4 ms·

I think you're overreacting. The GP wasn't being conservative about new languages for new projects. S/he was merely warning that rewrites carry their own risk

I think you're overreacting. The GP wasn't being conservative about new languages for new projects. S/he was merely warning that rewrites carry their own risks, which might outweigh the benefits of better languages (or for that matter other infrastructure). If you avoid 100 bugs in the new version but add 101 because you didn't completely understand the old code and the environment it runs in, you haven't come out ahead. This phenomenon has been too well known for too long to be blithely ignored.

pdimitar 9y ago
Me over-reacting is most likely true. Been dealing with people dismissing unquestionably life-improving tech for far too long lately. Sorry. I do believe most of Linux userland has to be rewritten though. Be it Go, Rust, Nim, D, doesn't matter much as long as it's a memory-safe language.
- moxious 9y ago
  > I do believe most of Linux userland has to be rewritten though Why? I'm sympathetic to the argument that 2017 computing shouldn't be on the basis of 1970s UNIX limitations and mindset, but changing that would require a lot more than just rewriting the user land applications, and would require a bigger re-think. But assuming that the shell's functionality is OK as it is, what's to be gained in a re-write?
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    For one thing, piping being mostly text-friendly is limiting in many scenarios I stumbled upon. A modern shell should allow arbitrary objects to be piped and processed, much like the functional programming paradigma. The UNIX idea was and still is wonderful, but we're past the text-only thing. In any case, I feel (and I don't have tens of facts, I admit) we're dragged by the past for far too long. Others have documented their gripes with the current incarnation of Ops / sysadmin problems much better than I could. Here in HN (but I think years ago).

4 ms·

I think you're overreacting. The GP wasn't being conservative about new languages for new projects. S/he was merely warning that rewrites carry their own risk

by notacoward 9y ago

pdimitar 9y ago
Me over-reacting is most likely true. Been dealing with people dismissing unquestionably life-improving tech for far too long lately. Sorry. I do believe most of Linux userland has to be rewritten though. Be it Go, Rust, Nim, D, doesn't matter much as long as it's a memory-safe language.
- moxious 9y ago
  > I do believe most of Linux userland has to be rewritten though Why? I'm sympathetic to the argument that 2017 computing shouldn't be on the basis of 1970s UNIX limitations and mindset, but changing that would require a lot more than just rewriting the user land applications, and would require a bigger re-think. But assuming that the shell's functionality is OK as it is, what's to be gained in a re-write?
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    For one thing, piping being mostly text-friendly is limiting in many scenarios I stumbled upon. A modern shell should allow arbitrary objects to be piped and processed, much like the functional programming paradigma. The UNIX idea was and still is wonderful, but we're past the text-only thing. In any case, I feel (and I don't have tens of facts, I admit) we're dragged by the past for far too long. Others have documented their gripes with the current incarnation of Ops / sysadmin problems much better than I could. Here in HN (but I think years ago).