4 ms·

Enterprises supporting their sunk costs supports a lot, that by itself isn't a good judgment of quality. I wouldn't be surprised if more enterprises use Clipper

by mhd 7y ago

Enterprises supporting their sunk costs supports a lot, that by itself isn't a good judgment of quality. I wouldn't be surprised if more enterprises use Clipper than Eiffel... Eiffel had similar issues that Pascal had: Appearing too much like an educational, purist language and having "good enough" more popular alternatives on the market (C/C++ vs. C++/Java). And authors that don't compromise to sell stuff. The crappy "SmallEiffel" situation didn't help either. It started out pretty great (good feature set, quick and cross-platform compiles via C), but then, erm, FOSS nature took its course. Which is why I'm a bit ware of similar language and their situations since then, e.g. Nim. Man, there was a time in the 90s where I was hoping that we'd get Eiffel (or Sather) as the next big open source desktop language. Instead we still have walled garden C++ and reinvent-the-wheel C.

zozbot234 7y ago
> ...the next big open source desktop language. Instead we still have walled garden C++ and reinvent-the-wheel C. The RESF might take issue with that statement. Though it was of course largely true as late as the 2010s, not just in the 1990s.
- mhd 7y ago
  I was just talking about Linux/BSD desktop apps and their implementation languages/libraries. Not a lot changed there, and the RESF seems to focus on more fashionable/achievable things (The only non-C++ option for Qt right now seems Python, and the most popular non-C language for gtk is probably Vala). Right now not enough hubris for either Go or Rust to do a build their own thing right from scratch.
downerending 7y ago
Had forgotten about Sather. Was too poor to afford Eiffel itself, but I remember really liking Sather and using it some. That said, that was about the time I started realizing just how pointless it is to learn niche languages, as anything other than an amusement. I can't recall the wording, but trumpet players have a saying that you can learn flugelhorn for fun, but trumpet is always going to be what pays your bills.

by mhd 7y ago

zozbot234 7y ago

> ...the next big open source desktop language. Instead we still have walled garden C++ and reinvent-the-wheel C. The RESF might take issue with that statement. Though it was of course largely true as late as the 2010s, not just in the 1990s.

mhd 7y ago
I was just talking about Linux/BSD desktop apps and their implementation languages/libraries. Not a lot changed there, and the RESF seems to focus on more fashionable/achievable things (The only non-C++ option for Qt right now seems Python, and the most popular non-C language for gtk is probably Vala). Right now not enough hubris for either Go or Rust to do a build their own thing right from scratch.

downerending 7y ago

Had forgotten about Sather. Was too poor to afford Eiffel itself, but I remember really liking Sather and using it some. That said, that was about the time I started realizing just how pointless it is to learn niche languages, as anything other than an amusement. I can't recall the wording, but trumpet players have a saying that you can learn flugelhorn for fun, but trumpet is always going to be what pays your bills.