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For those being negative about "yet another programming language," try creating a lang sometime...it's a fantastic exercise and, in the very least, will make yo

For those being negative about "yet another programming language," try creating a lang sometime...it's a fantastic exercise and, in the very least, will make you a much better programmer.

FascinatedBox 10y ago
I have (still am), and I wholeheartedly concur. It's difficult but extremely rewarding.
wry_discontent 10y ago
I don't understand that mindset. What's the alternative? Nobody creates any new languages? Only corporate giants should create new languages? It seems like a pervasive anti-intellectual attitude.
- goatlover 10y ago
  There's probably thousands of languages in existence, with new ones being created all the time. Sure, if you're doing it as an exercise, more power to you. But if you're trying to get other people to use your language, the natural response is why should I bother with yet another language? I already don't have time to learn the the ten languages I'm interested in learning that already have a following.
- kordless 10y ago
  People have a right to their opinion, and people have a right to oppose other's opinions. I question whether people have a right to continue to argue about such an opinion in a way that spreads virally, however. One good technique for spreading irrationality virally is to ask leading questions which continue the "debate" about something that really isn't that important. We have programming languages, they are often times hard to learn, and learning new ones, or making new ones, is something only a subset of the programming aggregate can and are willing to do. i.e. It's an important topic for a few, but for the rest of humanity, it really doesn't matter that much day to day. (Which is not to say a new language might eventually be useful to all, but that argument itself is irrational given it may occur in the future.) I'm only calling out this argument here because I find this general viral behavior is occurring around other concepts in a way that is creating inefficiencies in communication channels - something we didn't really intend when building the Internet.
  - wry_discontent 10y ago
    > something that really isn't that important. I agree with you. This isn't something that needs a big discussion. "Do we have too many languages? Should we cut some of them?" But I think the common response of "oh god, here we go again" is unproductive and, frankly, stupid. It reflects something about the community. I'm not asking you to use my toy language to build the Next Greatest Enterprise Application (TM). I just made something cool, and maybe you can use it to make something cool too.
- loudmax 10y ago
  Presumably, those who oppose hobbyist languages believe that all the time and effort being spent on these projectw could be somehow harnessed and redirected toward improving existing languages, to the benefit of a wider community. I think the attitude is not so much anti-intellectual as a lack of understanding of how software development really works. Similar to the fallacy that putting twice as many programmers on a project will cut development time in half.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    Do people actually oppose people spending their own time on hobbyist languages? This is different than having a negative outlook on the prospects of a given language. I think its important to separate an honest assessment of the virtues of a language, an assessment of its value to the larger community a great language with no libraries after all still may not be too useful, and worrying about how people spend their time.
    - prodigal_erik 10y ago
      It's a kind of tragedy of the commons. If two languages are basically equivalent yet incompatible, neither of the authors did something wrong, but it's a shame about the missed opportunities and problems that didn't need to happen.
      - michaelmrose 10y ago
        What missed opportunity? There is little reason to suppose someone that got motivated to create language A would have spent their time on language B if only they hadn't got involved in creating A. They could have spent that time learning to play chess or fishing.
justin_oaks 10y ago
I'll admit that my first reaction is "yet another programming language", but mostly because it's rare to see the announcement of a new programming language that will offer anything significantly different than the existing languages. The FIRST thing I do when checking out these new language announcements is search for something, anything, that shows this language is different than all the others. My next concerns are wondering if the language will... 1) Make it to 1.0 release 2) Have thorough documentation 3) Have much of a community 4) Have tooling that makes it easy to use 5) Survive long enough to make a viable long-term investment to learn and to use. Edit: I also am concerned if this new language makes the same mistakes as previous languages. For example, I consider allowing null as a mistake. Null is familiar, it's easy to implement, and it causes untold grief.
- srssays 10y ago
  > Edit: I also am concerned if this new language makes the same mistakes as previous languages. For example, I consider allowing null as a mistake. Null is familiar, it's easy to implement, and it causes untold grief. The language is dynamically typed. null is only questionable in statically typed languages. There's no benefit to a Maybe type in a dynamically typed language.
throwawayish 10y ago
And why is that worth a HN submission?
- krapp 10y ago
  It satisfies someone's intellectual curiosity. That is the bar, and it doesn't need to be higher.
cwyers 10y ago
This isn't some hobby project. This is a commercial offering, submitted to HN by the corporate account of the company that created it. I don't see why anyone should hold it to hobby project standards.
- hnbroseph 10y ago
  > This is a commercial offering looks like gravity an mit-licensed open source offering.
  - watty 10y ago
    I think he meant that it was created by a company for commercial reasons. Not that it contains a commercial or non-commercial license.
- cardiffspaceman 10y ago
  +1 that this is no hobby project. But if it were one, it isn't that great. For its intended audience (of Creo users I presume) I can't say, anymore than I can say whether an "R" project write up is good. It definitely beats the standards of my (unsubmitted) hobby projects: 1) Logo 2) Getting started guide 3) Other books On the other hand, it loses as a hobby project posting. Indeed the effort I think should go into such a posting is the reason why my hobby stuff isn't posted. Such posts are good when they document that something significant can be achieved "out of the gate" (C4 or scheme48 or something-amazing-in-500-lines) or if they document the steps to reach a more-mature-than-expected state. There should be more hobby languages and more hobby transactional RDBMSs and more hobby ANYTHING we take for granted. If someone writes up "docker in bash" as an example from about a year back, or something similar, whether it is a hobby thing or in "experimental production", it stands or falls not on what is achieved but what we the community get from knowing that they achieved it.
- jasim 10y ago
  It is written mostly by a single programmer, while building a cross-platform development platform for iOS and Android, while building a company around the vision.

