10 ms·

This can cut both ways. Yes, if you choose Haskell, a Lisp, or something like Erlang, you can get smarter/better devs. But the flip side of that is that the ty

by tharne 5y ago

This can cut both ways. Yes, if you choose Haskell, a Lisp, or something like Erlang, you can get smarter/better devs. But the flip side of that is that the types of people who tend to gravitate toward those languages are often more interested in programming for it's own sake and not the domain they're working in. So you get things like people burning hours writing their own libraries and endless tinkering with programming minutiae instead of getting sh* done. On the other hand, a mediocre programmer who taught themselves Python, may not be winning any programming competitions, but will often have significant domain expertise and a bias toward getting things done. You need to ask yourself whether or not the stuff you're working on really demands the absolute best programmers (it very rarely does). If it does, go with the Erlang/Haskell/Lisp crew, otherwise go with the Python/JS/Go crew.

jpgvm 5y ago
This is where I differ. I think the Python/JS/Go crew gets you stuff that is built poorly and becomes expensive to maintain. I much prefer the JVM and ASP.NET crew because they are 9-5 programmers, their tools aren't constantly changing so for the most part they only need to spend time actually doing work. No fighting with package managers, no updating the latest framework and solving backwards incompatibilities for weeks, no random runtime bugs and shitty native extensions that cause said runtime bugs or memory leaks outside of runtime level heap accounting, etc. Boring tech is the way to go for 99% of problems and to me JS/Go/Python don't qualify because they break too much and require too many workarounds for too many problems. I want my programmers to be thinking about how to solve my business problem, not problems with their tools.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > I much prefer the JVM and ASP.NET crew because they are 9-5 programmers, I don't think thats what the parent meant. They meant esoteric functional programming languages vs mainstream OOP ones. You're saying the same thing.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    I was clarifying I consider them to be separate categories. Java/.NET cultures are distinctly different to Go/JS/Python despite both categories being mainstream. The former is old, boring and sticks to what works. They are both slow moving, have large established frameworks for each applicable domain, prioritize backwards compatibility, have highly evolved IDEs that support both the language but also the dominant frameworks etc. The latter are easy to learn, emphasize the easy creation of new applications and libraries, move quickly/rapidly adopt new language and runtime features, don't generally care much for backwards compatibility in the library ecosystem, have many competing frameworks and libraries for everything. etc. They are just very very different and as a result produce very different codebases that have very different tradeoffs in hiring, maintainence costs, development velocity, pivotability etc. Sometimes those languages are the right tool for the job but IMO mostly in cases where you aren't sure what that job is. If you already know what you want to build and how to build it then the "boring" tech stack is generally the way to go in my experience.
    - 7thaccount 5y ago
      Python came out in like the early 90s I think when the Berlin wall hadn't been knocked down for all that long. It is OLD and battle tested by many many high profile companies. Granted, sometimes it isn't the right tool and the JVM is. Same is true in reverse as Java has significantly more boiler plate than Python. I do agree Python has changed more over time.
      - jpgvm 5y ago
        It's about rate of change, not age. Also about design of the ecosystem in general. In JVM land almost all code is implemented in managed code. This means the likelihood of severe (runtime degrading) bugs is greatly reduced. It also means in practice you can just step into any arbitrary library code using an interactive debugger to fully follow the flow of execution. Contrast that to Python where every library worth using is actually written in C against the CPython interpreter itself. This means a few things: Broadly speaking you have just extended the exposure of the core runtime by the amount of code you have loaded in native extensions, meaning more bugs, more severe vulnerabilities and generally a bad day. It also means that code is "invisible" to the runtime. Python has pretty poor tooling anyway but what little tooling is has becomes useless once your problems venture into C extensions and you end up having to drop down into GDB to work out what is going on. This is made harder by the fact that Python doesn't really play that nicely vith the Valgrind toolkit in my experience making use after free/leaks/etc and other nasty bugs harder to debug than straight C code. Finally it also means you can't just pick up and move your Python code to a different runtime despite them being available. Unlike Java which will mostly run just fine on Hotspot or J9/other proprietary JVM your Python code is actually now CPython code. In practice I guess this isn't a big deal but it's worth mentioning. TLDR: Python is old, Java is stable. There is a difference.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > I think the Python/JS/Go crew Genuine question: are these people a crew? I doubt very much each individual constituency in that trio would think so. JS and Go are really very different things with different mindsets. Python vs JS likewise.
