4 ms·

We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used. The Go and Rust story are exceptions. This is the long thin tail of new language adoption.

Jaxan 6y ago
Sure. But rust was not possible without all the research and little prototype languages. I think it’s good that many people are trying many things (as long as they clearly report their findings).
The_Colonel 6y ago
Languages like this are usually not meant for mainstream adoption. It's more of a research language useful as a vehicle for exploring new concepts and approaches. Target audience is probably other programming language researchers.
- panic 6y ago
  Jean Yang made a great analogy here: https://twitter.com/jeanqasaur/status/1262833050473259009 https://twitter.com/jeanqasaur/status/1262833050473259009 > Programming languages researchers are like fashion designers and "research languages" like Haskell and Idris are like runway looks. Nobody expects people to go around snakes on their bodies. They're pushing the boundaries of art and science and showing what's possible. And just like in fashion, the runway looks eventually change what people are wearing. Rust’s memory management would never exist in its current form if Cyclone hadn’t already shown it was possible.
  - GuiA 6y ago
    Interesting analogy, but people are using Haskell, Prolog, etc. in production... if I were to stick to the comparison, I'd suggest that projects like Lighttable are more akin to the runway outfit.
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      People also wear high fashion for certain events.
  - jakear 6y ago
    Hm. Interesting, but I’d consider the languages with actual production use to be the “ready to wear” lineups. Where as things like this might be the haute couture runway looks.
    - setr 6y ago
      That'd probably be your languages with large/cohesive libraries (I'm thinking ready to wear as in large retail). Production-history without expansive libs is probably bespoke and half a complete library (eg rust/go, having half of what you want, and missing the other half) is boutique :-)
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akavel 6y ago
I'd say this claim falls victim to a survivorship bias viewpoint. I suppose new languages are now used with more or less the same uptake as in any earlier "era" of software. (I.e. tons of "old" languages, which were new when published, also died with basically no users. Conversely, there's also Nim, Zig, TypeScript, Crystal, .......... just from the top of my head. Totally making their rounds and worth watching, and with people trying to use them.)
elongatedMusku 6y ago
That is the story of all languages.
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naasking 6y ago
> We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used I disagree. The same was said when perl dominated before Ruby and Python came along. And Pascal, C and C++ before that. Nowadays Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell, and more are all viable options for application development. We have more viable programming languages than ever.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  I live in a moderately large urban area in france (~800k inhabitants) and for your list ("Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell") I've never seen any local job ad for any of those except JS and Go, and only saw a bit of Haskell at the university. From a quick glance over a few dozen pages of job ads, it's mostly Java & PHP, with a bit of JS, Python and C# here and there and some C/C++ in embedded. Saw 2 node.js ads, as well as a COBOL and a Kotlin too. So, yes, maybe they are viable. But.. used ? they're blimps in the radar next to the big ones.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    In my city in the US: + Node.js is plentiful + Golang is up and coming + Some elixir + Haskell is pretty rare but it shows up as a secondary language + Java and php are plentiful but these tend to be large, older corporate gigs + Rust is rare + No crystal/nim/f#/zig/D that I've seen Obviously anecdotal and your case my differ.
  - the_why_of_y 6y ago
    Sadly just because a language has a quality implementation and lots of libraries available and so is suitable for application development from an engineering point of view doesn't mean that PHBs are going to allow it to happen at the workplace, for various business reasons.
gwern 6y ago
People have been saying this for many decades, and they've been wrong ever since. (I ran across, at one point, someone mentioning in the 1960s or so that they were loathe to design a new programming language because how could it possibly compete with existing languages like assembler, FORTRAN, or Lisp?) There are constantly new niches opening up and new areas of growth that a programming language can grow up within. It's a big world out there. There's probably a language stumbling backwards into success right now in China neither you nor I have heard of. As so often, Alan Perlis said it best: "In a 5 year period we get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the 5 year period will begin."
entha_saava 6y ago
Kotlin, Dart, Typescript, F# and Swift. Although all of them (like Go) are backed by big companies.

