4 ms·

TL;DR : get off​ your high horses and get to work

• jwdunne 10y ago
  Or perhaps "we are programmers - if you wish for X in a language, make it so". Maybe a bit too long? I certainly don't want to sound prickly :)
• agumonkey 10y ago
  I ended up calling this engineering. Language is just a mean to an end, and learning its limits, picking one that match the most the problem at hand. That said FP/Lisp are very hard to leave, I can understand that.
• iagooar 10y ago
  Isn't it possible to choose the best tool AND get to work? Isn't it our responsibility, as software engineers, to ensure that those who pay for our services get the best bang for their buck? That includes choosing a programming language that actually helps developing new features faster, while guaranteeing that the system is available, robust and maintenance costs are low. Choosing a language that makes these things difficult, is a poor choice. We should not accept subpar languages to be used just because.
  • jwdunne 10y ago
    You're right. If you have the freedom to choose the best tool, I think you absolutely should. I think the problem lies in the fact many programmers don't have the luxury of making those decisions. I imagine if one of those programmers refused to use the mandated tools, they'd get the sack. Many of those programmers, again, don't have the leg room to handle that. Plus, I don't think any employer would look favourably on "I got sacked because I refused to use language X because language Y is superior". I know that isn't the kind of attitude to work I would appreciate. The companies that allow freedom of choice in tools and languages are perhaps the best companies to work for. Unfortunately, those companies hire the best programmers in the first place, or at least set the bar with that in mind. Most programmers, including myself, are not of this calibre.
    • bobsam 10y ago
      Counterpoint: Programmers don't choose the best language, they choose the language they are comfortable using. Source: at a previous job we had a "use whatever tool you want, just get the job done" policy. After two years we had everything from Perl to JavaScript in the same project. Edit: ... and this project was a desktop application!
      • jwdunne 10y ago
        This is true, from my experience. When I'm screening candidates, I often ask them to solve a problem in their language of choice. They choose PHP, even though I know the same problem solution can be expressed far clearer and shorter in Ruby. Perhaps we are unearthing various kinds of choices i.e choices for best fit vs best convenience. Perhaps that's a case of engineering vs something other.
        • woah 10y ago
          Despite its checkered past, isn't php these days a more powerful language than ruby?
          • wtetzner 10y ago
            That's the first time I think I've heard that. I've heard many times that PHP is much better than it used to be, but in what ways is it more powerful than Ruby?
            • fiddlerwoaroof 10y ago
              One nice feature is that it is optionally typed (php 5.6 had this for classes and arrays php 7 added support for specifying primitive types.) Also, the newer parts of the language such as the object system and the presence of closures and first class functions are almost pleasant to work with: for the most part, the annoyances come from the old stuff
          • jwdunne 10y ago