4 ms·

> but come on, who does that? Yesterday Go, today Rust.

ansible 7y ago
I'm certainly guilty of thinking that. I don't think I've actually been pushing the "rewrite all the things in Go" thing though. I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. Like the others on the above list, Rust has certainly stretched my brain with new and better programming concepts. And I think it offers some solid benefits that few other programming languages are providing right now. Its also interesting to start to see other languages like Swift incorporate concepts from Rust.
- 0815test 7y ago
  There's nothing wrong with Go, in its proper domain! Heck, maybe the typical program written in a GC'd "scripting"-like language should be rewritten in Go. Rust is nice, but sometimes you really can't do without a GC.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  >I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. >So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. This is sounds like something straight out of r/programmingcirclejerk
- fortran77 7y ago
  I remember, 25 years ago, we wanted to re-write everything in Oberon.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Then Java was announced to the world. :(
    - ansible 7y ago
      I thought Java was pretty cool at the time of its announcement. I even started working on Java applets for an educational website. The idea was to teach algebra / calculus concepts, and use a Java applet to interactively plot graphs and such. Even at the time, I did wonder about the standard types vs. Objects split, though I wasn't to become an OO purist (temporarily) until learning more Eiffel.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        Java was undoubtedly cool, I also thought like that. Now what disappointed me was that languages like it, namely Oberon variants, Modula-3, Eiffel, Sather, all had a mix of AOT/JIT toolchain, with value types and low level capabilities. Java nuked all of this, and is now trying to catch back those features that should have been there since the beginning (AOT kind of was, but only on commercial JDKs).
        vips7L 7y ago
        Java still is cool! :) I have high hopes for graal native compilation and project loom.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        It is, but it could have been much better from the get go.
seren 7y ago
When I started reading HN, around 2013, all I can remember is the endless stream of ruby/rails posts. A good rule of thumb, is probably to invest in language that are still growing at HN+5years. Of course, you can always look into it a bit earlier, one of the point of HN is (early) discoverability. (If only I had mined some bitcoins..)
- majewsky 7y ago
  I like the mental model of "innovation points". You have a certain budget of innovation points that you can spend while building your project. If you spend too much (i.e. use new shiny things throughout the stack), you're going to be chasing after bugs everywhere and won't get very far. If you spend too little (i.e. use only old stuff), you'll have a hard time implementing real innovations. The idea is to spend innovation points strategically, i.e. use new shiny components (like a new programming language or a new DB) only where it actually brings you a tangible benefit, while using tried and trusted components for everything else. (The concrete budget of innovation points varies per project. A government project will have way fewer innovation points than a weekend side-project.)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

I'm certainly guilty of thinking that. I don't think I've actually been pushing the "rewrite all the things in Go" thing though. I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. Like the others on the above list, Rust has certainly stretched my brain with new and better programming concepts. And I think it offers some solid benefits that few other programming languages are providing right now. Its also interesting to start to see other languages like Swift incorporate concepts from Rust.

0815test 7y ago
There's nothing wrong with Go, in its proper domain! Heck, maybe the typical program written in a GC'd "scripting"-like language should be rewritten in Go. Rust is nice, but sometimes you really can't do without a GC.
layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
>I'm also guilty of thinking language X is the next big thing, and that I should use it for everything. And that's happened more than a few times: Smalltalk, Eiffel, Python, Haskell, Lua, Go. >So having said all that, I really do think that Rust is the next awesome thing. This is sounds like something straight out of r/programmingcirclejerk
fortran77 7y ago
I remember, 25 years ago, we wanted to re-write everything in Oberon.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  Then Java was announced to the world. :(
  - ansible 7y ago
    I thought Java was pretty cool at the time of its announcement. I even started working on Java applets for an educational website. The idea was to teach algebra / calculus concepts, and use a Java applet to interactively plot graphs and such. Even at the time, I did wonder about the standard types vs. Objects split, though I wasn't to become an OO purist (temporarily) until learning more Eiffel.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Java was undoubtedly cool, I also thought like that. Now what disappointed me was that languages like it, namely Oberon variants, Modula-3, Eiffel, Sather, all had a mix of AOT/JIT toolchain, with value types and low level capabilities. Java nuked all of this, and is now trying to catch back those features that should have been there since the beginning (AOT kind of was, but only on commercial JDKs).
      - vips7L 7y ago
        Java still is cool! :) I have high hopes for graal native compilation and project loom.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        It is, but it could have been much better from the get go.

seren 7y ago

When I started reading HN, around 2013, all I can remember is the endless stream of ruby/rails posts. A good rule of thumb, is probably to invest in language that are still growing at HN+5years. Of course, you can always look into it a bit earlier, one of the point of HN is (early) discoverability. (If only I had mined some bitcoins..)

majewsky 7y ago
I like the mental model of "innovation points". You have a certain budget of innovation points that you can spend while building your project. If you spend too much (i.e. use new shiny things throughout the stack), you're going to be chasing after bugs everywhere and won't get very far. If you spend too little (i.e. use only old stuff), you'll have a hard time implementing real innovations. The idea is to spend innovation points strategically, i.e. use new shiny components (like a new programming language or a new DB) only where it actually brings you a tangible benefit, while using tried and trusted components for everything else. (The concrete budget of innovation points varies per project. A government project will have way fewer innovation points than a weekend side-project.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]