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Paul Graham is on record that the best languages are built by people who intend to use them, not for others to use. FWIW, I agree. The jury is out on Jai, but

Paul Graham is on record that the best languages are built by people who intend to use them, not for others to use. FWIW, I agree. The jury is out on Jai, but it’s clearly not a toy. John emphasizes important stuff: build times, SOA/AOS as a first-class primitive, cache-friendliness in both the L1i and L1d. And he makes pragmatic engineering trade offs informed by modern hardware: you can afford to over-parse a bit if your grammar isn’t insane, this helps a lot in practice on multi-core. The list goes on. And “he made a few good games” is really dismissive. He doesn’t launch a new game every year, but his admittedly short list of projects is 100% wild commercially and critically successful. On budgets that a FAANG spends changing the color of some UI elements. And that’s kind of the point right? Doing better work takes time, and there is in fact a lucrative market for high-quality stuff. As for him being an asshole? He’s aspy and curt and convinced he’s right, which is a bad look on the rare occasions when he’s wrong. But Bryan Armstrong is on the front page doubling-down on such bad treatment of his employees and shareholders that they are in public, written revolt. This may have changed since I looked, but no one is calling him an asshole. A world in which a passionate craftsman misses on diplomacy while discussing serious technical subject matter is an asshole but a well-connected CEO revoking employment offers after people already quit their old job is “making the hard calls” is basically the opposite of everything the word “hacker” stands for. Asshole.

mrtranscendence 4y ago
> And “he made a few good games” is really dismissive. He doesn’t launch a new game every year, but his admittedly short list of projects is 100% wild commercially and critically successful. How is that dismissive? He has indeed made a few good games, but making good games doesn't certify you as a language designer any more than it makes you a good plumber or equinologist. Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time, immensely successful both critically and commercially, and yet if Team Cherry were to release a programming language I reserve the right not to be terribly excited about it. > But Bryan Armstrong is on the front page OK, Bryan Armstrong is an asshole. I can call two people an asshole. I can call more people than that assholes too, if it comes to that. > Asshole Because I'm dismissive of Jonathan Blow? Listen, if you want to fanboy/girl your brains out over the guy, be my guest. He just doesn't impress me all that much and I don't think "aspy and curt and convinced he's right" is anything remotely approaching an excuse for poor behavior. I've been told I'm on the autism spectrum, too, yet I manage not to act like an asshole. Though clearly you disagree.
- benreesman 4y ago
  The cherry-pick quotes from parent and refute is the laziest form of argument on HN. In this instance, it allows you to blow past the few concrete examples amongst many that I cited where Jai is trying new things in the language space. It’s not hard work to learn a little about Jai. Jai may be an utter failure, but it’s not a toy or hobby, it’s being co-designed with an interesting game engine that looks pretty hot. It’s at least as expressive as C99, compiles way faster on modern gear, targets LLVM and x86, it’s at a minimum interesting. Calling someone who does their homework a “fanboi” is A-ok, but someone else is looking for an excuse for poor behavior?

mrtranscendence 4y ago

> And “he made a few good games” is really dismissive. He doesn’t launch a new game every year, but his admittedly short list of projects is 100% wild commercially and critically successful. How is that dismissive? He has indeed made a few good games, but making good games doesn't certify you as a language designer any more than it makes you a good plumber or equinologist. Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time, immensely successful both critically and commercially, and yet if Team Cherry were to release a programming language I reserve the right not to be terribly excited about it. > But Bryan Armstrong is on the front page OK, Bryan Armstrong is an asshole. I can call two people an asshole. I can call more people than that assholes too, if it comes to that. > Asshole Because I'm dismissive of Jonathan Blow? Listen, if you want to fanboy/girl your brains out over the guy, be my guest. He just doesn't impress me all that much and I don't think "aspy and curt and convinced he's right" is anything remotely approaching an excuse for poor behavior. I've been told I'm on the autism spectrum, too, yet I manage not to act like an asshole. Though clearly you disagree.

benreesman 4y ago
The cherry-pick quotes from parent and refute is the laziest form of argument on HN. In this instance, it allows you to blow past the few concrete examples amongst many that I cited where Jai is trying new things in the language space. It’s not hard work to learn a little about Jai. Jai may be an utter failure, but it’s not a toy or hobby, it’s being co-designed with an interesting game engine that looks pretty hot. It’s at least as expressive as C99, compiles way faster on modern gear, targets LLVM and x86, it’s at a minimum interesting. Calling someone who does their homework a “fanboi” is A-ok, but someone else is looking for an excuse for poor behavior?