Jaxan 6y ago

Sure. But rust was not possible without all the research and little prototype languages. I think it’s good that many people are trying many things (as long as they clearly report their findings).

The_Colonel 6y ago

Languages like this are usually not meant for mainstream adoption. It's more of a research language useful as a vehicle for exploring new concepts and approaches. Target audience is probably other programming language researchers.

panic 6y ago
Jean Yang made a great analogy here: https://twitter.com/jeanqasaur/status/1262833050473259009 https://twitter.com/jeanqasaur/status/1262833050473259009 > Programming languages researchers are like fashion designers and "research languages" like Haskell and Idris are like runway looks. Nobody expects people to go around snakes on their bodies. They're pushing the boundaries of art and science and showing what's possible. And just like in fashion, the runway looks eventually change what people are wearing. Rust’s memory management would never exist in its current form if Cyclone hadn’t already shown it was possible.
- GuiA 6y ago
  Interesting analogy, but people are using Haskell, Prolog, etc. in production... if I were to stick to the comparison, I'd suggest that projects like Lighttable are more akin to the runway outfit.
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    People also wear high fashion for certain events.
- jakear 6y ago
  Hm. Interesting, but I’d consider the languages with actual production use to be the “ready to wear” lineups. Where as things like this might be the haute couture runway looks.
  - setr 6y ago
    That'd probably be your languages with large/cohesive libraries (I'm thinking ready to wear as in large retail). Production-history without expansive libs is probably bespoke and half a complete library (eg rust/go, having half of what you want, and missing the other half) is boutique :-)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

akavel 6y ago

I'd say this claim falls victim to a survivorship bias viewpoint. I suppose new languages are now used with more or less the same uptake as in any earlier "era" of software. (I.e. tons of "old" languages, which were new when published, also died with basically no users. Conversely, there's also Nim, Zig, TypeScript, Crystal, .......... just from the top of my head. Totally making their rounds and worth watching, and with people trying to use them.)

elongatedMusku 6y ago

That is the story of all languages.

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deleted 6y ago

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naasking 6y ago

> We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used I disagree. The same was said when perl dominated before Ruby and Python came along. And Pascal, C and C++ before that. Nowadays Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell, and more are all viable options for application development. We have more viable programming languages than ever.

jcelerier 6y ago
I live in a moderately large urban area in france (~800k inhabitants) and for your list ("Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell") I've never seen any local job ad for any of those except JS and Go, and only saw a bit of Haskell at the university. From a quick glance over a few dozen pages of job ads, it's mostly Java & PHP, with a bit of JS, Python and C# here and there and some C/C++ in embedded. Saw 2 node.js ads, as well as a COBOL and a Kotlin too. So, yes, maybe they are viable. But.. used ? they're blimps in the radar next to the big ones.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  In my city in the US: + Node.js is plentiful + Golang is up and coming + Some elixir + Haskell is pretty rare but it shows up as a secondary language + Java and php are plentiful but these tend to be large, older corporate gigs + Rust is rare + No crystal/nim/f#/zig/D that I've seen Obviously anecdotal and your case my differ.
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Sadly just because a language has a quality implementation and lots of libraries available and so is suitable for application development from an engineering point of view doesn't mean that PHBs are going to allow it to happen at the workplace, for various business reasons.

gwern 6y ago

People have been saying this for many decades, and they've been wrong ever since. (I ran across, at one point, someone mentioning in the 1960s or so that they were loathe to design a new programming language because how could it possibly compete with existing languages like assembler, FORTRAN, or Lisp?) There are constantly new niches opening up and new areas of growth that a programming language can grow up within. It's a big world out there. There's probably a language stumbling backwards into success right now in China neither you nor I have heard of. As so often, Alan Perlis said it best: "In a 5 year period we get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the 5 year period will begin."

entha_saava 6y ago

Kotlin, Dart, Typescript, F# and Swift. Although all of them (like Go) are backed by big companies.