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> The vast majority of programmers don't use low-level languages for writing applications I work in a multi-million-line codebase, a significant majority of wh
by notacoward 6y ago
> The vast majority of programmers don't use low-level languages for writing applications
I work in a multi-million-line codebase, a significant majority of which is very far from that "need perfect control" domain but is written in a what I'd call a mid-level language - a high-abstraction dialect of C++. So I'd say GP is correct, that too many people are stuck writing code in the wrong language for the task at hand. The need for languages like Zig to improve the lower-level experience (which, as you say, is not going away) and the need for higher-level languages for more common types of programs are not in conflict. They're complementary. It's the mid-level languages that need to DIAF, because they're not really suited for either and pretending to be more general than they are only encourages people to make choices that hurt them.
- pron 6y agoI totally agree, and I think that C++ is exactly this "wrong kind of language," and Rust follows in its footsteps, but I'm sure others disagree. For example, for decades Microsoft has shown an attraction to this kind of languages (they love C++, C# is going down that path, and they're showing interest in Rust), so it might ultimately be a matter of taste -- a personal aesthetic preference -- unless somebody is ever able to make some empirical observations that show an objective benefit to one approach over another.
- int_19h 6y agoHow is C# similar to C++ in that regard? It's a much higher-level language.