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google’s push for kotlin and apple’s push for swift seems like ego-ism and aiming for glory to me. What new does kotlin or swift offer which python or ruby can

google’s push for kotlin and apple’s push for swift seems like ego-ism and aiming for glory to me. What new does kotlin or swift offer which python or ruby can not? Why reinvent the damned wheel for syntax sake when they could have worked for their device centric compiler for creating binaries out of python or ruby?

Matthias247 8y ago
Performance. Concurrency. In Google/Kotlins case compatibility with existing Android APIs and a very low adoption cost.
jzoch 8y ago
Those languages dont have many of the features that both apple and google were going for when creating these languages, so why would they use them? For example, python isnt statically typed, nor is it typically compiled. Can you do these things? Yes. But it isnt the normal way its done, and is bolted on as an afterthought. This is just a superficial example but it goes much deeper. They have a set of needs and these languages fulfill them. Google didnt even make Kotlin, so why is that ego?
bjt 8y ago
Google didn't write Kotlin. Maybe they're aiming for glory with Go or Dart, but their adoption of Kotlin feels much more like humility than ego-ism to me.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
Kotlin and Swift are in a different family of languages from Ruby and Python. The whole family that Kotlin and Swift are in — static languages — offers much better performance and error detection than the family Ruby and Python are in. Compared to Ruby and Python they doubtless seem a little verbose. Type system features like genetics, which help to make Kotlin and Swift “expressive” in their family of languages, seem pointless from the standpoint of Ruby and Python. So there are two aspects to this: * What makes Swift or Kotlin compelling relative to other languages in that family? * Why use that family instead of languages outside it like Ruby and Python? People have been promoting dynamic languages as an alternative to static languages for many decades but it doesn’t seem like performance has ever truly caught up enough.
- samatman 8y ago
  This is true of the examples of dynamic languages you have chosen. It is not true of LuaJIT, which is as dynamic as languages get. Error detection and correctness, sure; raw performance is not the issue you've made it out to be. Ruby and Python were fair choices, together they must have 10-50x the mindshare Lua does.
  - slavapestov 8y ago
    LuaJIT performs well on certain microbenchmarks which are both heavy on numerics while operating on small amounts of data; while it has a cute design it’s no panacea and really rather simplistic.
  - solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Lua and JavaScript are both examples of dynamic languages where the performance is really impressive. Lua (like plain JavaScript) is a more spartan development experience than Ruby or Python. I'm not sure what it is; but languages with rich OO seem to be what get picked up by people who need to build "applications" (windows where people click around in them).
    - eatonphil 8y ago
      Common Lisp (SBCL anyway) and Chez Scheme are further examples of high performance dynamic languages.
hajile 8y ago
The runtimes of python or ruby are rather complex under the hood. That's like arguing that JS would be as fast as kotlin or swift if Google only invested more time. JS is as fast in a couple benchmarks, but nowhere close overall.
jgowdy 8y ago
Power efficiency, performance, concurrency, compile time error detection through strong typing, etc. You know, trivial things. :)

Matthias247 8y ago

Performance. Concurrency. In Google/Kotlins case compatibility with existing Android APIs and a very low adoption cost.

jzoch 8y ago

Those languages dont have many of the features that both apple and google were going for when creating these languages, so why would they use them? For example, python isnt statically typed, nor is it typically compiled. Can you do these things? Yes. But it isnt the normal way its done, and is bolted on as an afterthought. This is just a superficial example but it goes much deeper. They have a set of needs and these languages fulfill them. Google didnt even make Kotlin, so why is that ego?

bjt 8y ago

Google didn't write Kotlin. Maybe they're aiming for glory with Go or Dart, but their adoption of Kotlin feels much more like humility than ego-ism to me.

solidsnack9000 8y ago

Kotlin and Swift are in a different family of languages from Ruby and Python. The whole family that Kotlin and Swift are in — static languages — offers much better performance and error detection than the family Ruby and Python are in. Compared to Ruby and Python they doubtless seem a little verbose. Type system features like genetics, which help to make Kotlin and Swift “expressive” in their family of languages, seem pointless from the standpoint of Ruby and Python. So there are two aspects to this: * What makes Swift or Kotlin compelling relative to other languages in that family? * Why use that family instead of languages outside it like Ruby and Python? People have been promoting dynamic languages as an alternative to static languages for many decades but it doesn’t seem like performance has ever truly caught up enough.

samatman 8y ago
This is true of the examples of dynamic languages you have chosen. It is not true of LuaJIT, which is as dynamic as languages get. Error detection and correctness, sure; raw performance is not the issue you've made it out to be. Ruby and Python were fair choices, together they must have 10-50x the mindshare Lua does.
- slavapestov 8y ago
  LuaJIT performs well on certain microbenchmarks which are both heavy on numerics while operating on small amounts of data; while it has a cute design it’s no panacea and really rather simplistic.
- solidsnack9000 8y ago
  Lua and JavaScript are both examples of dynamic languages where the performance is really impressive. Lua (like plain JavaScript) is a more spartan development experience than Ruby or Python. I'm not sure what it is; but languages with rich OO seem to be what get picked up by people who need to build "applications" (windows where people click around in them).
  - eatonphil 8y ago
    Common Lisp (SBCL anyway) and Chez Scheme are further examples of high performance dynamic languages.

hajile 8y ago

The runtimes of python or ruby are rather complex under the hood. That's like arguing that JS would be as fast as kotlin or swift if Google only invested more time. JS is as fast in a couple benchmarks, but nowhere close overall.

jgowdy 8y ago

Power efficiency, performance, concurrency, compile time error detection through strong typing, etc. You know, trivial things. :)