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IMHO when someone looks at a problem and sees some outlines of mathematical structure and thinks “C++ is overkill performance-wise and I don’t want to take the

IMHO when someone looks at a problem and sees some outlines of mathematical structure and thinks “C++ is overkill performance-wise and I don’t want to take the incremental maintenance burden, but Python is so friggin slow that it matters for even this”, they’ve got a few options. If you’ve already got a JVM in your stack, that’s probably the call. If you’ve already got Cargo in your stack, also reasonable. But if you don’t and are unlikely to, well you kinda go the Haskell/ML route or the Go/Node route. And as much as my personal spiritual home is the MEAN stack, the Haskell/ML route seems to attract more people who know heavier CS than I do.

yowlingcat 5y ago
"Python is so friggin slow that it matters for even this" Why wouldn't they use Cython, any of the scipy/numpy ecosystem, or Numba? "the Haskell/ML route seems to attract more people who know heavier CS than I do" Why is someone else knowing heavier CS than you do a good heuristic for a tool being the right long-term solution for a job to be done?
- benreesman 5y ago
  Because I want to work with people more capable than myself for at least two reasons: 1. I’m likely to learn a lot from them. 2. The harder the problem is that the team can realistically tackle the more likely the team is to do something novel/interesting/beneficial/profitable, ideally all at once.
  - yowlingcat 5y ago
    I didn't ask you why or whether you want to work with people more capable than yourself (on that, I'd agree with you, striving to work with people more capable than oneself is generally desirable). Would you mind answering the question I asked rather than an unrelated one? Maybe I can be even more clear than in my original question: What does someone else (who knows heavier CS than you) liking some tool have to do with that tool being the right long-term solution for any particular use case?

yowlingcat 5y ago

"Python is so friggin slow that it matters for even this" Why wouldn't they use Cython, any of the scipy/numpy ecosystem, or Numba? "the Haskell/ML route seems to attract more people who know heavier CS than I do" Why is someone else knowing heavier CS than you do a good heuristic for a tool being the right long-term solution for a job to be done?

benreesman 5y ago
Because I want to work with people more capable than myself for at least two reasons: 1. I’m likely to learn a lot from them. 2. The harder the problem is that the team can realistically tackle the more likely the team is to do something novel/interesting/beneficial/profitable, ideally all at once.
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  I didn't ask you why or whether you want to work with people more capable than yourself (on that, I'd agree with you, striving to work with people more capable than oneself is generally desirable). Would you mind answering the question I asked rather than an unrelated one? Maybe I can be even more clear than in my original question: What does someone else (who knows heavier CS than you) liking some tool have to do with that tool being the right long-term solution for any particular use case?