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> Languages get popular if they allow programmers to achieve what they want to achieve with minimum effort. It doesn't matter whether they are large or small F
by satellite2 5y ago
> Languages get popular if they allow programmers to achieve what they want to achieve with minimum effort. It doesn't matter whether they are large or small
For any sufficiently large organisation or lasting use cases a language is almost not at all about writing it but about reading it. Any subsequent modifications after the initial creation will require reading and hopefully understanding what is happening. Even if the code is properly documented the code is always the final specification and if you can't read, you can't understand what your organisation is really doing.
In that sense, adding a feature that is possibly detrimental to reading the language means detrimental to the whole language and its users.
- jonathanstrange 5y agoI'm a big fan of Ada, and of all languages I've seen it is by far the most readable. It has been deliberately and carefully designed to be self-documenting. The Ada developers shared your vision. But it's also the reason why I don't think it's true that readability plays a major role in language adoption.
- andi999 5y agoAdas problem was that an open source version with a gpl linker exception came out too late.
- adamc 5y agoBased on experience... Perl 5 <cough>. Or PHP, in other ways. This is very true, and is one of the reasons our workplace moved to Python. Readability is very, very important.