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I'd like to know, too! From my point of view, all languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. I'd b

by tasuki 5y ago

I'd like to know, too! From my point of view, all languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. I'd be happy if humanity had like three or four programming languages: Idris or some other better-Haskell (for guarantees), Lisp (for simplicity), Rust (for performance), and probably one or two other languages which are unique enough, Prolog or something, K?

jamal-kumar 5y ago
I think it exists largely because Drew DeVault likes making his own things from scratch and also because other people like his opinionated software development. People wouldn't throw him money for stuff like sourcehut otherwise.
eatonphil 5y ago
> From my point of view, all languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. I couldn't disagree more. The more people writing languages and implementing standard libraries the better. Are these minor languages going to be used in production? An even smaller minority of them, sure. For the majority of them it's a chance for developers to relearn data structures and algorithms and compilers. Real, hands-on practice that is hard to beat with any other method. I only got decent at algorithms and data structures by implementing languages and standard libraries. I'd rather every developer built their own language.
- tasuki 5y ago
  I agree with everything you wrote! And yet... the endless myriad of programming languages which don't bring anything particularly new is still annoying me. Perhaps I'm just getting old :)
maxbond 5y ago
> [A]ll languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. If people weren't experimenting with weird esoteric languages, how would we have gotten any of the languages you list here? If I'm recalling correctly, K is descended from APL, a language you needed a special keyboard even to use. Rust synthesizes ideas from lots of small academic languages no one will ever ship software on.
- tasuki 5y ago
  I'm not against esoteric languages at all! (as long as they bring something conceptually new/different :) I guess my main gripe is the duplication of effort: same thing with a slightly different spin, the time wasted learning different libraries doing fundamentally the same thing, etc.

by tasuki 5y ago

jamal-kumar 5y ago

I think it exists largely because Drew DeVault likes making his own things from scratch and also because other people like his opinionated software development. People wouldn't throw him money for stuff like sourcehut otherwise.

eatonphil 5y ago

> From my point of view, all languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. I couldn't disagree more. The more people writing languages and implementing standard libraries the better. Are these minor languages going to be used in production? An even smaller minority of them, sure. For the majority of them it's a chance for developers to relearn data structures and algorithms and compilers. Real, hands-on practice that is hard to beat with any other method. I only got decent at algorithms and data structures by implementing languages and standard libraries. I'd rather every developer built their own language.

tasuki 5y ago
I agree with everything you wrote! And yet... the endless myriad of programming languages which don't bring anything particularly new is still annoying me. Perhaps I'm just getting old :)

maxbond 5y ago

> [A]ll languages which don't add anything new and improved are a drag on our collective computing experience. If people weren't experimenting with weird esoteric languages, how would we have gotten any of the languages you list here? If I'm recalling correctly, K is descended from APL, a language you needed a special keyboard even to use. Rust synthesizes ideas from lots of small academic languages no one will ever ship software on.

tasuki 5y ago
I'm not against esoteric languages at all! (as long as they bring something conceptually new/different :) I guess my main gripe is the duplication of effort: same thing with a slightly different spin, the time wasted learning different libraries doing fundamentally the same thing, etc.