6 ms·

Programming Languages

40 points by crabasa 8y ago

TimJYoung 8y ago
It's almost like Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and Object Pascal never existed, yet many applications were written (and are still written, in the case of Object Pascal) in all of them. It's the same thing with the XBase languages like dBase, Clipper, and FoxPro. I'm not sure if it's just poor research skills with such articles, or just a general ignorance of PC software development history, but these languages and products were an integral part of the PC revolution.
- crabasa 8y ago
  That was by far the weakest article. My favorite was the Crash Course in Compilers: https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-compilers/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-...
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  And not just that, but Delphi had tremendous influence on modern IDEs design.
  - gameswithgo 8y ago
    Delphi was one of the great programs of all time. It is possible that all tools to create graphical desktop applications since are a step backward.
- crabasa 8y ago
  This comment got me Googling and I was amazed that I couldn't find a good, canonical list of programming languages. The best I could find was a Wikipedia page, they're sorted by alpha which I find not very useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages Does anyone know of a better resource?
  - figgis 8y ago
    Wikipedia has other lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_by_type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_programming_languages
    - crabasa 8y ago
      This is where I think Wikipedia really falls down as a repository of information. It's crazy that if a new programming language is invented, people would have update N Wikipedia pages. If I built a simple DB that had all this info and interfaces (web, API) that folks could use to query or contribute, would anyone find this useful?
alexashka 8y ago
I think it's great to have an internet magazine of sorts - I do question the approach. These articles have no logical connection to each other, it's just random bits. I find that problematic - the only thing holding these articles together is the consistency of the layout and illustrations. In a world where there are more scientific papers, talks, blogs and books than I can consume in my lifetime, I'm not sure what this brings to the table. The real difficulty is in parsing in all this information, and producing something that explains how the pieces can fit together nicely. This does not do that.
- sagichmal 8y ago
  The articles are all on the subject of programming languages. If your complaint is that they are not sufficiently about programming languages, well. That seems wildly petty.
  - alexashka 8y ago
    Right, let me give you a comparison of the approach this magazine has taken, and another place I consider pretty good: Wikipedia. https://increment.com/programming-languages/language-history/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/language-history... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... What does the magazine article do better than that Wikipedia article? Wikipedia has hyperlinks - the thing that differentiates paper magazines, from the internet. The article doesn't. The wikipedia article is more thorough, you can actually go and explore. I just don't understand the authors or the publishers - they seem to be re-inventing the wheel that Wikipedia in the case of programming languages, has solved by spending much more time, care and expertise on it. This is a fundamental problem with the internet - it's filled with people re-inventing things that need not be re-invented. Maybe I'm just a grump, I'm sorry.
    - majewsky 8y ago
      > it's filled with people re-inventing things that need not be re-invented In parallel, there's a ton of legacy stuff that needs to be re-invented [1], but people are too caught up developing the umpteenth MVC framework for Javascript. [1] I don't mean shitty reinventions where a lot of time and effort is wasted rediscovering the reasons for why the original system wasn't so bad after all.
exitcode__0 8y ago
Doesn't even mention Ada...
Avshalom 8y ago
A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages Remains the best and most accurate article on programming languages available. https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html?m=1 https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...
bgorman 8y ago
"Six questions on programming languages" - Which programming languages do you use? Not a single functional or declarative language. What a waste of an article.
- dang 8y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. Even if they're right, they damage the container here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 8y ago
It's not so great to submit lists of articles, such as the home page of a magazine issue, because then there isn't any content to sink teeth into. Such threads always boil down to lowest-common-denominator, i.e. generic, i.e. low-information discussions. It's better to submit a specific article and then people can discuss what it says.
sjakobi 8y ago
In the article about non-Turing-complete languages, I kind of expected to find a mention of Dhall which is a fancy new programmable configuration language: https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang

40 points by crabasa 8y ago

It's almost like Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and Object Pascal never existed, yet many applications were written (and are still written, in the case of Object Pascal) in all of them. It's the same thing with the XBase languages like dBase, Clipper, and FoxPro. I'm not sure if it's just poor research skills with such articles, or just a general ignorance of PC software development history, but these languages and products were an integral part of the PC revolution.

crabasa 8y ago
That was by far the weakest article. My favorite was the Crash Course in Compilers: https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-compilers/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-...
ivanhoe 8y ago
And not just that, but Delphi had tremendous influence on modern IDEs design.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  Delphi was one of the great programs of all time. It is possible that all tools to create graphical desktop applications since are a step backward.
crabasa 8y ago
This comment got me Googling and I was amazed that I couldn't find a good, canonical list of programming languages. The best I could find was a Wikipedia page, they're sorted by alpha which I find not very useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages Does anyone know of a better resource?
- figgis 8y ago
  Wikipedia has other lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_by_type https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_programming_languages
  - crabasa 8y ago
    This is where I think Wikipedia really falls down as a repository of information. It's crazy that if a new programming language is invented, people would have update N Wikipedia pages. If I built a simple DB that had all this info and interfaces (web, API) that folks could use to query or contribute, would anyone find this useful?

alexashka 8y ago

I think it's great to have an internet magazine of sorts - I do question the approach. These articles have no logical connection to each other, it's just random bits. I find that problematic - the only thing holding these articles together is the consistency of the layout and illustrations. In a world where there are more scientific papers, talks, blogs and books than I can consume in my lifetime, I'm not sure what this brings to the table. The real difficulty is in parsing in all this information, and producing something that explains how the pieces can fit together nicely. This does not do that.

sagichmal 8y ago
The articles are all on the subject of programming languages. If your complaint is that they are not sufficiently about programming languages, well. That seems wildly petty.
- alexashka 8y ago
  Right, let me give you a comparison of the approach this magazine has taken, and another place I consider pretty good: Wikipedia. https://increment.com/programming-languages/language-history/ https://increment.com/programming-languages/language-history... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag... What does the magazine article do better than that Wikipedia article? Wikipedia has hyperlinks - the thing that differentiates paper magazines, from the internet. The article doesn't. The wikipedia article is more thorough, you can actually go and explore. I just don't understand the authors or the publishers - they seem to be re-inventing the wheel that Wikipedia in the case of programming languages, has solved by spending much more time, care and expertise on it. This is a fundamental problem with the internet - it's filled with people re-inventing things that need not be re-invented. Maybe I'm just a grump, I'm sorry.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    > it's filled with people re-inventing things that need not be re-invented In parallel, there's a ton of legacy stuff that needs to be re-invented [1], but people are too caught up developing the umpteenth MVC framework for Javascript. [1] I don't mean shitty reinventions where a lot of time and effort is wasted rediscovering the reasons for why the original system wasn't so bad after all.

exitcode__0 8y ago

Doesn't even mention Ada...

Avshalom 8y ago

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages Remains the best and most accurate article on programming languages available. https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html?m=1 https://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-...

bgorman 8y ago

"Six questions on programming languages" - Which programming languages do you use? Not a single functional or declarative language. What a waste of an article.

dang 8y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post shallow dismissals to HN. Even if they're right, they damage the container here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dang 8y ago

It's not so great to submit lists of articles, such as the home page of a magazine issue, because then there isn't any content to sink teeth into. Such threads always boil down to lowest-common-denominator, i.e. generic, i.e. low-information discussions. It's better to submit a specific article and then people can discuss what it says.

sjakobi 8y ago

In the article about non-Turing-complete languages, I kind of expected to find a mention of Dhall which is a fancy new programmable configuration language: https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang