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There's a great deal of evidence that supports that, it's just not scientifically organized. If you just look at the amount of high quality high polished projec

by tinco 5y ago

There's a great deal of evidence that supports that, it's just not scientifically organized. If you just look at the amount of high quality high polished projects out there for the dynamic programming languages it absolutely dwarfs those of static languages. And then add to that the fact that most of those are by solo devs in their free time. It's not just that they are more popular, Java reigned supreme for years when Ruby and PHP and later Node.js outpaced it's communities by miles. And you can't say Java developers are not open source oriented, because they 100% are. And the argument that programmers are simply most productive in the language they know best is trivially untrue. When I first learned of Ruby, I could dream in C#, I was absolutely fluent, knew the standard library by heart. I switched to Ruby and only looked back whenever I needed tight performance. And this is not just an anecdote, the whole Ruby on Rails movement was basically Java developers fleeing to greener pastures. I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. The only exception I know off is using Go for small networked services, which is quite comfortable and intuitive for a static language. Also outside that niche Go quickly loses its productivity edge.

smt88 5y ago
> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. If you're picking from a popular language, the language itself rarely matters for this at all. Every popular language does roughly the same things. Writing speed (length of keywords, for example) is a non-issue. The ecosystem is by far the most important thing. It doesn't matter how efficient I am in Go if I'm missing a crucial library that I'll now have to write myself. JavaScript is a classic example where, even if you are pretty fast at writing your code, you will be dramatically slowed down by: 1) needing to add a new package every 5 min to do something trivial, 2) looking through five half-dead libraries to find one that seems maintained and usable, and 3) finding out that some of the libraries you chose are buggy. So for a quick prototype, I'd weight a language's qualities as follows: - ecosystem: 90% - static analysis/tooling: 5% - stdlib: 3% - syntax: 2% And for a long-term, complex project, I'd weight them closer to: - ecosystem: 50% - static analysis/tooling: 46% - stdlib: 3% - syntax: 1%
brabel 5y ago
> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. This argument is not addressing the claim for general purpose software, only for "quick and easy" software. To people in this thread: please stop to think before responding to the "wrong point". I think we can all agree that dynamic, scripting languages are more adequate for "quick and easy" software, but this is not what the point of the discussion is. The point of the discussion is, or should be in my opinion, whether it's true that for general purpose software, written by teams, that is not trivial to write by oneself in 5 minutes, that scripting languages are more productive than statically typed, compiled languages.
- tinco 5y ago
  Where do you draw the line? Is GitHub quick and easy software? Is Shopify? Were LinkedIn, Twitter? Are things built on Tensorflow? I think you misunderstand the scripting language revolution of the mid 2000's. It's not that we suddenly realized scripting languages were the best for quick and easy projects. We realized scripting languages were suitable for a whole lot more than some data processing. We could much more effectively build huge scalable software platforms. It got so bad that the sentiment flipped, and people like Joel Spolsky had to go out of their way writing blog posts that you could in fact build successful modern web platforms in C#. And then he went building the world's most popular project management tool in Node.js anyway.
pyrale 5y ago
> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. Maybe this shines light on your social circles more than actual language impact on proficiency? The "our language is so much more productive" myth exists in many languages, including the one I currently use. But when you dig deeper, there are almost always other social or technical factors that explain the productivity gap. That kind of gap exists even between people using the same tool. The reality of it is that assessing what makes a developer productive is incredibly hard, and people doing so to claim their language of choice is better rely on anecdata and couldn't explain what "methodology" means to save their life.
dimitrios1 5y ago
> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. Hi, highly experienced, multi-lingual developer here (Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Java, Go, C#, F#, OCaml, Elixir/Erlang, ReasonML, SQL, Smalltalk, Objective-C, Swift, leaving off quite a few prior Web 2.0 ones for brevity) nice to meet you. As you can see, I've done just about all of it: every paradigm, every syntax. It all honestly blurs together after a certain point, and it just becomes easier and easier to pick up a new language the more you learn. Anyways, these days, I never reach for a dynamic language when I need to deliver something quick and easy. The difference is just too marginal. Not worth the downsides (and the downsides are immense!). Because, as my experience has taught me, invariably one of those quick and easy ones will turn into something that becomes business critical, lives on for years after you are gone, and will be much more difficult for other, typically more junior, developers to update or enhance your code. Static typing is not only marginally less productive these days with all the great tools and IDE's out there (not to mention Go which has one of the least obtrusive static type checkers I've seen, or, even better if the org allows you, a language with a HM type system), but for a marginal improvement in productivity, you pay a heavy long term cost. Not worth it. Dynamic languages are great for rapid prototypes. After that, convert it to a static language. Your junior devs that join after you, who aren't familiar with the entire ecosystem your work has will thank you.
- barrkel 5y ago
  If I'm prototyping something like a log file analyzer or web scraper I use a dynamic language because it gives me a debugger REPL. I can interactively develop code with immediate results and copy & paste straight from the terminal into the editor. When I want to develop further, I put a debugger statement right where I want to pick up, where all the data is available, and develop from execution. Some static languages have REPLs but few are as good as dynamic languages for mutating existing code in the middle of a debugging session. If you don't write much code which involves exploration of data or unknown APIs, then this mode of development may not be as useful to you, but it's a significant productivity advantage for me and the reason I reach for a dynamic language. Ruby is my go-to, with binding.pry as my debugger REPL.
- 5y ago
oopsyDoodl 5y ago
Python was Googles language of choice for a while, so people jumped at it to work at Google. Popularity and expansive use may have nothing to do with quality, and a lot to do with financial influence on peoples agency. Business wants people templating out directories of performant code, not generating syntactic art for the ages.

