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I don't quite get the latter. First of all, if the foundations are sound and the core language provides a good enough module already, neither large frameworks n

by mhd 7y ago

I don't quite get the latter. First of all, if the foundations are sound and the core language provides a good enough module already, neither large frameworks nor small modules need to duplicate that. And if it isn't included, why would 16 small subsystems have fewer duplicates than 2 large frameworks? By the way, C++ is exactly the trajectory I see JS moving towards. A plethora of different sub-languages and library sets. Only with the difference that it's both easier from a tooling and culture perspective to bring in new tiny modules.

lmm 7y ago
> First of all, if the foundations are sound and the core language provides a good enough module already, neither large frameworks nor small modules need to duplicate that. A language standard library is just another framework - Python's one is famously "where modules go to die", but we see much the same problems in e.g. Boost. A "good enough" solution in the standard library can be worse than nothing, as it means better alternatives struggle to gain enough momentum, and this gets worse as time goes by: functionality that's in the standard library has to evolve slowly. > And if it isn't included, why would 16 small subsystems have fewer duplicates than 2 large frameworks? Because the common things can be in their own small pieces. If a database-access library, a web templating library, and a config parsing library all need to do string manipulation, then if they all implement it themselves we'll see duplication, whereas if they all use an external library then we won't (this is after all the point of libraries). Maybe the ecosystem will have two different string manipulation libraries on the go with one gradually displacing the other, but that's likely to only happen when there's a genuine improvement being made. Whereas if everything's a big framework then eventually everything implements its own copy of the common utilities that just about everything ends up needing - collections, datastructure manipulation, all the really generic stuff.

by mhd 7y ago

lmm 7y ago

> First of all, if the foundations are sound and the core language provides a good enough module already, neither large frameworks nor small modules need to duplicate that. A language standard library is just another framework - Python's one is famously "where modules go to die", but we see much the same problems in e.g. Boost. A "good enough" solution in the standard library can be worse than nothing, as it means better alternatives struggle to gain enough momentum, and this gets worse as time goes by: functionality that's in the standard library has to evolve slowly. > And if it isn't included, why would 16 small subsystems have fewer duplicates than 2 large frameworks? Because the common things can be in their own small pieces. If a database-access library, a web templating library, and a config parsing library all need to do string manipulation, then if they all implement it themselves we'll see duplication, whereas if they all use an external library then we won't (this is after all the point of libraries). Maybe the ecosystem will have two different string manipulation libraries on the go with one gradually displacing the other, but that's likely to only happen when there's a genuine improvement being made. Whereas if everything's a big framework then eventually everything implements its own copy of the common utilities that just about everything ends up needing - collections, datastructure manipulation, all the really generic stuff.