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But that is not inherently a bad thing. If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their plac

But that is not inherently a bad thing. If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned. So its possible that programming languages like C++ that keeps extending their own life through adding features (while keeping weaknesses), will ultimately cost the community/industry more in the long run.

rubber_duck 6y ago
I'm not saying Java should have introduced ground breaking features - I'm saying they made design mistakes that they should have corrected far sooner (var/type inference) and refused to add some basic features (lambdas) that would have made the code a lot better for it. They did add those features eventually (Java 8) - about 8 years behind C# (since C# 3.0)
Aerroon 6y ago
>If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned. Part of me thinks that this is how it should be. Extending a language constantly while providing backwards compatibility can lead to some awkward syntax too.
- hackingthenews 6y ago
  Agreed. Just gonna drop this here: Nicolai Josuttis “The Nightmare of Initialization in C++” [0] [0] https://youtu.be/7DTlWPgX6zs https://youtu.be/7DTlWPgX6zs
  - pietroglyph 6y ago
    The thing is that this is not a huge issue in practice. I stick to uniform initialization in 99% of cases and it works out pretty well. I have far fewer bugs from initialization screwups than from other things.
    - Aerroon 6y ago
      But what kind of an effect does this have on someone new learning the language? It seems to me like it would make it slightly harder to learn and get used to.
      - lenkite 6y ago
        Simple, read and religiously follow the Core Guidelines. Bad, converting initialisations are also flagged as warnings (or errors with -Werror).

rubber_duck 6y ago

I'm not saying Java should have introduced ground breaking features - I'm saying they made design mistakes that they should have corrected far sooner (var/type inference) and refused to add some basic features (lambdas) that would have made the code a lot better for it. They did add those features eventually (Java 8) - about 8 years behind C# (since C# 3.0)

Aerroon 6y ago

>If we look at programming languages as tools, it makes sense for them to get out of date and new ones taking their place, with all the lessons learned. Part of me thinks that this is how it should be. Extending a language constantly while providing backwards compatibility can lead to some awkward syntax too.

hackingthenews 6y ago
Agreed. Just gonna drop this here: Nicolai Josuttis “The Nightmare of Initialization in C++” [0] [0] https://youtu.be/7DTlWPgX6zs https://youtu.be/7DTlWPgX6zs
- pietroglyph 6y ago
  The thing is that this is not a huge issue in practice. I stick to uniform initialization in 99% of cases and it works out pretty well. I have far fewer bugs from initialization screwups than from other things.
  - Aerroon 6y ago
    But what kind of an effect does this have on someone new learning the language? It seems to me like it would make it slightly harder to learn and get used to.
    - lenkite 6y ago
      Simple, read and religiously follow the Core Guidelines. Bad, converting initialisations are also flagged as warnings (or errors with -Werror).