by tinco 5y ago

smt88 5y ago

> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. If you're picking from a popular language, the language itself rarely matters for this at all. Every popular language does roughly the same things. Writing speed (length of keywords, for example) is a non-issue. The ecosystem is by far the most important thing. It doesn't matter how efficient I am in Go if I'm missing a crucial library that I'll now have to write myself. JavaScript is a classic example where, even if you are pretty fast at writing your code, you will be dramatically slowed down by: 1) needing to add a new package every 5 min to do something trivial, 2) looking through five half-dead libraries to find one that seems maintained and usable, and 3) finding out that some of the libraries you chose are buggy. So for a quick prototype, I'd weight a language's qualities as follows: - ecosystem: 90% - static analysis/tooling: 5% - stdlib: 3% - syntax: 2% And for a long-term, complex project, I'd weight them closer to: - ecosystem: 50% - static analysis/tooling: 46% - stdlib: 3% - syntax: 1%

brabel 5y ago

> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. This argument is not addressing the claim for general purpose software, only for "quick and easy" software. To people in this thread: please stop to think before responding to the "wrong point". I think we can all agree that dynamic, scripting languages are more adequate for "quick and easy" software, but this is not what the point of the discussion is. The point of the discussion is, or should be in my opinion, whether it's true that for general purpose software, written by teams, that is not trivial to write by oneself in 5 minutes, that scripting languages are more productive than statically typed, compiled languages.

tinco 5y ago
Where do you draw the line? Is GitHub quick and easy software? Is Shopify? Were LinkedIn, Twitter? Are things built on Tensorflow? I think you misunderstand the scripting language revolution of the mid 2000's. It's not that we suddenly realized scripting languages were the best for quick and easy projects. We realized scripting languages were suitable for a whole lot more than some data processing. We could much more effectively build huge scalable software platforms. It got so bad that the sentiment flipped, and people like Joel Spolsky had to go out of their way writing blog posts that you could in fact build successful modern web platforms in C#. And then he went building the world's most popular project management tool in Node.js anyway.

pyrale 5y ago

> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. Maybe this shines light on your social circles more than actual language impact on proficiency? The "our language is so much more productive" myth exists in many languages, including the one I currently use. But when you dig deeper, there are almost always other social or technical factors that explain the productivity gap. That kind of gap exists even between people using the same tool. The reality of it is that assessing what makes a developer productive is incredibly hard, and people doing so to claim their language of choice is better rely on anecdata and couldn't explain what "methodology" means to save their life.

dimitrios1 5y ago

> I don't know a single highly experienced multi-lingual developer who does not reach for a dynamic language when they need to deliver something quick and easy. Hi, highly experienced, multi-lingual developer here (Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, Java, Go, C#, F#, OCaml, Elixir/Erlang, ReasonML, SQL, Smalltalk, Objective-C, Swift, leaving off quite a few prior Web 2.0 ones for brevity) nice to meet you. As you can see, I've done just about all of it: every paradigm, every syntax. It all honestly blurs together after a certain point, and it just becomes easier and easier to pick up a new language the more you learn. Anyways, these days, I never reach for a dynamic language when I need to deliver something quick and easy. The difference is just too marginal. Not worth the downsides (and the downsides are immense!). Because, as my experience has taught me, invariably one of those quick and easy ones will turn into something that becomes business critical, lives on for years after you are gone, and will be much more difficult for other, typically more junior, developers to update or enhance your code. Static typing is not only marginally less productive these days with all the great tools and IDE's out there (not to mention Go which has one of the least obtrusive static type checkers I've seen, or, even better if the org allows you, a language with a HM type system), but for a marginal improvement in productivity, you pay a heavy long term cost. Not worth it. Dynamic languages are great for rapid prototypes. After that, convert it to a static language. Your junior devs that join after you, who aren't familiar with the entire ecosystem your work has will thank you.

barrkel 5y ago
If I'm prototyping something like a log file analyzer or web scraper I use a dynamic language because it gives me a debugger REPL. I can interactively develop code with immediate results and copy & paste straight from the terminal into the editor. When I want to develop further, I put a debugger statement right where I want to pick up, where all the data is available, and develop from execution. Some static languages have REPLs but few are as good as dynamic languages for mutating existing code in the middle of a debugging session. If you don't write much code which involves exploration of data or unknown APIs, then this mode of development may not be as useful to you, but it's a significant productivity advantage for me and the reason I reach for a dynamic language. Ruby is my go-to, with binding.pry as my debugger REPL.
5y ago

oopsyDoodl 5y ago

Python was Googles language of choice for a while, so people jumped at it to work at Google. Popularity and expansive use may have nothing to do with quality, and a lot to do with financial influence on peoples agency. Business wants people templating out directories of performant code, not generating syntactic art for the ages.