2 ms·

So I generally agree with your point, and I'm not trying to say this is some giant issue which makes Rust and C++ unusable - on the contrary I think it's a mino

by skohan 6y ago

So I generally agree with your point, and I'm not trying to say this is some giant issue which makes Rust and C++ unusable - on the contrary I think it's a minor annoyance at worst when trying to carve out a naming scheme for my own components. But for the sake of internet pedantry, you seem to be saying that calling it vector is acceptable because it's established, not that there are any inherent advantages to this right? Because I would argue that we can and should take the opportunity to turn the page on imprecise terms of art which only exist for historical reasons. Even looking at Rust, I'm very glad that char|short|int|long has been replaced with i8|i16|i32|i64 even if the former are terms of art which everyone can understand.

steveklabnik 6y ago
I am at least saying something similar to what you're saying. The inherent advantage is familiarity. You may not consider that inherent. That's okay too :) Please excuse my WIP CSS, but I wrote a longer bit about this over at https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-budget https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-bu... . I think that, for languages that intend to be adopted broadly, you have to choose carefully where you diverge from existing practice. Sometimes, you have to change, after all, that's how progress even happens in the first place! And sometimes, you're forced to change, because you don't truly have an analogous situation.
- skohan 6y ago
  So I agree with the thrust of the point of your article as well - I guess my only point of disagreement would be where I would have placed something like naming vectors in terms of the trade-off between progress and familiarity, which admittedly probably has a lot to do with my particular domains of programming. However it does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity given the overlap between people who care about performance, and people who are working a lot with linear algebra in fields like computer graphics, simulation and ML. But I do understand that the line has to be drawn somewhere. (On a side note, the CSS is perfectly fine, and I've been looking for a static alternative to Ghost for blogging, so I might give next.js a try)
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    Totally, 100% get it :) Ah so, next is a way to make websites in general; the template linked is a good one for a blog though. I've had pretty positive experiences with next so far; I just re-did my blog in a hurry over the weekend for unrelated reasons, so it's pretty much just the template at the moment.

by skohan 6y ago

steveklabnik 6y ago

I am at least saying something similar to what you're saying. The inherent advantage is familiarity. You may not consider that inherent. That's okay too :) Please excuse my WIP CSS, but I wrote a longer bit about this over at https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-budget https://steveklabnik.com/writing/the-language-strangeness-bu... . I think that, for languages that intend to be adopted broadly, you have to choose carefully where you diverge from existing practice. Sometimes, you have to change, after all, that's how progress even happens in the first place! And sometimes, you're forced to change, because you don't truly have an analogous situation.

skohan 6y ago
So I agree with the thrust of the point of your article as well - I guess my only point of disagreement would be where I would have placed something like naming vectors in terms of the trade-off between progress and familiarity, which admittedly probably has a lot to do with my particular domains of programming. However it does seem like a bit of a missed opportunity given the overlap between people who care about performance, and people who are working a lot with linear algebra in fields like computer graphics, simulation and ML. But I do understand that the line has to be drawn somewhere. (On a side note, the CSS is perfectly fine, and I've been looking for a static alternative to Ghost for blogging, so I might give next.js a try)
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Totally, 100% get it :) Ah so, next is a way to make websites in general; the template linked is a good one for a blog though. I've had pretty positive experiences with next so far; I just re-did my blog in a hurry over the weekend for unrelated reasons, so it's pretty much just the template at the moment.