6 ms·

Why do we need yet another language instead of improving the existing ones?

by edem 7y ago

hombre_fatal 7y ago
Your profile says you like tinkering, yet you don't understand why others would tinker and experiment with new things? Do you only give yourself a pass for tinkering instead of using your precious free-time to credentialize in and improve existing software?
- tunesmith 7y ago
  Man, I don't know if it's against site guidelines, but I've never liked using people's bios - even if public on HN - as ammunition against their comments. Isn't it better to just respond to the content of the comments themselves?
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Trying to start from common ground isn’t “ammunition” imho. Although it depends on how it is phrased of course.
  - rickbutton 7y ago
    There is always a person or two at the bottom of every thread like this that loves to spew hate towards people that like to share interesting side-projects, usually in a "you are wasting your time because your project has no immediate value to ME, go spend it serving my interests instead" sort of way. Claiming to also be a tinkerer in your public bio on the same website is gross, and IMO fair game to point it out.
  - pmarreck 7y ago
    > I've never liked using people's bios - even if public on HN - as ammunition against their comments I'm inclined to agree, but in the case of outright hypocrisy I think the point deserves to be made, because hypocrisy is literally the worst
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    IIRC, site guidelines don't specifically say "no ad hominems," but it seems to be generally understood that "no ad hominems" is the correct interpretation of this guideline: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- edem 7y ago
  I like tinkering but I don't add to the mess by open sourcing yet another language.
wool_gather 7y ago
You could look at it as a POC: ideas from experimental or niche languages sometimes find their ways into existing mainstream languages.
willtim 7y ago
What language are you going to try and improve? Add static types to Python? Or make Java purely functional? Often one needs to start again. Mirth looks much better than most.
- ithkuil 7y ago
  There exist other languages in the category, e.g. https://kittenlang.org/ https://kittenlang.org/, http://www.factorcode.org/ http://www.factorcode.org/, https://github.com/cdiggins/cat-language https://github.com/cdiggins/cat-language, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language). I assume the parent poster referred to improving those (or at least explaining which deficiencies of those myrth is addressing). (In case you didn't already, you can read about this family of languages in http://evincarofautumn.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-concatenative-programming-matters.html http://evincarofautumn.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-concatenativ...) I'm personally happy that somebody is doing more research in this field.
  - voxl 7y ago
    Note that none of these languages have dependent types and that feature is sometimes impossible to add in full generic power after the fact without completely breaking existing code.
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Does mirth? I've been perusing the code and haven't seen anything like that so far.
    - ithkuil 7y ago
      I think there is some misunderstood. I just saw mentions of java and python and I just wanted to add some pointers for people who might not know that myrth lives in a void. I didn't want to imply that there is no point in writing a new language.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Unrelated, do you speak Ithkuil?
staticassertion 7y ago
I think that history has taught us that the best way to get existing languages to improve is to demonstrate the value of a paradigm or feature out-of-band in some other language, possibly a new one.
- edem 7y ago
  I see your point. This is what happens now with Java.
dang 7y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- justfordang 7y ago
  I know you are a gigantic egomaniac and I'm wasting my time writing this, but if you could ever repress your inflated sense of (mis)justice for two seconds, you might notice that the poster actually asked a perfectly valid question. With the context presented so far (zero, for those keeping score at home), there's no reason to assume that the poster is dismissive of the project being discussed. Why IS Mirth needed, when we can improve other languages? This is actually a perfect segue for proponents of Mirth to explain the niche the language occupies and it's pros and cons for users/engineers. Thanks for making HN cancer, dang. Honestly, you're jumping up random asses on the internet that you'll never meet nor matter to is why the quality of discussion on HN has reached the trough it seems comfortably rested in. But hey. You posted the guidelines. You're a hero.
  - Buge 7y ago
    Insults like this are very annoying to read. If you think the moderation is too strict and is hurting HN's environment, then say that. There's no need to be so mean about it.
  - openfuture 7y ago
    Wow.. and you don't feel like the comment you made is contributing to the problem? If you want to live in a society where respect trickles up instead of violence trickling down then you mustn't express yourself with violence.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >I know you are a gigantic egomaniac and I'm wasting my time writing this, but if you could ever repress your inflated sense of (mis)justice for two seconds, you might notice that the poster actually asked a perfectly valid question. Also a perfectly trivial one, an insulting one, and one that has been asked countless times, and that has no real place in a post presenting a new language but goes to meta yak shaving philosophy. (A question like "what are Mirths differentiating points, what new does it bring" would be an acceptable version -- but that wasn't what was asked). Note that by starting with "I know you are a gigantic egomaniac" and "inflated sense" and "Thanks for making HN cancer", you already show that you don't have a valid contribution to the discussion either. It even seems like the content of the discussion was secondary, just needed to vent at someone...

