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I currently have the dynamic language blues – Python to me just doesn't feel like as much fun as it used to. Maybe it's getting too big and/or too crufty. At th

by j0057 6y ago

I currently have the dynamic language blues – Python to me just doesn't feel like as much fun as it used to. Maybe it's getting too big and/or too crufty. At the moment I'm having great fun with Rust instead, which feels as magical as Python and C did when I was twenty years younger. That said, bash/sh are really good at setting up pipelines to pass around lines of text between Unix tools. That is a really cool thing, and most languages don't really make this as first class concept. Because bash does, and I have twenty years of experience with it, I mostly put up with Bash. It's not a great language but it gets the job done, literally. I recently read some stuff about Julia which made me interested in it as a potentially better Bash (and hopefully more fun than Python) – https://julialang.org/blog/2012/03/shelling-out-sucks/ https://julialang.org/blog/2012/03/shelling-out-sucks/ https://julialang.org/blog/2013/04/put-this-in-your-pipe/ https://julialang.org/blog/2013/04/put-this-in-your-pipe/ https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-programs/ https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/running-external-pro...

pdimitar 6y ago
> I currently have the dynamic language blues... Same, I used to be a Ruby (and Rails) fanatic a long time ago but this has subsided. Nowadays I love Elixir and I reach for it in many scenarios where I don't expect CPU-bound workloads but I am acutely aware that the startup times (when scripting) are atrocious, plus working with it in business context for 4.5 years made me painfully aware of the problems caused by a lack of static typing. > At the moment I'm having great fun with Rust instead Same, I love it more than I loved almost any other tool I tried in my life. Just not sure how economical it is to reach for it for throwaway one-off tasks. I suppose with more experience in it it would become feasible. > It's not a great language but it gets the job done, literally. Agreed, I have achieved a lot with bash and `parallel` alone. But at one point it became a death by a thousand paper cuts thing; I know I can do the task but I can never quite remember all the little annoying details when e.g. iterating numbers, or file list from a previous command, or was there anything specific about piping inside the scripts (there is not, but you have to be mindful of config like `set -euo pipefail`) etc. It might be me getting stupider and less tolerant with age but you know what? I am okay with that. These tools / languages should be intuitive and easy to remember! I am not abandoning bash and zsh scripting, ever. But my tolerance towards banging my head against the wall was severely reduced lately. And, as mentioned in other comments of mine here, I'll either use `rc` or re-learn OCaml -- since it's extremely terse, compiles to very fast binaries (faster than Golang and only slightly slower than Rust) and has static strong typing. But time will tell. --- Thank you for the fantastic links. Opened them on my phone, they'll definitely be researched.

by j0057 6y ago

pdimitar 6y ago

> I currently have the dynamic language blues... Same, I used to be a Ruby (and Rails) fanatic a long time ago but this has subsided. Nowadays I love Elixir and I reach for it in many scenarios where I don't expect CPU-bound workloads but I am acutely aware that the startup times (when scripting) are atrocious, plus working with it in business context for 4.5 years made me painfully aware of the problems caused by a lack of static typing. > At the moment I'm having great fun with Rust instead Same, I love it more than I loved almost any other tool I tried in my life. Just not sure how economical it is to reach for it for throwaway one-off tasks. I suppose with more experience in it it would become feasible. > It's not a great language but it gets the job done, literally. Agreed, I have achieved a lot with bash and `parallel` alone. But at one point it became a death by a thousand paper cuts thing; I know I can do the task but I can never quite remember all the little annoying details when e.g. iterating numbers, or file list from a previous command, or was there anything specific about piping inside the scripts (there is not, but you have to be mindful of config like `set -euo pipefail`) etc. It might be me getting stupider and less tolerant with age but you know what? I am okay with that. These tools / languages should be intuitive and easy to remember! I am not abandoning bash and zsh scripting, ever. But my tolerance towards banging my head against the wall was severely reduced lately. And, as mentioned in other comments of mine here, I'll either use `rc` or re-learn OCaml -- since it's extremely terse, compiles to very fast binaries (faster than Golang and only slightly slower than Rust) and has static strong typing. But time will tell. --- Thank you for the fantastic links. Opened them on my phone, they'll definitely be researched.