  - aoms 5y ago
    No, it just means the people that tend to be attracted to these types of languages. Easy to get started languages that hide much of the inner workings from you as a dev.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      I don't believe Go belongs in that category at all, mind you. And I'm not convinced that the fairly major internet presences using it heavily would put it in that bracket either. I concede (having a fair amount of past experience of functional programming languages, including Orwell, which influenced Haskell) that choosing a functional programming language for development helps you pre-select people who are well-educated in CS concepts. But I am far from convinced that it's an approach that is particularly likely to lead to a crack team of business-focussed developers. It's just as likely to lead to a herd of cats.
    - foldr 5y ago
      Haskell hides far more of the inner workings than Python, JS or Go. There's a huge gap between the semantics of a non-strict, pure functional language and the actual execution model.
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        (Username checks out)
        tlavoie 5y ago
        Sure, except it should be foldl' instead. StackOverflow is thataway --> Edit for reason: https://wiki.haskell.org/Foldr_Foldl_Foldl https://wiki.haskell.org/Foldr_Foldl_Foldl'
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  I prefer Javascript/Go/Python because most of my code is actually doing something instead of just conforming to a Gang Of Four pattern designed to paper over the shortcomings of my tool. I too want my programmers to be thinking about and solving my business problems, not writing boilerplate.
  - lacerrr 5y ago
    Can you give an example of what kind of boilerplate you mean? Because I feel like modern Java and Kotlin have improved a lot in this area.
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      "Code to interfaces instead of implementations" type boilerplate Code that doesn't do anything except support a design pattern you're following is boilerplate.
      - lolinder 5y ago
        This sounds like less a problem with Java or Kotlin and more a problem with the development team. If you're dealing with a bunch of new developers who just barely read the GoF book and think it's a prescriptive guide to all things code, you're going to end up with a lot of boilerplate. But if you turn a bunch of new developers loose in any language without supervision, they're going to build something bad. There's nothing in the languages themselves that forces you to use inappropriate design patterns, and as the parent mentions, modern Java and Kotlin have improved a ton in reducing boilerplate. I'm not actually sure what it is that you think they're missing that Python or JavaScript have, unless it's just that you prefer dynamic typing.
        hackerfromthefu 5y ago
        The issue here is the experience level of the devs. These sorts of conversations should have people declare their years of programming experience at a minimum, it helps to understand perspectives better.
- collyw 5y ago
  Things like Django or Requests are old stable projects in python.
xupybd 5y ago
I've picked up F# out of a need to get things done. I got sick of learning framework after framework just to keep relevant. F# is niche so it moves a little slower. The results have been fantastic. Not only can I solve business problems faster, I'm happier with the resulting code. It's easier to read, test and alter. I've found some languages a nightmare to work with. Specifically Perl and JS. I've seen brilliant code written in both but that takes more care than most put in. If you have pressure to rush and don't clean up it's just a mess.
- ParetoOptimal 5y ago
  Plus the F# community is big on DDD. And type providers are super super nice.
Tozen 5y ago
"But the flip side of that is that the types of people who tend to gravitate toward those languages are often more interested in programming for it's own sake and not the domain they're working in. So you get things like people burning hours writing their own libraries and endless tinkering with programming minutiae instead of getting sh* done." Don't agree with everything, but this part is a very good point.

