6 ms·

What are great languages in your opinion?

by JepZ 8y ago

wruza 8y ago
If we’re talking about “dynamic CRUD over socket abstracted to death”-style tasks, and not considering minor preferences like syntax, then python, lua, most of lisp/schemes, perl. All of these allow enough meta-anything to do: ./file.src: func api_foo() for x in objs x.a = fetch(x.b) ui.btnok.enabled = yes commit() And have foo exported as api, and when called, all clients/servers, databases synced, validations passed, schemas updated, triggers and reactions done, errors handled, developer errors reported.
- 1897234234235 8y ago
  I think python is a terrible language. It has so little syntax you can't tell the difference between various things. A variable declaration, a reassignment, a keyword, a whatever else, they don't have any visual distinction from each other. I also find that python has reserved a whole bunch of keywords that I can't use as function names, making APIs hard to create with appropriate names. You also have to pollute your code with self everywhere. It is also really slow, has no where near the number of libraries on github as javascript, is not a client-side language, doesn't have anything like babel, which can allow you to do a lot more than reflection/introspection (but not the same things exactly), etc.
  - amelius 8y ago
    My main problem with Python: passing a temporary closure to a function is very messy. You can't do functional programming well in Python. Also, I think scoping rules in Python are terrible. I always end up with a namespace that is a mess. And you can't do something like this in a clean way: counter = 0 def add(n): counter += n add(1) add(2) add(3)
    - aldanor 8y ago
      > My main problem with Python: passing a temporary closure to a function is very messy. What's messy about it?
      - amelius 8y ago
        Python syntax is built around indentation. Try to properly indent a function that you pass to another function. And what if you have to pass two such functions? Where do you place the comma that separates both arguments?
        aldanor 8y ago
        You can't define a function via 'def' and pass it as an argument at the same time. You can do it via 'lambda' though (which doesn't require any indentation since it's just an expression), what's the problem with it? >>> (lambda f: lambda x: f(x) * 2)(lambda x: x + 1)(100) 202
        amelius 8y ago
        So the problem is that you can only inline expressions; you can't inline let-blocks (assignments), or multiple statements. The usefulness is very limited.
        hueving 8y ago
        You pass functions just like any other argument. clos = 42 def foo(x): return x + clos def bar(y): return y * clos higher_order(foo, bar) What's so hard about that?
        amelius 8y ago
        Here's a challenge: try inlining the foo and bar in the call (because this is how functions are typically composed in functional programming) You could do this with a lambda construct in Python; but this only works if the function has a single expression-statement; it doesn't work e.g. when you have a bunch of assignments inside the function you are inlining.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      > And you can't do something like this in a clean way: That's what nonlocal is for: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-nonlocal-statement https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-no... Just stick "nonlocal counter" in your function and it works.
      - amelius 8y ago
        True. But nonlocal is relatively new. Also nonlocal implies that other variables are local, which is not true. E.g., the following works without "nonlocal" keyword: counter = [0] def add(n): counter[0] += n add(1) add(2) (This used to be my workaround.)
        viraptor 8y ago
        Yup, relatively new. Only around since python 3.0, for the last 12 years ;-)
        camel_Snake 8y ago
        nonlocal implies that you are reassigning a variable outside of the local scope. Your example works because you are mutating an existing object, not reassigning a new one. It's a disingenuous comparison IMO.
  - aldanor 8y ago
    > It is also really slow 1) In scientific/ML CPython libraries, most critical parts are compiled anyway, and the core language is fast and expressive enough to provide a nice and fast interface to it; so your statement makes little sense without more context 2) Python != CPython
    - dx034 8y ago
      While I use Python for ML myself, I find it weird to say that a language isn't slow because you don't really use it anyway. It's true that Scripts in Python can be fast if 99% of the executed logic is in C anyway but that doesn't mean the language isn't slow. As soon as your Python script needs to do anything not available in a library you'll notice how slow it really is. Python is really neat to quickly experiment platform independent but it's definitely extremely slow.