Why do we need yet another language instead of improving the existing ones?

by edem 7y ago

Why do we need yet another language instead of improving the existing ones?

Your profile says you like tinkering, yet you don't understand why others would tinker and experiment with new things? Do you only give yourself a pass for tinkering instead of using your precious free-time to credentialize in and improve existing software?

tunesmith 7y ago
Man, I don't know if it's against site guidelines, but I've never liked using people's bios - even if public on HN - as ammunition against their comments. Isn't it better to just respond to the content of the comments themselves?
- garmaine 7y ago
  Trying to start from common ground isn’t “ammunition” imho. Although it depends on how it is phrased of course.
- rickbutton 7y ago
  There is always a person or two at the bottom of every thread like this that loves to spew hate towards people that like to share interesting side-projects, usually in a "you are wasting your time because your project has no immediate value to ME, go spend it serving my interests instead" sort of way. Claiming to also be a tinkerer in your public bio on the same website is gross, and IMO fair game to point it out.
- pmarreck 7y ago
  > I've never liked using people's bios - even if public on HN - as ammunition against their comments I'm inclined to agree, but in the case of outright hypocrisy I think the point deserves to be made, because hypocrisy is literally the worst
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  IIRC, site guidelines don't specifically say "no ad hominems," but it seems to be generally understood that "no ad hominems" is the correct interpretation of this guideline: When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
edem 7y ago
I like tinkering but I don't add to the mess by open sourcing yet another language.

wool_gather 7y ago

You could look at it as a POC: ideas from experimental or niche languages sometimes find their ways into existing mainstream languages.

willtim 7y ago

What language are you going to try and improve? Add static types to Python? Or make Java purely functional? Often one needs to start again. Mirth looks much better than most.

ithkuil 7y ago
There exist other languages in the category, e.g. https://kittenlang.org/ https://kittenlang.org/, http://www.factorcode.org/ http://www.factorcode.org/, https://github.com/cdiggins/cat-language https://github.com/cdiggins/cat-language, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language). I assume the parent poster referred to improving those (or at least explaining which deficiencies of those myrth is addressing). (In case you didn't already, you can read about this family of languages in http://evincarofautumn.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-concatenative-programming-matters.html http://evincarofautumn.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-concatenativ...) I'm personally happy that somebody is doing more research in this field.
- voxl 7y ago
  Note that none of these languages have dependent types and that feature is sometimes impossible to add in full generic power after the fact without completely breaking existing code.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Does mirth? I've been perusing the code and haven't seen anything like that so far.
  - ithkuil 7y ago
    I think there is some misunderstood. I just saw mentions of java and python and I just wanted to add some pointers for people who might not know that myrth lives in a void. I didn't want to imply that there is no point in writing a new language.
- garmaine 7y ago
  Unrelated, do you speak Ithkuil?

staticassertion 7y ago

I think that history has taught us that the best way to get existing languages to improve is to demonstrate the value of a paradigm or feature out-of-band in some other language, possibly a new one.

edem 7y ago
I see your point. This is what happens now with Java.

dang 7y ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

justfordang 7y ago
I know you are a gigantic egomaniac and I'm wasting my time writing this, but if you could ever repress your inflated sense of (mis)justice for two seconds, you might notice that the poster actually asked a perfectly valid question. With the context presented so far (zero, for those keeping score at home), there's no reason to assume that the poster is dismissive of the project being discussed. Why IS Mirth needed, when we can improve other languages? This is actually a perfect segue for proponents of Mirth to explain the niche the language occupies and it's pros and cons for users/engineers. Thanks for making HN cancer, dang. Honestly, you're jumping up random asses on the internet that you'll never meet nor matter to is why the quality of discussion on HN has reached the trough it seems comfortably rested in. But hey. You posted the guidelines. You're a hero.
- Buge 7y ago
  Insults like this are very annoying to read. If you think the moderation is too strict and is hurting HN's environment, then say that. There's no need to be so mean about it.
- openfuture 7y ago
  Wow.. and you don't feel like the comment you made is contributing to the problem? If you want to live in a society where respect trickles up instead of violence trickling down then you mustn't express yourself with violence.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I know you are a gigantic egomaniac and I'm wasting my time writing this, but if you could ever repress your inflated sense of (mis)justice for two seconds, you might notice that the poster actually asked a perfectly valid question. Also a perfectly trivial one, an insulting one, and one that has been asked countless times, and that has no real place in a post presenting a new language but goes to meta yak shaving philosophy. (A question like "what are Mirths differentiating points, what new does it bring" would be an acceptable version -- but that wasn't what was asked). Note that by starting with "I know you are a gigantic egomaniac" and "inflated sense" and "Thanks for making HN cancer", you already show that you don't have a valid contribution to the discussion either. It even seems like the content of the discussion was secondary, just needed to vent at someone...