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I’m not from any community, but programming languages will always be a sensitive topic. It’s because languages are platforms. Your productivity in any language

I’m not from any community, but programming languages will always be a sensitive topic. It’s because languages are platforms. Your productivity in any language is directly proportional to your time and effort investment in it. It's in your best interests to pick the language that's likely to thrive and spend time learning it's ins and outs. On the flip side, betting on a horse that doesn't win could mean the loss of months or years of effort. This is why people evangelize the platforms they're invested in - convincing other people to join improves the health of the platform, increasing their return on investment. This evangelizing can sometimes become contentious if others perceive it as an attack on their platform. People defend their language mostly because they don't want to see it lose popularity. If it did, their language's viability is threatened and their investment is in jeopardy. It's also partly because they've spent so long on it that it's become a part of their identity. A person who thinks of themselves as a “Go developer” rather than a “developer” is going to take that article personally.

jiggawatts 5y ago
There are interesting parallels across a wide range of human behaviour. People get invested in cultures, languages, philosophies, economic models, religions, etc... E.g.: the "east vs west" fight in Ukraine is a great example. One side is invested in the democratic/capitalistic model, the other in the autocratic/central-planning model. The war isn't just over a patch of land on the border of Europe. If people are willing to start a shooting war with actual blood, violence, and death over a mere "ideology", then it shouldn't come as a surprise that developers are willing to go to a "war of words" over their favourite language or platform.
dcminter 5y ago
I think, also, that Go hasn't generally had a lot of criticism (aside from the generics débâcle) in this venue, so the "attack" might be hitting some especially sensitive skin. As an aside, I very much enjoyed "A half hour to learn Rust" from fasterthanli.me as it got me to actually start writing simple stuff in the language so I'm a little biased in favour of the author, but the critique didn't seem to be particularly harsh. As someone who's primarily a Java dev I'm used to seeing much more biting (and often inaccurate) condemnation of my own preferred tool! [1] https://fasterthanli.me/articles/a-half-hour-to-learn-rust https://fasterthanli.me/articles/a-half-hour-to-learn-rust

jiggawatts 5y ago

There are interesting parallels across a wide range of human behaviour. People get invested in cultures, languages, philosophies, economic models, religions, etc... E.g.: the "east vs west" fight in Ukraine is a great example. One side is invested in the democratic/capitalistic model, the other in the autocratic/central-planning model. The war isn't just over a patch of land on the border of Europe. If people are willing to start a shooting war with actual blood, violence, and death over a mere "ideology", then it shouldn't come as a surprise that developers are willing to go to a "war of words" over their favourite language or platform.

dcminter 5y ago

I think, also, that Go hasn't generally had a lot of criticism (aside from the generics débâcle) in this venue, so the "attack" might be hitting some especially sensitive skin. As an aside, I very much enjoyed "A half hour to learn Rust" from fasterthanli.me as it got me to actually start writing simple stuff in the language so I'm a little biased in favour of the author, but the critique didn't seem to be particularly harsh. As someone who's primarily a Java dev I'm used to seeing much more biting (and often inaccurate) condemnation of my own preferred tool! [1] https://fasterthanli.me/articles/a-half-hour-to-learn-rust https://fasterthanli.me/articles/a-half-hour-to-learn-rust