      - viraptor 8y ago
        As parent mentioned, python!=cpython. You've got pypy, cython, typed cython, nuitka, and probably some others I forgot about. Without knowing what you're trying to achieve and what you've tried, "extremely slow" is pretty hard to accept.
        tigershark 8y ago
        Cython is a subset of Python, while PyPy has shitty C interop if nothing changed from the last time that I checked. Ergo in a general sense Python = CPython. If you have specific needs you may want to consider the alternatives, but saying that Cython is Python is at least shady if not completely deceptive.
      - 2RTZZSro 8y ago
        That python is slow is utterly irrelevant. You would never deploy an unoptimized Python codebase into production if you cared about performance. You would profile the code and optimize the hot paths with the appropriate technology, be it numba-jit, cython, numpy, cffi, or any of the other many ways you can easily optimize Python
  - lostcolony 8y ago
    Python environments and versioning are a PITA too. That's my main beef with it. Getting anyone else's Python code to run is a nightmare if they haven't documented everything; most other languages I use feel like they have some sort of default versioning built in when you start including other packages. The difference between 'npm install' (and even an added 'gulp') and the chickens I've had to sacrifice at crossroads to get Python packages working is notable. Oblig XKCD - https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/python_environment.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/python_environment.png
    - StavrosK 8y ago
      I don't know, getting people to run my Python code currently consists of "make sure you have Python 3, run `pipenv install`, run the code".
      - lostcolony 8y ago
        And if every Python developer, researcher using Python, etc, did that, it would be much less of a problem. The reality is, many, many don't. It's kind of ironic, really. With the Zen of Python stating "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it" why is it that it's so common for people to not do the thing that makes it reasonably portable? I mean, I currently am working with some code that, as part of its readme, has a pip install of a lib -off of master-, and yes, obviously that caused problems. Is the author not a Python developer? Well, he's a researcher. Why is the obvious thing for someone coming naively to develop in the language not building a portable environment?
        2RTZZSro 8y ago
        The Zen of Python does not extend past the language itself, unfortunately.
        m45t3r 8y ago
        > Is the author not a Python developer? Well, he's a researcher. I think this is why the situation is bad in Python: we have too many non-programmers in the community, that simply want something to work and get on with theirs life. If they can get by it by installing a bunch of libraries by running some command incantations as root, they're happy enough. You don't have this problem with Node because the only niche that Node really matters is Web, and WEB DEVELOPERS know that their environment should be reproducible. *: Even in Node this isn't really true, since we have yarn vs npm. Ruby is way more stable thanks to bundler.
  - hueving 8y ago
    Explain how you can't tell the difference between a variable assignment and a keyword.
  - m45t3r 8y ago
    > I also find that python has reserved a whole bunch of keywords that I can't use as function names, making APIs hard to create with appropriate names. Python is one of the imperative languages with fewer number keywords in existence. Compare for example the number of keywords in Python[1] with Javascript[2]. Maybe you're confusing the built-in functions in Python language, like len() or str(), however since they're functions you can reassign them (not a good idea, however in a limited scope it works). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Keywords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Ke... [2]: https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_reserved.asp https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_reserved.asp > It has so little syntax you can't tell the difference between various things. A variable declaration, a reassignment, a keyword, a whatever else, they don't have any visual distinction from each other. The fact that you don't know the difference between keywords and built-in functions makes your argument weak. But I will bite, if you're having difficult to make the distinction between a keyword and a variable you probably have a very bad editor. Syntax highlighting helps a lot here (like in almost every other language). > You also have to pollute your code with self everywhere. I really like the fact that self is explicit in Python. It makes OO patterns more explicit (there is no magic variable like self or this, just a parameter that is passed as the first argument in any Class method) and it helps making a distinction between attributes and local variables. Really, I would go even further and make super() a method from Object, so instead of calling a magic method super() I would call: class Test: def __init__(self): self.super().