by tharne 5y ago

jpgvm 5y ago

This is where I differ. I think the Python/JS/Go crew gets you stuff that is built poorly and becomes expensive to maintain. I much prefer the JVM and ASP.NET crew because they are 9-5 programmers, their tools aren't constantly changing so for the most part they only need to spend time actually doing work. No fighting with package managers, no updating the latest framework and solving backwards incompatibilities for weeks, no random runtime bugs and shitty native extensions that cause said runtime bugs or memory leaks outside of runtime level heap accounting, etc. Boring tech is the way to go for 99% of problems and to me JS/Go/Python don't qualify because they break too much and require too many workarounds for too many problems. I want my programmers to be thinking about how to solve my business problem, not problems with their tools.

mbesto 5y ago
> I much prefer the JVM and ASP.NET crew because they are 9-5 programmers, I don't think thats what the parent meant. They meant esoteric functional programming languages vs mainstream OOP ones. You're saying the same thing.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  I was clarifying I consider them to be separate categories. Java/.NET cultures are distinctly different to Go/JS/Python despite both categories being mainstream. The former is old, boring and sticks to what works. They are both slow moving, have large established frameworks for each applicable domain, prioritize backwards compatibility, have highly evolved IDEs that support both the language but also the dominant frameworks etc. The latter are easy to learn, emphasize the easy creation of new applications and libraries, move quickly/rapidly adopt new language and runtime features, don't generally care much for backwards compatibility in the library ecosystem, have many competing frameworks and libraries for everything. etc. They are just very very different and as a result produce very different codebases that have very different tradeoffs in hiring, maintainence costs, development velocity, pivotability etc. Sometimes those languages are the right tool for the job but IMO mostly in cases where you aren't sure what that job is. If you already know what you want to build and how to build it then the "boring" tech stack is generally the way to go in my experience.
  - 7thaccount 5y ago
    Python came out in like the early 90s I think when the Berlin wall hadn't been knocked down for all that long. It is OLD and battle tested by many many high profile companies. Granted, sometimes it isn't the right tool and the JVM is. Same is true in reverse as Java has significantly more boiler plate than Python. I do agree Python has changed more over time.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      It's about rate of change, not age. Also about design of the ecosystem in general. In JVM land almost all code is implemented in managed code. This means the likelihood of severe (runtime degrading) bugs is greatly reduced. It also means in practice you can just step into any arbitrary library code using an interactive debugger to fully follow the flow of execution. Contrast that to Python where every library worth using is actually written in C against the CPython interpreter itself. This means a few things: Broadly speaking you have just extended the exposure of the core runtime by the amount of code you have loaded in native extensions, meaning more bugs, more severe vulnerabilities and generally a bad day. It also means that code is "invisible" to the runtime. Python has pretty poor tooling anyway but what little tooling is has becomes useless once your problems venture into C extensions and you end up having to drop down into GDB to work out what is going on. This is made harder by the fact that Python doesn't really play that nicely vith the Valgrind toolkit in my experience making use after free/leaks/etc and other nasty bugs harder to debug than straight C code. Finally it also means you can't just pick up and move your Python code to a different runtime despite them being available. Unlike Java which will mostly run just fine on Hotspot or J9/other proprietary JVM your Python code is actually now CPython code. In practice I guess this isn't a big deal but it's worth mentioning. TLDR: Python is old, Java is stable. There is a difference.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
> I think the Python/JS/Go crew Genuine question: are these people a crew? I doubt very much each individual constituency in that trio would think so. JS and Go are really very different things with different mindsets. Python vs JS likewise.
- aoms 5y ago
  No, it just means the people that tend to be attracted to these types of languages. Easy to get started languages that hide much of the inner workings from you as a dev.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    I don't believe Go belongs in that category at all, mind you. And I'm not convinced that the fairly major internet presences using it heavily would put it in that bracket either. I concede (having a fair amount of past experience of functional programming languages, including Orwell, which influenced Haskell) that choosing a functional programming language for development helps you pre-select people who are well-educated in CS concepts. But I am far from convinced that it's an approach that is particularly likely to lead to a crack team of business-focussed developers. It's just as likely to lead to a herd of cats.
  - foldr 5y ago
    Haskell hides far more of the inner workings than Python, JS or Go. There's a huge gap between the semantics of a non-strict, pure functional language and the actual execution model.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      (Username checks out)
      - tlavoie 5y ago
        Sure, except it should be foldl' instead. StackOverflow is thataway --> Edit for reason: https://wiki.haskell.org/Foldr_Foldl_Foldl https://wiki.haskell.org/Foldr_Foldl_Foldl'
bluefirebrand 5y ago
I prefer Javascript/Go/Python because most of my code is actually doing something instead of just conforming to a Gang Of Four pattern designed to paper over the shortcomings of my tool. I too want my programmers to be thinking about and solving my business problems, not writing boilerplate.
- lacerrr 5y ago
  Can you give an example of what kind of boilerplate you mean? Because I feel like modern Java and Kotlin have improved a lot in this area.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    "Code to interfaces instead of implementations" type boilerplate Code that doesn't do anything except support a design pattern you're following is boilerplate.
    - lolinder 5y ago
      This sounds like less a problem with Java or Kotlin and more a problem with the development team. If you're dealing with a bunch of new developers who just barely read the GoF book and think it's a prescriptive guide to all things code, you're going to end up with a lot of boilerplate. But if you turn a bunch of new developers loose in any language without supervision, they're going to build something bad. There's nothing in the languages themselves that forces you to use inappropriate design patterns, and as the parent mentions, modern Java and Kotlin have improved a ton in reducing boilerplate. I'm not actually sure what it is that you think they're missing that Python or JavaScript have, unless it's just that you prefer dynamic typing.
      - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
        The issue here is the experience level of the devs. These sorts of conversations should have people declare their years of programming experience at a minimum, it helps to understand perspectives better.
collyw 5y ago
Things like Django or Requests are old stable projects in python.

xupybd 5y ago

I've picked up F# out of a need to get things done. I got sick of learning framework after framework just to keep relevant. F# is niche so it moves a little slower. The results have been fantastic. Not only can I solve business problems faster, I'm happier with the resulting code. It's easier to read, test and alter. I've found some languages a nightmare to work with. Specifically Perl and JS. I've seen brilliant code written in both but that takes more care than most put in. If you have pressure to rush and don't clean up it's just a mess.

ParetoOptimal 5y ago
Plus the F# community is big on DDD. And type providers are super super nice.

Tozen 5y ago

"But the flip side of that is that the types of people who tend to gravitate toward those languages are often more interested in programming for it's own sake and not the domain they're working in. So you get things like people burning hours writing their own libraries and endless tinkering with programming minutiae instead of getting sh* done." Don't agree with everything, but this part is a very good point.