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New language developers really overestimate most people's willingness to learn new languages

cwp 4y ago
Yes. It's quite amazing really. Also, people really hate using more than one language. Web developers will twist themselves into incredible knots to avoid having to write HTML and CSS and Javascript in the same project.
- rpmisms 4y ago
  Nonsense, we do it all the time, we just do it under the guise of Javascript. We just turned HTML into JSX and put our CSS in template literals.
  - cwp 4y ago
    Exactly.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  For what it’s worth, while I’m perfectly comfortable with HTML and CSS, I prefer JSX + CSS-in-JS. This isn’t because it’s one language versus three. It’s because it promotes colocation of related code, and allows a high degree of composability that’s much harder to achieve otherwise. Colocation is great for understanding what a given thing does, and for identifying its dependencies. Composability is great for mapping a domain model to lower level concepts in a coherent way, and for encapsulating dependencies. This is somewhat achievable with separate languages. But it ultimately takes a very similar shape with additional tooling/ceremony and diminished benefits particularly from colocation.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  Not that amazing. People who build languages are people who like languages, and therefore have tried a lot of them and find learning new ones easy and rewarding.
schemescape 4y ago
It’s not even the language that causes the most friction, it’s the runtime, libraries, package manager, build system, foreign function interfaces, and on and on…
- nixlim 4y ago
  This, more than anything and it doesn't only apply to the "new" languages. I spent the last year picking up basic Common Lisp and Elixir just for the fun of it. As "languages" they are great, but their ecosystems made me realize how spoiled I am working in Java.
- cjohnson318 4y ago
  Hundred percent. You're not competing with Python, you're competing with Pip.
  - jakobnissen 4y ago
    It wish that was the case. Then Pkg would have already won, seeing that it's so obviously superior in every possible way.
    - maleldil 4y ago
      Pip is the wrong comparison; it should be with PyPI. The package ecosystem is Python's killer app.
      - cjohnson318 4y ago
        Ah, you're exactly right.
- randrus 4y ago
  It’s not the language, it’s the leverage. I came to python in the 90s because of the white space (I was young and impressionable) and stayed for the flexibility and wealth of packages and projects out there.
xiaodai 4y ago
not overestimate. i think they know of the challenges and stickiness of python die hards. but there's a better way, there's a better way. like python used to be less popular than perl but look at where perl is now vs python. things do take time to change though

cwp 4y ago

Yes. It's quite amazing really. Also, people really hate using more than one language. Web developers will twist themselves into incredible knots to avoid having to write HTML and CSS and Javascript in the same project.

rpmisms 4y ago
Nonsense, we do it all the time, we just do it under the guise of Javascript. We just turned HTML into JSX and put our CSS in template literals.
- cwp 4y ago
  Exactly.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
For what it’s worth, while I’m perfectly comfortable with HTML and CSS, I prefer JSX + CSS-in-JS. This isn’t because it’s one language versus three. It’s because it promotes colocation of related code, and allows a high degree of composability that’s much harder to achieve otherwise. Colocation is great for understanding what a given thing does, and for identifying its dependencies. Composability is great for mapping a domain model to lower level concepts in a coherent way, and for encapsulating dependencies. This is somewhat achievable with separate languages. But it ultimately takes a very similar shape with additional tooling/ceremony and diminished benefits particularly from colocation.
andrewflnr 4y ago
Not that amazing. People who build languages are people who like languages, and therefore have tried a lot of them and find learning new ones easy and rewarding.

schemescape 4y ago

It’s not even the language that causes the most friction, it’s the runtime, libraries, package manager, build system, foreign function interfaces, and on and on…

nixlim 4y ago
This, more than anything and it doesn't only apply to the "new" languages. I spent the last year picking up basic Common Lisp and Elixir just for the fun of it. As "languages" they are great, but their ecosystems made me realize how spoiled I am working in Java.
cjohnson318 4y ago
Hundred percent. You're not competing with Python, you're competing with Pip.
- jakobnissen 4y ago
  It wish that was the case. Then Pkg would have already won, seeing that it's so obviously superior in every possible way.
  - maleldil 4y ago
    Pip is the wrong comparison; it should be with PyPI. The package ecosystem is Python's killer app.
    - cjohnson318 4y ago
      Ah, you're exactly right.
randrus 4y ago
It’s not the language, it’s the leverage. I came to python in the 90s because of the white space (I was young and impressionable) and stayed for the flexibility and wealth of packages and projects out there.

xiaodai 4y ago

not overestimate. i think they know of the challenges and stickiness of python die hards. but there's a better way, there's a better way. like python used to be less popular than perl but look at where perl is now vs python. things do take time to change though