__init__(self) Ugly? Maybe, however it is so much easier to understand what is happening. > has no where near the number of libraries on github as javascript Most JavaScript libraries in GitHub are pure toys/garbage, though. Python has a number of useful libraries and if you don't concur with me, please give examples of areas where Python is lacking a good library (I can easily give an example for JavaScript: ML and scientifc computing).
- hungerstrike 8y ago
  Nothing is stopping you from generating JavaScript code to do what you want. You don't need reflection to do that. I'd hate to see Python become as popular as JavaScript and to have it be used as the defacto standard in browsers because honestly, it's nowhere near as enjoyable to use as JS.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    No, Python is much more enjoyable than JS (see what happens when you turn subjective statements into objective ones?). It feels to me like JS is more for people who want to write "clever" code and Python is for people who want to write boring, more maintainable code. It doesn't help that JS has a gentler learning curve and attracts more people who just want to get things done without thinking whether those things should be done that way.
    - hungerstrike 8y ago
      JavaScript is more enjoyable than Python to me. You can’t really say no to that. IMO JavaScript is for people who want to get things done quickly and efficiently and have their program work everywhere. Python is for people who like to think they are doing things “the right way” as if there were such a thing.
      - StavrosK 8y ago
        > JavaScript is more enjoyable than Python to me. You can’t really say no to that. Indeed I can't. I can say no to "JS is more enjoyable than Python", which is what you said in your upstream comment. > JavaScript is for people who want to get things done quickly and efficiently and have their program work everywhere If by "everywhere" you mean "in a browser", sure. I don't see how that's related to the common definition of "everywhere", though. > Python is for people who like to think they are doing things “the right way” as if there were such a thing. I don't know what you mean by that.
- slikts 8y ago
  The criteria for this list of languages seems to have been "isn't JS". The story for metaprogramming in JS certainly is limited in some aspects; for example, there's no operator overloading and JS isn't homoiconic like lisps, but between dynamic inheritance in older JS and the newer additions like proxies, symbols, accessors, reflection API, protocols and being able to extend the 'exotic' behavior of arrays, JS can probably still do whatever the snippet you posted is supposed to illustrate. As a concrete example, here's a library I made that relies on symbols and dynamic inheritance to extend the built-in data types: https://github.com/slikts/symbol-land https://github.com/slikts/symbol-land
  - wruza 8y ago
    I tried to include all my rant points into this example. E.g. what if fetch() doesn't go async? Then we don't have to mark it like that and don't have to await. Where ui and commit lives? There should be a unique environment for this specific api call or a whole subsystem. objs is something both enumerable and proxied, etc. It can be done in JS, but IRL it will be: ./file.js: function foo(ctx) { // @export for (let x of ctx.objs.iterate()) { x.a = await fetch(ctx, x.b); } ctx.ui.btnok.enabled = true; ctx.commit(); } autoexport(module, x => eval(x)); And more boilerplate, ceremony and fud down the way, if you go vanilla. (Thank you and all commenters here for sharing your code and experience. In particular, symbol-land looks very interesting and haskell-y.)
    - slikts 8y ago
      Having to explicitly mark where the control flow goes to the event loop with `await` is a very small price to pay for making the code much more clear. This is why I don't recommend node-fibers or deep coroutines in general. Destructuring would make your example look better: foo({ui, commit, objs}), and then there's no need for typing out ctx. Another thing that's not needed with for-of loops is .iterate(). Using eval() is a very strong anti-pattern, and it's not needed there anyway. JS has the `with` statement that allows running code with a specific context, but its use is discouraged as it's really bad for readability and hard to optimize.
flavio81 8y ago
Take a look at Common Lisp, Haskell, Smalltalk, and Prolog to see examples of great languages.

