the only one on this thread being those things, by claiming your subjective opinion as objective fact, and then making ridiculous hyperbolic statements about throwing people in jail based on it. It's not a contradiction for you to personally dislike a language's philosophy and for that language to have been a worthwhile creation and valuable to many people. Your feelings about different languages are just, like, your opinion man.
  - Annatar 10y ago
    But many others may disagree with you, and decide to invest that 10 years in really learning it. There is no problem with this. Just wait until you invest ten years of your life to master a language, only for everyone else to move on to the next new trend, with you stuck holding the bag. AngularJS, Rust, and node.js, is it? I can't wait to ask you how you're feeling about all that time you invested into all of those, when all the kids move on to something else and they're no longer popular, for no reason other than the newcomers' ignorance, or because something shinier came along, but didn't actually add any value, just re-implemented the old thing in a worse way. We can then have a discussion about how you're feeling, having wasted a decade or more of your life away on what will then be perceived irrelevant. That's of course under the (optimistic) assumption that HN is still going to be popular in ten years...