4 ms·

May I call you back in 2030? Something can have merits and still only be a trend (I the sense that it starts to gain a bit of traction and then dies off). Thes

by sgift 10y ago

May I call you back in 2030? Something can have merits and still only be a trend (I the sense that it starts to gain a bit of traction and then dies off). These things are not opposites and the ways programming languages live and die are quite complicated, sometimes the weirdest ones go on to rule the world, while other which look promising never leave their niche.

fnord123 10y ago
It seems to be the platform that keeps things sticky. C has Unices, embedded systems, and kernels. Javscript has browsers as a platform. C# and VB have Windows as a platform. etc. Rust doesn't appear to have a platform to keep it sticky yet, so as you say it may have merit but only be a trend.
- oblio 10y ago
  And then there's Java, which had marketing :)
  - dualogy 10y ago
    At the time I think Java was a god-send, in terms of impact, if only for a short while. At least from the limited perspective of the code-bro-kiddie that I was back then, it filled a glaringly empty spot perfectly: that of transitioning from understanding Basic and Pascal, to understanding the basic principles behind most other languages that I had failed to grasp earlier, notably C/++. The "serious languages" (C, Perl) were cryptic, the "simple languages" were "toys", no Python/Ruby/etc to speak of (in my universe). Just simple choices such as calling pointers "references", omitting their funny operators, memory management, and presto, Basic/Pascal with braces and more expressive "records", I'm sure made many things click for many developers for life and allowed crossing of a certain chasm there. Also it really propelled MS to come up with a neat, clean, well-designed, robust "answer", which they did.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      One thing I think Sun got wrong with Java was being religious against AOT compilation. Had that option been part of the standard toolchain, instead of only commercial JDKs, I bet there would even be more people adopting it instead of keep using C and C++ for certain classes of user space applications.
- dualogy 10y ago
  Blurry distinction. C has Unices but so has everything else, other than .NET-before-a-half-mature-Mono and decades-out-of-date historic win/dos-only langs/IDEs/compilers. So things like momentum/inertia, fewer-stumbling-blocks-on-the-platform, network effects, and critical-mass-tipping-points are still also in diffuse play imho..
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Before UNIX became widespread in the industry, C was just yet another language looking for an audience.
    - reirob 10y ago
      C was developed to be able to port Unix more easily. It's interesting to observe that Rust is developed to make Firefox more secure, faster and easier to maintain. Maybe there is indeed something to the platform analogy for the success programming languages?
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Although pcwalton doesn't agree with me, I believe system languages, based on history of computing, always require a platform for success. A small example, not all of them became mainstream. - Burroughs B5500, ESPOL followed by NEWP, nowadays known as Unisys ClearPath - Xerox Star, Mesa - UCSD p-System, Pascal - Constellation OS, Pascal - Lilith, Modula-2 - Ceres Workstation, Oberon - Blue Bottle OS (AOS), Active Oberon - UNIX, C - Symbian, C++ - BeOS, C++ - NeXT, C and Objective-C - Windows, C, C++ and .NET - Mac OS, Object Pascal, C, C++ - OS X, C, Objective-C, Swift - Android, Java, C++ This is just a tiny sample, I could come up with many more. This was quite relevant before the widespread of FOSS culture, because we tended to just use/buy the tools of the OS vendor, and most managers wouldn't sign an order to buy yet another expensive compiler just to make some developers happy. Also languages that aren't first tier on a platform always suffer from integration issues, regarding FFI, tooling with the underlying platform. Whereas using the OS official languages is just turn the key and go, so to speak. Rust probably already got its sweet spot with Firefox's adoption and universities that are adopting it for OS classes. Lets see.
- gcp 10y ago
  What does Java have? (Don't say Android, it was popular before that.)

by sgift 10y ago

fnord123 10y ago

It seems to be the platform that keeps things sticky. C has Unices, embedded systems, and kernels. Javscript has browsers as a platform. C# and VB have Windows as a platform. etc. Rust doesn't appear to have a platform to keep it sticky yet, so as you say it may have merit but only be a trend.

oblio 10y ago
And then there's Java, which had marketing :)
- dualogy 10y ago
  At the time I think Java was a god-send, in terms of impact, if only for a short while. At least from the limited perspective of the code-bro-kiddie that I was back then, it filled a glaringly empty spot perfectly: that of transitioning from understanding Basic and Pascal, to understanding the basic principles behind most other languages that I had failed to grasp earlier, notably C/++. The "serious languages" (C, Perl) were cryptic, the "simple languages" were "toys", no Python/Ruby/etc to speak of (in my universe). Just simple choices such as calling pointers "references", omitting their funny operators, memory management, and presto, Basic/Pascal with braces and more expressive "records", I'm sure made many things click for many developers for life and allowed crossing of a certain chasm there. Also it really propelled MS to come up with a neat, clean, well-designed, robust "answer", which they did.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    One thing I think Sun got wrong with Java was being religious against AOT compilation. Had that option been part of the standard toolchain, instead of only commercial JDKs, I bet there would even be more people adopting it instead of keep using C and C++ for certain classes of user space applications.
dualogy 10y ago
Blurry distinction. C has Unices but so has everything else, other than .NET-before-a-half-mature-Mono and decades-out-of-date historic win/dos-only langs/IDEs/compilers. So things like momentum/inertia, fewer-stumbling-blocks-on-the-platform, network effects, and critical-mass-tipping-points are still also in diffuse play imho..
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Before UNIX became widespread in the industry, C was just yet another language looking for an audience.
  - reirob 10y ago
    C was developed to be able to port Unix more easily. It's interesting to observe that Rust is developed to make Firefox more secure, faster and easier to maintain. Maybe there is indeed something to the platform analogy for the success programming languages?
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Although pcwalton doesn't agree with me, I believe system languages, based on history of computing, always require a platform for success. A small example, not all of them became mainstream. - Burroughs B5500, ESPOL followed by NEWP, nowadays known as Unisys ClearPath - Xerox Star, Mesa - UCSD p-System, Pascal - Constellation OS, Pascal - Lilith, Modula-2 - Ceres Workstation, Oberon - Blue Bottle OS (AOS), Active Oberon - UNIX, C - Symbian, C++ - BeOS, C++ - NeXT, C and Objective-C - Windows, C, C++ and .NET - Mac OS, Object Pascal, C, C++ - OS X, C, Objective-C, Swift - Android, Java, C++ This is just a tiny sample, I could come up with many more. This was quite relevant before the widespread of FOSS culture, because we tended to just use/buy the tools of the OS vendor, and most managers wouldn't sign an order to buy yet another expensive compiler just to make some developers happy. Also languages that aren't first tier on a platform always suffer from integration issues, regarding FFI, tooling with the underlying platform. Whereas using the OS official languages is just turn the key and go, so to speak. Rust probably already got its sweet spot with Firefox's adoption and universities that are adopting it for OS classes. Lets see.
gcp 10y ago
What does Java have? (Don't say Android, it was popular before that.)