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With posts like these pointing out syntactic similarities between 21st century languages I always get this funny idea that there might be one "true language" th

by usrusr 5y ago

With posts like these pointing out syntactic similarities between 21st century languages I always get this funny idea that there might be one "true language" they all converge to. It's a silly idea, but we do see a general trend towards less imperative, more expression, across the whole board. The biggest limiter that keeps people from replacing more local scope imperativity with expression style seems to me that very practical, almost depressingly mundane topic of debuger ergonomics. Stepping through and looking at intermediates just works, and it's so easy that the mind can remain focused on the domain problem. If there was some miracle UI paradigm that provided similar ease of understanding to deeply nested expressions we'd hardly see any local vals at all. But I doubt this miracle UI will ever happen, we do know that it hasn't happened in decades of trying to make excel expressions more approachable, with presumably millions of dollar thrown at the problem.

agumonkey 5y ago
It's hard not to see it. 10 years ago closures were a schemer fanatic term, now it's in every tutorial. Same for destructuring .. I mean python adopted it way faster than I thought. PHP, js, python, they're all revolving around a very similar core nowadays. Same for react like frontend.. it's all "pure expression" "gui as formulas".
- usrusr 5y ago
  "It all converges on becoming like a glorified excel sheet" I think I'm done for today with provocative statements.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    don't forget to patent that quote, cause you'll be entirely validated for eternity
valenterry 5y ago
There will be the one true programm language once there is a one true natural language. :)
a4isms 5y ago
Either “one true language,” or just as possibly, humans tend to wander from one local optimum to another. At the moment, most mainstream languages are orbiting a certain obvious local maximum with lots of “functions as first-class objects living alongside objects and classes” semantics. But it was a different local maximum a decade ago, when every language and its dog became OO. And perhaps a decade from now, it will be another.

by usrusr 5y ago

agumonkey 5y ago

It's hard not to see it. 10 years ago closures were a schemer fanatic term, now it's in every tutorial. Same for destructuring .. I mean python adopted it way faster than I thought. PHP, js, python, they're all revolving around a very similar core nowadays. Same for react like frontend.. it's all "pure expression" "gui as formulas".

usrusr 5y ago
"It all converges on becoming like a glorified excel sheet" I think I'm done for today with provocative statements.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  don't forget to patent that quote, cause you'll be entirely validated for eternity

valenterry 5y ago

There will be the one true programm language once there is a one true natural language. :)

a4isms 5y ago

Either “one true language,” or just as possibly, humans tend to wander from one local optimum to another. At the moment, most mainstream languages are orbiting a certain obvious local maximum with lots of “functions as first-class objects living alongside objects and classes” semantics. But it was a different local maximum a decade ago, when every language and its dog became OO. And perhaps a decade from now, it will be another.