5 ms·

Could you please describe a case where this is actually happening in the languages people tend to imply this is happening in? Rust has unsafe, Haskell has unsa

by rtpg 5y ago

Could you please describe a case where this is actually happening in the languages people tend to imply this is happening in? Rust has unsafe, Haskell has unsafePerformIO. You might not like how verbose some of the stuff is but all these languages give you a foot gun if you really want it.

pjmlp 5y ago
That is the usual cowboy programming sentiment that fueled the same critic against Modula-2 and Pascal. A well known article, written in bad faith, is "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language". http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pascal.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pasc... Why bad faith? Most of the critic he makes against Pascal was sorted out by Pascal dialects. Which one can consider doesn't count as dialects aren't the main language, yet by 1981, C was mostly available in K&R dialects outside UNIX, like Small C. And besides those Pascal dialects, Modula-2 standard was released in 1978, while Mesa was powering XDE and Bravo at Xerox.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  > Why bad faith? Most of the critic he makes against Pascal was sorted out by Pascal dialects. That reminds me of Yes, We Have Noticed The Skulls [0]. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-th...
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Great read, thanks for sharing.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    However, the author assumes that it follows if you've Noticed The Skulls you would choose to do it differently next time. That's not necessarily so. Arthur Laffer is an economist. Laffer has helped provide advice to numerous Republicans and Republican projects which of course didn't achieve their stated goals (e.g. Trump's massive tax cuts for the wealthy which Laffer claimed would grow the US economy by 6%). I'm confident Laffer has Noticed The Skulls, but why should he care? Advice that destroys the US economy but further enriches those who already have more than enough worked out great for Laffer.
    - thewakalix 5y ago
      Not particularly. The title would be pretty awkward if it were Yes, We Have Noticed The Skulls, Condemned Them, And Promised Not To Do Them Again, but the body of the article describes exactly that. Has Laffer said "mea culpa" and made significant and visible efforts to prevent the skulls from happening again? If not, then that's not what Scott's describing.

by rtpg 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago

That is the usual cowboy programming sentiment that fueled the same critic against Modula-2 and Pascal. A well known article, written in bad faith, is "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language". http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pascal.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/bwk-on-pasc... Why bad faith? Most of the critic he makes against Pascal was sorted out by Pascal dialects. Which one can consider doesn't count as dialects aren't the main language, yet by 1981, C was mostly available in K&R dialects outside UNIX, like Small C. And besides those Pascal dialects, Modula-2 standard was released in 1978, while Mesa was powering XDE and Bravo at Xerox.

thewakalix 5y ago
> Why bad faith? Most of the critic he makes against Pascal was sorted out by Pascal dialects. That reminds me of Yes, We Have Noticed The Skulls [0]. [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-the-skulls/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/07/yes-we-have-noticed-th...
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Great read, thanks for sharing.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  However, the author assumes that it follows if you've Noticed The Skulls you would choose to do it differently next time. That's not necessarily so. Arthur Laffer is an economist. Laffer has helped provide advice to numerous Republicans and Republican projects which of course didn't achieve their stated goals (e.g. Trump's massive tax cuts for the wealthy which Laffer claimed would grow the US economy by 6%). I'm confident Laffer has Noticed The Skulls, but why should he care? Advice that destroys the US economy but further enriches those who already have more than enough worked out great for Laffer.
  - thewakalix 5y ago
    Not particularly. The title would be pretty awkward if it were Yes, We Have Noticed The Skulls, Condemned Them, And Promised Not To Do Them Again, but the body of the article describes exactly that. Has Laffer said "mea culpa" and made significant and visible efforts to prevent the skulls from happening again? If not, then that's not what Scott's describing.