What are great languages in your opinion?

by JepZ 8y ago

What are great languages in your opinion?

If we’re talking about “dynamic CRUD over socket abstracted to death”-style tasks, and not considering minor preferences like syntax, then python, lua, most of lisp/schemes, perl. All of these allow enough meta-anything to do: ./file.src: func api_foo() for x in objs x.a = fetch(x.b) ui.btnok.enabled = yes commit() And have foo exported as api, and when called, all clients/servers, databases synced, validations passed, schemas updated, triggers and reactions done, errors handled, developer errors reported.

1897234234235 8y ago
I think python is a terrible language. It has so little syntax you can't tell the difference between various things. A variable declaration, a reassignment, a keyword, a whatever else, they don't have any visual distinction from each other. I also find that python has reserved a whole bunch of keywords that I can't use as function names, making APIs hard to create with appropriate names. You also have to pollute your code with self everywhere. It is also really slow, has no where near the number of libraries on github as javascript, is not a client-side language, doesn't have anything like babel, which can allow you to do a lot more than reflection/introspection (but not the same things exactly), etc.
- amelius 8y ago
  My main problem with Python: passing a temporary closure to a function is very messy. You can't do functional programming well in Python. Also, I think scoping rules in Python are terrible. I always end up with a namespace that is a mess. And you can't do something like this in a clean way: counter = 0 def add(n): counter += n add(1) add(2) add(3)
  - aldanor 8y ago
    > My main problem with Python: passing a temporary closure to a function is very messy. What's messy about it?
    - amelius 8y ago
      Python syntax is built around indentation. Try to properly indent a function that you pass to another function. And what if you have to pass two such functions? Where do you place the comma that separates both arguments?
      - aldanor 8y ago
        You can't define a function via 'def' and pass it as an argument at the same time. You can do it via 'lambda' though (which doesn't require any indentation since it's just an expression), what's the problem with it? >>> (lambda f: lambda x: f(x) * 2)(lambda x: x + 1)(100) 202
        amelius 8y ago
        So the problem is that you can only inline expressions; you can't inline let-blocks (assignments), or multiple statements. The usefulness is very limited.
      - hueving 8y ago
        You pass functions just like any other argument. clos = 42 def foo(x): return x + clos def bar(y): return y * clos higher_order(foo, bar) What's so hard about that?
        amelius 8y ago
        Here's a challenge: try inlining the foo and bar in the call (because this is how functions are typically composed in functional programming) You could do this with a lambda construct in Python; but this only works if the function has a single expression-statement; it doesn't work e.g. when you have a bunch of assignments inside the function you are inlining.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    > And you can't do something like this in a clean way: That's what nonlocal is for: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-nonlocal-statement https://docs.python.org/3/reference/simple_stmts.html#the-no... Just stick "nonlocal counter" in your function and it works.
    - amelius 8y ago
      True. But nonlocal is relatively new. Also nonlocal implies that other variables are local, which is not true. E.g., the following works without "nonlocal" keyword: counter = [0] def add(n): counter[0] += n add(1) add(2) (This used to be my workaround.)
      - viraptor 8y ago
        Yup, relatively new. Only around since python 3.0, for the last 12 years ;-)
      - camel_Snake 8y ago
        nonlocal implies that you are reassigning a variable outside of the local scope. Your example works because you are mutating an existing object, not reassigning a new one. It's a disingenuous comparison IMO.
- aldanor 8y ago
  > It is also really slow 1) In scientific/ML CPython libraries, most critical parts are compiled anyway, and the core language is fast and expressive enough to provide a nice and fast interface to it; so your statement makes little sense without more context 2) Python != CPython
  - dx034 8y ago
    While I use Python for ML myself, I find it weird to say that a language isn't slow because you don't really use it anyway. It's true that Scripts in Python can be fast if 99% of the executed logic is in C anyway but that doesn't mean the language isn't slow. As soon as your Python script needs to do anything not available in a library you'll notice how slow it really is. Python is really neat to quickly experiment platform independent but it's definitely extremely slow.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      As parent mentioned, python!=cpython. You've got pypy, cython, typed cython, nuitka, and probably some others I forgot about. Without knowing what you're trying to achieve and what you've tried, "extremely slow" is pretty hard to accept.
      - tigershark 8y ago
        Cython is a subset of Python, while PyPy has shitty C interop if nothing changed from the last time that I checked. Ergo in a general sense Python = CPython. If you have specific needs you may want to consider the alternatives, but saying that Cython is Python is at least shady if not completely deceptive.
    - 2RTZZSro 8y ago
      That python is slow is utterly irrelevant. You would never deploy an unoptimized Python codebase into production if you cared about performance. You would profile the code and optimize the hot paths with the appropriate technology, be it numba-jit, cython, numpy, cffi, or any of the other many ways you can easily optimize Python
- lostcolony 8y ago
  Python environments and versioning are a PITA too. That's my main beef with it. Getting anyone else's Python code to run is a nightmare if they haven't documented everything; most other languages I use feel like they have some sort of default versioning built in when you start including other packages. The difference between 'npm install' (and even an added 'gulp') and the chickens I've had to sacrifice at crossroads to get Python packages working is notable. Oblig XKCD - https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/python_environment.png https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/python_environment.png
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    I don't know, getting people to run my Python code currently consists of "make sure you have Python 3, run `pipenv install`, run the code".
    - lostcolony 8y ago
      And if every Python developer, researcher using Python, etc, did that, it would be much less of a problem. The reality is, many, many don't. It's kind of ironic, really. With the Zen of Python stating "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it" why is it that it's so common for people to not do the thing that makes it reasonably portable? I mean, I currently am working with some code that, as part of its readme, has a pip install of a lib -off of master-, and yes, obviously that caused problems. Is the author not a Python developer? Well, he's a researcher. Why is the obvious thing for someone coming naively to develop in the language not building a portable environment?
