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> Counterexample: C++. To a lesser degree, perhaps also Rust? Are these actually counterexamples? While in absolute terms there may be a fair number of people

by WJW 6y ago

> Counterexample: C++. To a lesser degree, perhaps also Rust? Are these actually counterexamples? While in absolute terms there may be a fair number of people using them, in relative terms the amount of people who know C++ and/or Rust is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of people who know "easier" languages like JS, Python and PHP. In this case "easier" refers to the amount of effort needed to pick it up and get some result on screen, not to the amount of effort to be a guru. I think for a lot of beginners productivity and even (memory) safety is completely irrelevant. They are not very productive anyway and their code crashes all the time because by definition they make beginner mistakes. What is more important for beginners is to keep up momentum and get through the initial hurdle of "I don't understand this" to the point where you start thinking "this is fun, I can make cool stuff". Rust and C++ solve professional problems, not beginner problems.

Silhouette 6y ago
While in absolute terms there may be a fair number of people using them, in relative terms the amount of people who know C++ and/or Rust is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of people who know "easier" languages like JS, Python and Ruby. Are you sure? JS is huge today, not least because it's the only game in town on what is currently the most popular easily accessible platform. However, I've never seen anything to suggest a huge difference between the number of programmers who know C++ and the number who know Python, for example. Both are very popular languages with at least a few million developers who know them. At that scale there's no reliable way to get an exact count and the difference doesn't really matter anyway.
- batty_alex 6y ago
  > However, I've never seen anything to suggest a huge difference between the number of programmers who know C++ and the number who know Python Anecdotal evidence here but, I hire for both and it’s definitely easier to find developers that actually know Python and what Pythonic code looks like.

by WJW 6y ago

Silhouette 6y ago

While in absolute terms there may be a fair number of people using them, in relative terms the amount of people who know C++ and/or Rust is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of people who know "easier" languages like JS, Python and Ruby. Are you sure? JS is huge today, not least because it's the only game in town on what is currently the most popular easily accessible platform. However, I've never seen anything to suggest a huge difference between the number of programmers who know C++ and the number who know Python, for example. Both are very popular languages with at least a few million developers who know them. At that scale there's no reliable way to get an exact count and the difference doesn't really matter anyway.

batty_alex 6y ago
> However, I've never seen anything to suggest a huge difference between the number of programmers who know C++ and the number who know Python Anecdotal evidence here but, I hire for both and it’s definitely easier to find developers that actually know Python and what Pythonic code looks like.