For those being negative about "yet another programming language," try creating a lang sometime...it's a fantastic exercise and, in the very least, will make you a much better programmer.

FascinatedBox 10y ago

I have (still am), and I wholeheartedly concur. It's difficult but extremely rewarding.

wry_discontent 10y ago

I don't understand that mindset. What's the alternative? Nobody creates any new languages? Only corporate giants should create new languages? It seems like a pervasive anti-intellectual attitude.

goatlover 10y ago
There's probably thousands of languages in existence, with new ones being created all the time. Sure, if you're doing it as an exercise, more power to you. But if you're trying to get other people to use your language, the natural response is why should I bother with yet another language? I already don't have time to learn the the ten languages I'm interested in learning that already have a following.
kordless 10y ago
People have a right to their opinion, and people have a right to oppose other's opinions. I question whether people have a right to continue to argue about such an opinion in a way that spreads virally, however. One good technique for spreading irrationality virally is to ask leading questions which continue the "debate" about something that really isn't that important. We have programming languages, they are often times hard to learn, and learning new ones, or making new ones, is something only a subset of the programming aggregate can and are willing to do. i.e. It's an important topic for a few, but for the rest of humanity, it really doesn't matter that much day to day. (Which is not to say a new language might eventually be useful to all, but that argument itself is irrational given it may occur in the future.) I'm only calling out this argument here because I find this general viral behavior is occurring around other concepts in a way that is creating inefficiencies in communication channels - something we didn't really intend when building the Internet.
- wry_discontent 10y ago
  > something that really isn't that important. I agree with you. This isn't something that needs a big discussion. "Do we have too many languages? Should we cut some of them?" But I think the common response of "oh god, here we go again" is unproductive and, frankly, stupid. It reflects something about the community. I'm not asking you to use my toy language to build the Next Greatest Enterprise Application (TM). I just made something cool, and maybe you can use it to make something cool too.
loudmax 10y ago
Presumably, those who oppose hobbyist languages believe that all the time and effort being spent on these projectw could be somehow harnessed and redirected toward improving existing languages, to the benefit of a wider community. I think the attitude is not so much anti-intellectual as a lack of understanding of how software development really works. Similar to the fallacy that putting twice as many programmers on a project will cut development time in half.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  Do people actually oppose people spending their own time on hobbyist languages? This is different than having a negative outlook on the prospects of a given language. I think its important to separate an honest assessment of the virtues of a language, an assessment of its value to the larger community a great language with no libraries after all still may not be too useful, and worrying about how people spend their time.
  - prodigal_erik 10y ago
    It's a kind of tragedy of the commons. If two languages are basically equivalent yet incompatible, neither of the authors did something wrong, but it's a shame about the missed opportunities and problems that didn't need to happen.
    - michaelmrose 10y ago
      What missed opportunity? There is little reason to suppose someone that got motivated to create language A would have spent their time on language B if only they hadn't got involved in creating A. They could have spent that time learning to play chess or fishing.

justin_oaks 10y ago

I'll admit that my first reaction is "yet another programming language", but mostly because it's rare to see the announcement of a new programming language that will offer anything significantly different than the existing languages. The FIRST thing I do when checking out these new language announcements is search for something, anything, that shows this language is different than all the others. My next concerns are wondering if the language will... 1) Make it to 1.0 release 2) Have thorough documentation 3) Have much of a community 4) Have tooling that makes it easy to use 5) Survive long enough to make a viable long-term investment to learn and to use. Edit: I also am concerned if this new language makes the same mistakes as previous languages. For example, I consider allowing null as a mistake. Null is familiar, it's easy to implement, and it causes untold grief.

srssays 10y ago
> Edit: I also am concerned if this new language makes the same mistakes as previous languages. For example, I consider allowing null as a mistake. Null is familiar, it's easy to implement, and it causes untold grief. The language is dynamically typed. null is only questionable in statically typed languages. There's no benefit to a Maybe type in a dynamically typed language.

throwawayish 10y ago

And why is that worth a HN submission?

krapp 10y ago
It satisfies someone's intellectual curiosity. That is the bar, and it doesn't need to be higher.

cwyers 10y ago

This isn't some hobby project. This is a commercial offering, submitted to HN by the corporate account of the company that created it. I don't see why anyone should hold it to hobby project standards.

hnbroseph 10y ago
> This is a commercial offering looks like gravity an mit-licensed open source offering.
- watty 10y ago
  I think he meant that it was created by a company for commercial reasons. Not that it contains a commercial or non-commercial license.
cardiffspaceman 10y ago
+1 that this is no hobby project. But if it were one, it isn't that great. For its intended audience (of Creo users I presume) I can't say, anymore than I can say whether an "R" project write up is good. It definitely beats the standards of my (unsubmitted) hobby projects: 1) Logo 2) Getting started guide 3) Other books On the other hand, it loses as a hobby project posting. Indeed the effort I think should go into such a posting is the reason why my hobby stuff isn't posted. Such posts are good when they document that something significant can be achieved "out of the gate" (C4 or scheme48 or something-amazing-in-500-lines) or if they document the steps to reach a more-mature-than-expected state. There should be more hobby languages and more hobby transactional RDBMSs and more hobby ANYTHING we take for granted. If someone writes up "docker in bash" as an example from about a year back, or something similar, whether it is a hobby thing or in "experimental production", it stands or falls not on what is achieved but what we the community get from knowing that they achieved it.
jasim 10y ago
It is written mostly by a single programmer, while building a cross-platform development platform for iOS and Android, while building a company around the vision.