8 ms·

Speaking as someone who was the "re-implementee" in some cases (i.e. our mixed C/C++ regex library Hyperscan has had some ideas borrowed for your regex library

Speaking as someone who was the "re-implementee" in some cases (i.e. our mixed C/C++ regex library Hyperscan has had some ideas borrowed for your regex library in Rust) I'd say things aren't 100% simple here. I think there is a strong tendency of people programming in new languages to be overly convinced of the elegance and superiority of their new language as a result of (a) getting to rewrite software without the burden of those fussy, irritating existing users and (b) getting to 'rebuild' software without the rather exhausting process of feeling your way to an algorithm or system that never existed before. There's absolutely nothing wrong with either of these things, but sometimes I think people working in hip new languages tend to mistake the elegance and superiority of their new language for the advantages conferred by a "rework". I bet I could build a pretty elegant regular expression system in C/C++ if I got to start from scratch, too! This isn't a statement about one language being better than another, and I'm aware of how vexed a problem it is to compare new languages with old. If you built a pile of nonesuch systems in your new language people would complain that they can't compare these systems with stuff that they're familiar with. :-) I'd just call for a bit of caution in assessing new languages being pressed into service for old, familiar tasks.

burntsushi 8y ago
> There's absolutely nothing wrong with either of these things Sure. But note the OP used the word "irresponsible," so I'd say you're actually disagreeing with the OP, and not me. :-) > I think there is a strong tendency of people programming in new languages to be overly convinced of the elegance and superiority of their new language as a result of (a) getting to rewrite software without the burden of those fussy, irritating existing users and (b) getting to 'rebuild' software without the rather exhausting process of feeling your way to an algorithm or system that never existed before. Yes. But there must also be room for folks to seriously argue the benefits of one tool over another without simultaneously being dismissed as the zealotry of the newly converted, which is a feeling that I am all too familiar with! Overall, I basically agree with you.
- glangdale 8y ago
  Richard Hamming had a pithy line about this (I believe this is the origin of the phrase "In computer science, we stand on each others feet"): Indeed, one of my major complaints about the computer field is that whereas Newton could say, "If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants," I am forced to say, "Today we stand on each other's feet." Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way. Science is supposed to be cumulative, not almost endless duplication of the same kind of things.
  - burntsushi 8y ago
    Yeah, I don't really share Hamming's perspective there at all.
  - adwn 8y ago
    There's just as much wasted effort, not-invented-here attitude, and standing on each others' feet in the hard sciences as there is in computer science. The reason why it's so much more visible in this field, is that the financial barrier to entry is so incredibly low – all you need is a cheap computer, which you already have anyway. If doing physics experiments was as cheap as programming, a lot more people would build fusion devices for fun in their garage [1]. They also wouldn't advance actual fusion research, nor would they hinder it, and yet some distinguished physicists would lament that "in physics, we stand on each others feet". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
  - BeetleB 8y ago
    >Science is supposed to be cumulative, not almost endless duplication of the same kind of things. Yes, but inventing new languages and building libraries for them has nothing to do with science. Nor is science even a motivator for these endeavours. We're not talking computer science here. We're talking implementation details.
    - 8y ago

burntsushi 8y ago

> There's absolutely nothing wrong with either of these things Sure. But note the OP used the word "irresponsible," so I'd say you're actually disagreeing with the OP, and not me. :-) > I think there is a strong tendency of people programming in new languages to be overly convinced of the elegance and superiority of their new language as a result of (a) getting to rewrite software without the burden of those fussy, irritating existing users and (b) getting to 'rebuild' software without the rather exhausting process of feeling your way to an algorithm or system that never existed before. Yes. But there must also be room for folks to seriously argue the benefits of one tool over another without simultaneously being dismissed as the zealotry of the newly converted, which is a feeling that I am all too familiar with! Overall, I basically agree with you.

glangdale 8y ago
Richard Hamming had a pithy line about this (I believe this is the origin of the phrase "In computer science, we stand on each others feet"): Indeed, one of my major complaints about the computer field is that whereas Newton could say, "If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants," I am forced to say, "Today we stand on each other's feet." Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way. Science is supposed to be cumulative, not almost endless duplication of the same kind of things.
- burntsushi 8y ago
  Yeah, I don't really share Hamming's perspective there at all.
- adwn 8y ago
  There's just as much wasted effort, not-invented-here attitude, and standing on each others' feet in the hard sciences as there is in computer science. The reason why it's so much more visible in this field, is that the financial barrier to entry is so incredibly low – all you need is a cheap computer, which you already have anyway. If doing physics experiments was as cheap as programming, a lot more people would build fusion devices for fun in their garage [1]. They also wouldn't advance actual fusion research, nor would they hinder it, and yet some distinguished physicists would lament that "in physics, we stand on each others feet". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
- BeetleB 8y ago
  >Science is supposed to be cumulative, not almost endless duplication of the same kind of things. Yes, but inventing new languages and building libraries for them has nothing to do with science. Nor is science even a motivator for these endeavours. We're not talking computer science here. We're talking implementation details.
  - 8y ago