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I think that point of view assumes bad faith. No one sets out to create programming languages that tie people to their beds. If people add restrictions, it's n

by tux3 5y ago

I think that point of view assumes bad faith. No one sets out to create programming languages that tie people to their beds. If people add restrictions, it's not to make users miserable. It's fine if you like being unrestricted, I like that too. However, when you see people going out of their ways to add barriers to their own work, you should assume they reap a benefit that you're not fully appreciating, not that they hate fun and want to outlaw ice cream.

myfavoritedog 5y ago
"Bad faith" is too strong a term, but if you've spent much time in the Elm language sphere, you really will get what the original poster is getting at. https://elm-lang.org/ https://elm-lang.org/
coldtea 5y ago
>No one sets out to create programming languages that tie people to their beds. People can still end up designing such languages, even if they didn't set out with that specific goal. (Kind of like how you can bring war and division, even if your goal is to bring some religious peace on Earth or "the revolution"). >If people add restrictions, it's not to make users miserable. That's already explicit in my comment though. They didn't tie the person to his bed to make him miserable but to spare them from car accidents, to help them never get lost, and other such niceties! The misery is a by-product, not a design goal.
throwaway17_17 5y ago
I don’t think it takes bad faith to come to GP’s conclusion. Further, it implies a great deal of superiority for you to assume that someone who does not like/enjoy the restrictions of a language does not ‘fully [appreciate]’ the supposed benefits of those restrictions. I, for one, do not enjoy or value the restrictions (or underlying semantic concept) of ownership in Rust. It just means that I don’t enjoy it, I understand the benefits which are claimed to exist for adopting the Rust-centric view of programming. I just don’t think they are worthwhile for me. I’m not really disagreeing with the point you make about language designers intention, I doubt they set out to inflict misery on users, but your assumption about not understanding some alleged benefit is a bridge too far.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  The point is not whether they are worthwhile to you, but to the problem space the program solves. Further that includes the context of the organisation/developer that will own it going forward.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
There's a reason they were called "bondage and discipline languages". They created barriers for what they assumed to be your own good. But as Edward Abbey said, "When I see someone coming to do me good, I reach for my revolver." That is, when someone wants to make decisions for my good, they're deciding for me; that is, they're taking the decision away from me, because they don't think I can be trusted to choose the "right" thing. And then I'm supposed to feel grateful for the help instead of resentful for being treated like an idiot or a child! They mean well. Fine. I still don't have to like it, and I don't have to accept it.
- kaba0 5y ago
  And frankly, in case of a complex program, you can’t be trusted to choose the right thing, as the human brain simply doesn’t scale with program complexity. We need help from the computer to avoid bugs for anything non-trivial. For example, as have been shown for example countless times, C programmers are unable to properly free allocated memory so solutions were made (GC, or rust’s ownerships). It is egoistical to think
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    But they can't be trusted to choose the right thing either. Wirth, sitting in his office at a university in Switzerland, has no idea whatsoever what problems I'm facing trying to use un-extended Pascal in an embedded system with memory-mapped I/O. (No, it wasn't my choice to use Pascal without extensions in that environment.) The point is, you don't have enough information to choose for me. You can't do it. Even if you can absolutely, 100% correctly decide what the "right thing" is in any given situation, you don't know all the situations. (And if you'd say "the right thing is to not use Pascal in that situation", I'd agree with you. But as a language designer, your language will get used in places where even you may think it's not a great fit.)

by tux3 5y ago

myfavoritedog 5y ago

"Bad faith" is too strong a term, but if you've spent much time in the Elm language sphere, you really will get what the original poster is getting at. https://elm-lang.org/ https://elm-lang.org/

coldtea 5y ago

>No one sets out to create programming languages that tie people to their beds. People can still end up designing such languages, even if they didn't set out with that specific goal. (Kind of like how you can bring war and division, even if your goal is to bring some religious peace on Earth or "the revolution"). >If people add restrictions, it's not to make users miserable. That's already explicit in my comment though. They didn't tie the person to his bed to make him miserable but to spare them from car accidents, to help them never get lost, and other such niceties! The misery is a by-product, not a design goal.

throwaway17_17 5y ago

I don’t think it takes bad faith to come to GP’s conclusion. Further, it implies a great deal of superiority for you to assume that someone who does not like/enjoy the restrictions of a language does not ‘fully [appreciate]’ the supposed benefits of those restrictions. I, for one, do not enjoy or value the restrictions (or underlying semantic concept) of ownership in Rust. It just means that I don’t enjoy it, I understand the benefits which are claimed to exist for adopting the Rust-centric view of programming. I just don’t think they are worthwhile for me. I’m not really disagreeing with the point you make about language designers intention, I doubt they set out to inflict misery on users, but your assumption about not understanding some alleged benefit is a bridge too far.

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
The point is not whether they are worthwhile to you, but to the problem space the program solves. Further that includes the context of the organisation/developer that will own it going forward.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

There's a reason they were called "bondage and discipline languages". They created barriers for what they assumed to be your own good. But as Edward Abbey said, "When I see someone coming to do me good, I reach for my revolver." That is, when someone wants to make decisions for my good, they're deciding for me; that is, they're taking the decision away from me, because they don't think I can be trusted to choose the "right" thing. And then I'm supposed to feel grateful for the help instead of resentful for being treated like an idiot or a child! They mean well. Fine. I still don't have to like it, and I don't have to accept it.

kaba0 5y ago
And frankly, in case of a complex program, you can’t be trusted to choose the right thing, as the human brain simply doesn’t scale with program complexity. We need help from the computer to avoid bugs for anything non-trivial. For example, as have been shown for example countless times, C programmers are unable to properly free allocated memory so solutions were made (GC, or rust’s ownerships). It is egoistical to think
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  But they can't be trusted to choose the right thing either. Wirth, sitting in his office at a university in Switzerland, has no idea whatsoever what problems I'm facing trying to use un-extended Pascal in an embedded system with memory-mapped I/O. (No, it wasn't my choice to use Pascal without extensions in that environment.) The point is, you don't have enough information to choose for me. You can't do it. Even if you can absolutely, 100% correctly decide what the "right thing" is in any given situation, you don't know all the situations. (And if you'd say "the right thing is to not use Pascal in that situation", I'd agree with you. But as a language designer, your language will get used in places where even you may think it's not a great fit.)