4 ms·

It's pointless discussing this. There is no perfect language and every programming language I've ever seen has design problems at one level or another. I know e

by 13415 6y ago

It's pointless discussing this. There is no perfect language and every programming language I've ever seen has design problems at one level or another. I know enough of CL, Pascal, Modula, Ada, Rust, Nim, etc., to know their weaknesses, too. Your C example is also not convincing. Lisp and Algol were already strong contenders at the time. People chose C because they needed a fast and close to metal language to create their own operating system for mainframes. It was a hack just like your category 2. Still, it's a great language.

brundolf 6y ago
> There is no perfect language > It's pointless discussing this I don't see how the first implies the second. This is a programming forum; it's good to discuss and debate the specifics of these things. C may not have been the best example of the category, but I think the category stands. Rust for example, much as I love it, is exploring uncharted territory. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now we have ownership-based languages that are much easier to use, simply because lessons will have been learned by that point. Arguably Java's OOP fundamentals are not as good as C#'s because Java had to explore that territory first (setting aside technicalities about what the term "OOP" really means). Etc.
- 13415 6y ago
  The problem is that decades of experience has shown that only few programmers can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of programming languages for certain purposes in a halfway objective manner, and since few of them implement their own languages even the good discussions often remain fruitless. I'll recommend Reddit's r/ProgrammingLanguages, as well as Scott's Programming Language Pragmatics as a reading instead. It's not fully up-to-date but I found the comparisons of features and their trade-offs in it fascinating.

4 ms·

It's pointless discussing this. There is no perfect language and every programming language I've ever seen has design problems at one level or another. I know e

by 13415 6y ago

brundolf 6y ago
> There is no perfect language > It's pointless discussing this I don't see how the first implies the second. This is a programming forum; it's good to discuss and debate the specifics of these things. C may not have been the best example of the category, but I think the category stands. Rust for example, much as I love it, is exploring uncharted territory. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years from now we have ownership-based languages that are much easier to use, simply because lessons will have been learned by that point. Arguably Java's OOP fundamentals are not as good as C#'s because Java had to explore that territory first (setting aside technicalities about what the term "OOP" really means). Etc.
- 13415 6y ago
  The problem is that decades of experience has shown that only few programmers can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of programming languages for certain purposes in a halfway objective manner, and since few of them implement their own languages even the good discussions often remain fruitless. I'll recommend Reddit's r/ProgrammingLanguages, as well as Scott's Programming Language Pragmatics as a reading instead. It's not fully up-to-date but I found the comparisons of features and their trade-offs in it fascinating.