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> I realize that I'm picking on Java, but Java is the biggest target when it comes with OOP as the industry understands it. I personally cannot stand having to

by revvx 7y ago

> I realize that I'm picking on Java, but Java is the biggest target when it comes with OOP as the industry understands it. I personally cannot stand having to create fifty files do to something like a database wrapper, and in Java that's effectively the only way to program. I had this experience once in a Rails shop. A simple database table mapped to a CRUD API endpoint would take from five to ten files. That amounted to about 500 lines, plus a lot of tests for each class. I never really understood why programming became so verbose. In an ideal world I'd have a declarative API that mapped the table to the API for me automatically. In a realistic timeline I'd just use the traditional Rails approach and be happy. But the people working there preferred to use complicated patterns and a lot of boilerplate before they were needed, even though the project was perpetually late and riddled with bugs. I wish we could give a chance to simpler ways of solving problems.

andybak 7y ago
We are currently in a swing back in favour of statically typed languages. People seem to have forgotten why we previously had a huge trend towards more expressive, less strict, dynamically typed languages. Maybe we learn something each time the pendulum swings but as someone knee deep in C# at the moment, the quality of the APIs I have to deal with are far below those I was used to in Python (at least in terms of elegance and usability). I'm not sure whether these flaws are inherent or whether it's possible to have one's cake and eat it.
- revvx 7y ago
  I don't think it has anything to do with dynamic or static typing, but more to do with teams, libraries and program design. I've had terrible experiences with complexity and verbosity in Ruby and Python codebases, which are dynamically typed. On the other hand, I worked with super expressive and simple to work codebases in C# and Haskell. And I had the opposite experience as well in other times. It is absolutely possible to have the cake and eat it in this regard. In fact I'd consider Haskell way more expressive than any dynamic language I ever worked with.
  - tombert 7y ago
    I love Haskell, and I agree that it's expressive, but any language with a nominal type system like Haskell is inherently going to be less expressive than a dynamic language. Compare these functions, one in JS and one in Haskell: function F (x) { var first = x.first; var second = x.second; return first + second; } vs. F :: (HasX a, HasY a) => a -> a F foo = (x foo) + (y foo) (I'm a little outta practice with both langauges, but my point will still stand) With the JS version, F can take in any expression that has the properties of `x` and `y`, while with the Haskell version, the type has to implement the typeclasses `HasX` and `HasY`. While the Haskell version is still better than something like Java because you can implement a typeclass without modifying the core datatype, it's still inherently less expressive. I'm not saying that it's not worth it (cuz Haskell is awesome for everything but records), but it's still less immediately reusable.
tombert 7y ago
Yeah, I had similar issues with Rails as well; I feel people can be a bit too liberal with creating files, but I personally follow this mantra when I do it: does the benefit of separation worth the obfuscation introduced by adding a partition? Sometimes it is, and then I make a new file. This is a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I've actually written a framework that's MVC-ish that lets you create really declarative APIs. The first version is written in NodeJS that I actually deployed in production [1], and I have an Erlang port that's semi-complete that I've recently started hacking on again [2], with the whole crux of it that you should be able to simply declare the composition of your actions. [1] https://gitlab.com/tombert/frameworkeyPromiseEdition https://gitlab.com/tombert/frameworkeyPromiseEdition [2] https://gitlab.com/tombert/Frameworkey-Erlang https://gitlab.com/tombert/Frameworkey-Erlang
tootie 7y ago
Step 1 is to use a static analyzer. Enforce null checks and finals and such. I think cresting a lot of files only hurts up front but I will give up more keystrokes in favor of unequivocal stack traces any day. Also javadoc is the best.

by revvx 7y ago

andybak 7y ago

We are currently in a swing back in favour of statically typed languages. People seem to have forgotten why we previously had a huge trend towards more expressive, less strict, dynamically typed languages. Maybe we learn something each time the pendulum swings but as someone knee deep in C# at the moment, the quality of the APIs I have to deal with are far below those I was used to in Python (at least in terms of elegance and usability). I'm not sure whether these flaws are inherent or whether it's possible to have one's cake and eat it.

revvx 7y ago
I don't think it has anything to do with dynamic or static typing, but more to do with teams, libraries and program design. I've had terrible experiences with complexity and verbosity in Ruby and Python codebases, which are dynamically typed. On the other hand, I worked with super expressive and simple to work codebases in C# and Haskell. And I had the opposite experience as well in other times. It is absolutely possible to have the cake and eat it in this regard. In fact I'd consider Haskell way more expressive than any dynamic language I ever worked with.
- tombert 7y ago
  I love Haskell, and I agree that it's expressive, but any language with a nominal type system like Haskell is inherently going to be less expressive than a dynamic language. Compare these functions, one in JS and one in Haskell: function F (x) { var first = x.first; var second = x.second; return first + second; } vs. F :: (HasX a, HasY a) => a -> a F foo = (x foo) + (y foo) (I'm a little outta practice with both langauges, but my point will still stand) With the JS version, F can take in any expression that has the properties of `x` and `y`, while with the Haskell version, the type has to implement the typeclasses `HasX` and `HasY`. While the Haskell version is still better than something like Java because you can implement a typeclass without modifying the core datatype, it's still inherently less expressive. I'm not saying that it's not worth it (cuz Haskell is awesome for everything but records), but it's still less immediately reusable.

tombert 7y ago

Yeah, I had similar issues with Rails as well; I feel people can be a bit too liberal with creating files, but I personally follow this mantra when I do it: does the benefit of separation worth the obfuscation introduced by adding a partition? Sometimes it is, and then I make a new file. This is a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I've actually written a framework that's MVC-ish that lets you create really declarative APIs. The first version is written in NodeJS that I actually deployed in production [1], and I have an Erlang port that's semi-complete that I've recently started hacking on again [2], with the whole crux of it that you should be able to simply declare the composition of your actions. [1] https://gitlab.com/tombert/frameworkeyPromiseEdition https://gitlab.com/tombert/frameworkeyPromiseEdition [2] https://gitlab.com/tombert/Frameworkey-Erlang https://gitlab.com/tombert/Frameworkey-Erlang

tootie 7y ago

Step 1 is to use a static analyzer. Enforce null checks and finals and such. I think cresting a lot of files only hurts up front but I will give up more keystrokes in favor of unequivocal stack traces any day. Also javadoc is the best.