      - 2RTZZSro 8y ago
        The Zen of Python does not extend past the language itself, unfortunately.
      - m45t3r 8y ago
        > Is the author not a Python developer? Well, he's a researcher. I think this is why the situation is bad in Python: we have too many non-programmers in the community, that simply want something to work and get on with theirs life. If they can get by it by installing a bunch of libraries by running some command incantations as root, they're happy enough. You don't have this problem with Node because the only niche that Node really matters is Web, and WEB DEVELOPERS know that their environment should be reproducible. *: Even in Node this isn't really true, since we have yarn vs npm. Ruby is way more stable thanks to bundler.
- hueving 8y ago
  Explain how you can't tell the difference between a variable assignment and a keyword.
- m45t3r 8y ago
  > I also find that python has reserved a whole bunch of keywords that I can't use as function names, making APIs hard to create with appropriate names. Python is one of the imperative languages with fewer number keywords in existence. Compare for example the number of keywords in Python[1] with Javascript[2]. Maybe you're confusing the built-in functions in Python language, like len() or str(), however since they're functions you can reassign them (not a good idea, however in a limited scope it works). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Keywords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Ke... [2]: https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_reserved.asp https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_reserved.asp > It has so little syntax you can't tell the difference between various things. A variable declaration, a reassignment, a keyword, a whatever else, they don't have any visual distinction from each other. The fact that you don't know the difference between keywords and built-in functions makes your argument weak. But I will bite, if you're having difficult to make the distinction between a keyword and a variable you probably have a very bad editor. Syntax highlighting helps a lot here (like in almost every other language). > You also have to pollute your code with self everywhere. I really like the fact that self is explicit in Python. It makes OO patterns more explicit (there is no magic variable like self or this, just a parameter that is passed as the first argument in any Class method) and it helps making a distinction between attributes and local variables. Really, I would go even further and make super() a method from Object, so instead of calling a magic method super() I would call: class Test: def __init__(self): self.super().__init__(self) Ugly? Maybe, however it is so much easier to understand what is happening. > has no where near the number of libraries on github as javascript Most JavaScript libraries in GitHub are pure toys/garbage, though. Python has a number of useful libraries and if you don't concur with me, please give examples of areas where Python is lacking a good library (I can easily give an example for JavaScript: ML and scientifc computing).
hungerstrike 8y ago
Nothing is stopping you from generating JavaScript code to do what you want. You don't need reflection to do that. I'd hate to see Python become as popular as JavaScript and to have it be used as the defacto standard in browsers because honestly, it's nowhere near as enjoyable to use as JS.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  No, Python is much more enjoyable than JS (see what happens when you turn subjective statements into objective ones?). It feels to me like JS is more for people who want to write "clever" code and Python is for people who want to write boring, more maintainable code. It doesn't help that JS has a gentler learning curve and attracts more people who just want to get things done without thinking whether those things should be done that way.
  - hungerstrike 8y ago
    JavaScript is more enjoyable than Python to me. You can’t really say no to that. IMO JavaScript is for people who want to get things done quickly and efficiently and have their program work everywhere. Python is for people who like to think they are doing things “the right way” as if there were such a thing.
    - StavrosK 8y ago
      > JavaScript is more enjoyable than Python to me. You can’t really say no to that. Indeed I can't. I can say no to "JS is more enjoyable than Python", which is what you said in your upstream comment. > JavaScript is for people who want to get things done quickly and efficiently and have their program work everywhere If by "everywhere" you mean "in a browser", sure. I don't see how that's related to the common definition of "everywhere", though. > Python is for people who like to think they are doing things “the right way” as if there were such a thing. I don't know what you mean by that.
slikts 8y ago
The criteria for this list of languages seems to have been "isn't JS". The story for metaprogramming in JS certainly is limited in some aspects; for example, there's no operator overloading and JS isn't homoiconic like lisps, but between dynamic inheritance in older JS and the newer additions like proxies, symbols, accessors, reflection API, protocols and being able to extend the 'exotic' behavior of arrays, JS can probably still do whatever the snippet you posted is supposed to illustrate. As a concrete example, here's a library I made that relies on symbols and dynamic inheritance to extend the built-in data types: https://github.com/slikts/symbol-land https://github.com/slikts/symbol-land
- wruza 8y ago
  I tried to include all my rant points into this example. E.g. what if fetch() doesn't go async? Then we don't have to mark it like that and don't have to await. Where ui and commit lives? There should be a unique environment for this specific api call or a whole subsystem. objs is something both enumerable and proxied, etc. It can be done in JS, but IRL it will be: ./file.js: function foo(ctx) { // @export for (let x of ctx.objs.iterate()) { x.a = await fetch(ctx, x.b); } ctx.ui.btnok.enabled = true; ctx.commit(); } autoexport(module, x => eval(x)); And more boilerplate, ceremony and fud down the way, if you go vanilla. (Thank you and all commenters here for sharing your code and experience. In particular, symbol-land looks very interesting and haskell-y.)
  - slikts 8y ago
    Having to explicitly mark where the control flow goes to the event loop with `await` is a very small price to pay for making the code much more clear. This is why I don't recommend node-fibers or deep coroutines in general. Destructuring would make your example look better: foo({ui, commit, objs}), and then there's no need for typing out ctx. Another thing that's not needed with for-of loops is .iterate(). Using eval() is a very strong anti-pattern, and it's not needed there anyway. JS has the `with` statement that allows running code with a specific context, but its use is discouraged as it's really bad for readability and hard to optimize.

flavio81 8y ago

Take a look at Common Lisp, Haskell, Smalltalk, and Prolog to see examples of great languages.