5 ms·

Small code samples tell me next to nothing. How could they. I want a clear explanation of the foundational aspects.

by blain_the_train 7y ago

dunefox 7y ago
I want both.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  That's the ideal amount of information. A reasonable example of a good page that is informative and provides lots of examples (enough at least!) is the one for D: https://dlang.org/ https://dlang.org/
  - dunefox 7y ago
    I also like the "Ecosystem" part of Julia: https://julialang.org/ https://julialang.org/ Sadly, for some reason code samples are lacking.
    - giancarlostoro 7y ago
      Julia is a language I love that I don't see myself using sadly. It does some amazing things that leave me shocked, like it can show you the assembly you generate while using a REPL. That's impressive to me. However, I'm not the target developer for Julia. Edit: Course after clicking your link, I am wondering how wrong I am since it is still technically general purpose capable. Wow Julia has grown so much!
      - eigenspace 7y ago
        Out of curiosity, what sort of development do you do? Julia is a very flexible language. The majority of its community is still focused on numerical scientific computing, but it's great for all sorts of usecases these days. The way I think of it, in order to build a language that was flexible enough to cover all these different weird needs you find in the scientific computing community, they ended up needing to build a general purpose language.
Minor49er 7y ago
How can you choose a language without knowing the syntax? It's not arbitrary. Some languages have elegance or gotchas in how the syntax is laid out
- dudul 7y ago
  How can you tell the elegance or gotchas from a 6 line Hello World?
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    It's how I picked my favorite Python web framework, I compared all the hello world samples they all had, and wound up with CherryPy. The rest had too many decorators and it just looked silly to me. You can also figure out if it's C-like or Lisp-like, and so on from looking at syntax.
    - rixed 7y ago
      From what you describe, sounds to me you picked your framework mostly at random, like one would pick a car for its color.
  - neurobashing 7y ago
    you can infer a lot; is it LISPy, is it C-ish, or one of the Haskell family, etc. I think you can tell a lot from just which family of syntax.
    - cttet 7y ago
      No, take Reason as an example: it is basically Ocaml. Despite having a C-like syntax, it is quite different from it. The syntax barrier is usually much smaller than the language itself.
      - CarlRJ 7y ago
        And yet... someone trying to “sell” me a language while seemingly refusing to show me any code samples feels like someone trying to sell me a car based entirely on a spec sheet with no pictures and without actually seeing, touching or experiencing the car. They both provoke a reaction of suspicion - “what are they trying to hide?” As if they don’t trust me, the customer, to be able to understand the very thing they want/expect me to buy. I’m perfectly fine with a page that says, “here’s a code sample - notice that it looks similar to C, but here’s a list of reasons / an explanation of why/how it’s actually quite different from C.” One of my favorite programming books of all time is K&R, from back before ANSI, even. It said, “here’s a simple problem to solve, and here’s how you solve it in our language.” Repeatedly. Explaining how the features helped to solve the problem at hand. It was revelatory. And it assumed its audience to be knowledgeable programmers. It didn’t spend the first chapter just describing all the features or how great the language is without showing any code.
robofanatic 7y ago
Little code snippets are nice to get a quick feel of the language. A good "Get Started" page is also a must have. I love languages or frameworks that have a step by step clear instructions on how to get started. It's almost like taking test drives when you go car shopping. You don't want to open the hood and check what's inside right away you just want to be able to drive the car.
scott_s 7y ago
I don't want small code samples. I want well defined problems that this particular language is well suited for, as demonstrated by a dozen (or a few dozen) line program which uses the core features of the language to elegantly solve that problem. That gives me a feel for what the language is, and if interested, I'll learn about the foundations.

Small code samples tell me next to nothing. How could they. I want a clear explanation of the foundational aspects.

dunefox 7y ago

I want both.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
That's the ideal amount of information. A reasonable example of a good page that is informative and provides lots of examples (enough at least!) is the one for D: https://dlang.org/ https://dlang.org/
- dunefox 7y ago
  I also like the "Ecosystem" part of Julia: https://julialang.org/ https://julialang.org/ Sadly, for some reason code samples are lacking.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Julia is a language I love that I don't see myself using sadly. It does some amazing things that leave me shocked, like it can show you the assembly you generate while using a REPL. That's impressive to me. However, I'm not the target developer for Julia. Edit: Course after clicking your link, I am wondering how wrong I am since it is still technically general purpose capable. Wow Julia has grown so much!
    - eigenspace 7y ago
      Out of curiosity, what sort of development do you do? Julia is a very flexible language. The majority of its community is still focused on numerical scientific computing, but it's great for all sorts of usecases these days. The way I think of it, in order to build a language that was flexible enough to cover all these different weird needs you find in the scientific computing community, they ended up needing to build a general purpose language.

Minor49er 7y ago

How can you choose a language without knowing the syntax? It's not arbitrary. Some languages have elegance or gotchas in how the syntax is laid out

dudul 7y ago
How can you tell the elegance or gotchas from a 6 line Hello World?
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  It's how I picked my favorite Python web framework, I compared all the hello world samples they all had, and wound up with CherryPy. The rest had too many decorators and it just looked silly to me. You can also figure out if it's C-like or Lisp-like, and so on from looking at syntax.
  - rixed 7y ago
    From what you describe, sounds to me you picked your framework mostly at random, like one would pick a car for its color.
- neurobashing 7y ago
  you can infer a lot; is it LISPy, is it C-ish, or one of the Haskell family, etc. I think you can tell a lot from just which family of syntax.
  - cttet 7y ago
    No, take Reason as an example: it is basically Ocaml. Despite having a C-like syntax, it is quite different from it. The syntax barrier is usually much smaller than the language itself.
    - CarlRJ 7y ago
      And yet... someone trying to “sell” me a language while seemingly refusing to show me any code samples feels like someone trying to sell me a car based entirely on a spec sheet with no pictures and without actually seeing, touching or experiencing the car. They both provoke a reaction of suspicion - “what are they trying to hide?” As if they don’t trust me, the customer, to be able to understand the very thing they want/expect me to buy. I’m perfectly fine with a page that says, “here’s a code sample - notice that it looks similar to C, but here’s a list of reasons / an explanation of why/how it’s actually quite different from C.” One of my favorite programming books of all time is K&R, from back before ANSI, even. It said, “here’s a simple problem to solve, and here’s how you solve it in our language.” Repeatedly. Explaining how the features helped to solve the problem at hand. It was revelatory. And it assumed its audience to be knowledgeable programmers. It didn’t spend the first chapter just describing all the features or how great the language is without showing any code.

robofanatic 7y ago

Little code snippets are nice to get a quick feel of the language. A good "Get Started" page is also a must have. I love languages or frameworks that have a step by step clear instructions on how to get started. It's almost like taking test drives when you go car shopping. You don't want to open the hood and check what's inside right away you just want to be able to drive the car.

scott_s 7y ago

I don't want small code samples. I want well defined problems that this particular language is well suited for, as demonstrated by a dozen (or a few dozen) line program which uses the core features of the language to elegantly solve that problem. That gives me a feel for what the language is, and if interested, I'll learn about the foundations.