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Programming languages! It is ironic because I am a programmer and I write programs and develop software for a living. But proliferation of programming languages

Programming languages! It is ironic because I am a programmer and I write programs and develop software for a living. But proliferation of programming languages has made my life worse. Too many programming languages and every company has their own favorites! It may be an unpopular opinion on HN but I don't enjoy learning new syntaxes every year for relatively few benefits in new concepts or paradigms. In my ideal world everyone would be using Lisp (my username checks out!) but so much power. It has a simple syntax (some say it has no syntax but I think that is a little hyperbole). In my ideal world new concepts and paradigms are implemented in Lisp using Lisp. I'd much rather spend time solving real problems that real human beings care about. I'd much rather learning new ways of solving problems with new paradigms. I don't want to waste hours learning new syntaxes and their gotchas and edge-cases!

throwawaytemp27 4y ago
Good thing there are other languages for other peoples preferences!
camoufleur 4y ago
If Lisp was the only language I'd never program again
karpierz 4y ago
If you only had one programming language, this problem would turn into an issue of too many frameworks. The problem isn't that there are too many programming languages; the issue is that there are many ways to structure code around a problem. Different problems incentivize different structures and so you end up with different languages.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
qorrect 4y ago
> some say it has no syntax That was always my impression, you're writing the AST directly, then manipulating it with fancy macros.
valbaca 4y ago
~~Simple~~ JavaScript is eating the world. ClojureScript compiles to JS. I'm convinced that Clojure will be the lisp-uber-language. EDIT: I shouldn't have said "simple"; nothing ever is. I was being arrogant.
- cudgy 4y ago
  Do you get Javascript error messages in Clojure? That is one of the drawbacks to transpiled languages I have used before. The best one I’ve used so far is Kotlin, which is a pleasure to use in comparison to Java, but this might be because I used it in an IDE written by the language designers themselves.
feoren 4y ago
> I don't enjoy learning new syntaxes every year I don't understand why you need to pick up every new language that comes out. Can't you just hold down one job for longer than a year?
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
it's not the programming languages, it's the programmers. people can't stop reinventing the wheel. everyone thinks they know better.
ikeserbestian 4y ago
I have the same feelings for Lisp, honestly. From Day Zero of my programming experience I dreamt about a “meta” language (overdose of C64’s BASIC V2 caused this symptoms, maybe). I even didn’t know the meta word but years later I found the Lisp and said “yeah, that’s it”.

throwawaytemp27 4y ago

Good thing there are other languages for other peoples preferences!

camoufleur 4y ago

If Lisp was the only language I'd never program again

karpierz 4y ago

If you only had one programming language, this problem would turn into an issue of too many frameworks. The problem isn't that there are too many programming languages; the issue is that there are many ways to structure code around a problem. Different problems incentivize different structures and so you end up with different languages.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

qorrect 4y ago

> some say it has no syntax That was always my impression, you're writing the AST directly, then manipulating it with fancy macros.

valbaca 4y ago

~~Simple~~ JavaScript is eating the world. ClojureScript compiles to JS. I'm convinced that Clojure will be the lisp-uber-language. EDIT: I shouldn't have said "simple"; nothing ever is. I was being arrogant.

cudgy 4y ago
Do you get Javascript error messages in Clojure? That is one of the drawbacks to transpiled languages I have used before. The best one I’ve used so far is Kotlin, which is a pleasure to use in comparison to Java, but this might be because I used it in an IDE written by the language designers themselves.

feoren 4y ago

> I don't enjoy learning new syntaxes every year I don't understand why you need to pick up every new language that comes out. Can't you just hold down one job for longer than a year?

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

it's not the programming languages, it's the programmers. people can't stop reinventing the wheel. everyone thinks they know better.

ikeserbestian 4y ago

I have the same feelings for Lisp, honestly. From Day Zero of my programming experience I dreamt about a “meta” language (overdose of C64’s BASIC V2 caused this symptoms, maybe). I even didn’t know the meta word but years later I found the Lisp and said “yeah, that’s it”.