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"Subproblem" is likely an exaggeration here, otherwise I vehemently disagree. Take Erlang for example, it's theoretically a general purpose language but highly

by lvass 4y ago

"Subproblem" is likely an exaggeration here, otherwise I vehemently disagree. Take Erlang for example, it's theoretically a general purpose language but highly specialized. Would WhatsApp reach a billion users with 50 engineers without this specialization? I doubt it. It's absolutely fine for things to be heavily specialized, as it is fine for our entire civilization to rely division of labor. As the number of developers increase, so should the number of specializations. While a non-turing-complete language doesn't make much sense, web servers, linear algebra and GUIs for example are sufficiently different so that using the same language is unwise.

ncmncm 4y ago
There are very successful insects.
- lvass 4y ago
  No creature is limited to the use of a single programming language, but a lot of programs are. You can learn more than one language and choose one that is appropriate for the task, unlike an insect whose tools are limited so he must have only a few to do everything it needs to. Multi-paradigm is the insectisation here.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    From the original post: > The right approach for the top level rarely matches that for most of its parts, nor each for the others, and likewise down the line. Unless you want to use a different language for each level and subproblem, you will want support for all "orientations" in your language. It is grossly impractical to use a different language for each fragmentary part of a problem. People do not, as a rule, do that. Trivial exceptions include Python and niche-language programs calling out to C-ABI libraries, programs sending SQL to databases, and web servers sending Javascript to browsers. But those are not about "orientation". You might use two or more different general-purpose languages for different, independent problems, but that does not contradict my remark about the folly of languages that attempt "purity".

by lvass 4y ago

ncmncm 4y ago

There are very successful insects.

lvass 4y ago
No creature is limited to the use of a single programming language, but a lot of programs are. You can learn more than one language and choose one that is appropriate for the task, unlike an insect whose tools are limited so he must have only a few to do everything it needs to. Multi-paradigm is the insectisation here.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  From the original post: > The right approach for the top level rarely matches that for most of its parts, nor each for the others, and likewise down the line. Unless you want to use a different language for each level and subproblem, you will want support for all "orientations" in your language. It is grossly impractical to use a different language for each fragmentary part of a problem. People do not, as a rule, do that. Trivial exceptions include Python and niche-language programs calling out to C-ABI libraries, programs sending SQL to databases, and web servers sending Javascript to browsers. But those are not about "orientation". You might use two or more different general-purpose languages for different, independent problems, but that does not contradict my remark about the folly of languages that attempt "purity".