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One of the interesting things on doing some analytics on our customer base was seeing just how wide the gap is between the usual HN fare and reality: http://bl

by wheels 15y ago

One of the interesting things on doing some analytics on our customer base was seeing just how wide the gap is between the usual HN fare and reality: http://blog.directededge.com/2010/05/30/what-programming-languages-do-our-customers-use/ http://blog.directededge.com/2010/05/30/what-programming-lan... The core message being: things like Scala, Erlang, et al still represent a tiny portion of the actual tech world. (And our customers tend to be biased towards being techy anyway.) Just because CoffeeScript gets a lot of mentions in the ultra-early-adopter demographic doesn't mean that it's measurably popular yet.

TrevorBurnham 15y ago
That shouldn't be surprising. A willingness to learn new and esoteric languages is one of the hallmarks of HN-ers. See also: The Python Paradox (http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html).
- deleted 15y ago
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cageface 15y ago
This is one of the reasons I've transferred most of my enthusiasm for new languages into new problem domains. I've been studying machine learning and DSP for most of the last year and it's done a lot more to revive my passion for programming than learning another new language could have.
- reinhardt 15y ago
  Wish I could upvote you more than once. I find the language fetishism - especially for new/"hip"/esoteric languages - in HN and other geek echo chambers kinda annoying and, frankly, silly. There's only so many times one can express the same algorithm using basically different symbols until it gets old. Mastering new problem domains is a better time investment and more satisfactory than learning yet another way to write the Fibonacci function or a String class.
  - felipemnoa 15y ago
    Same here, language fetishim gets old really fast. I think it comes mainly from the new generation of programmers who have not been programming for that long or have not worked on hard enough problems were the language makes very little difference. After having to work on a really hard problem it should hopefully become apparent that what really matters is the algorithm, not the language it is written on. Being obsessed with a language because it saves you a couple of seconds with its unique syntax is frankly quite silly. What takes most of the time is the actual design and figuring out of the algorithms involved. Also debugging takes quite some time. The actual programming shouldn't take that long. A couple of seconds saved because of some syntax will not make an iota of a difference.

by wheels 15y ago

TrevorBurnham 15y ago

That shouldn't be surprising. A willingness to learn new and esoteric languages is one of the hallmarks of HN-ers. See also: The Python Paradox (http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html).

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

cageface 15y ago

This is one of the reasons I've transferred most of my enthusiasm for new languages into new problem domains. I've been studying machine learning and DSP for most of the last year and it's done a lot more to revive my passion for programming than learning another new language could have.

reinhardt 15y ago
Wish I could upvote you more than once. I find the language fetishism - especially for new/"hip"/esoteric languages - in HN and other geek echo chambers kinda annoying and, frankly, silly. There's only so many times one can express the same algorithm using basically different symbols until it gets old. Mastering new problem domains is a better time investment and more satisfactory than learning yet another way to write the Fibonacci function or a String class.
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  Same here, language fetishim gets old really fast. I think it comes mainly from the new generation of programmers who have not been programming for that long or have not worked on hard enough problems were the language makes very little difference. After having to work on a really hard problem it should hopefully become apparent that what really matters is the algorithm, not the language it is written on. Being obsessed with a language because it saves you a couple of seconds with its unique syntax is frankly quite silly. What takes most of the time is the actual design and figuring out of the algorithms involved. Also debugging takes quite some time. The actual programming shouldn't take that long. A couple of seconds saved because of some syntax will not make an iota of a difference.