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And that's fine. Choice is good. IMO the problem isn't that there are a lot of things to choose from, it's that there are a lot of things on top of each other.

And that's fine. Choice is good. IMO the problem isn't that there are a lot of things to choose from, it's that there are a lot of things on top of each other. Stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. I personally wouldn't want to live in a world in which I could only use "one of these 5 languages", whatever those are. But I would love to live in a world where things weren't so deep in abstraction and complexity. These are two very different problems.

bb88 3y ago
Imagine if every state had their own completely different traffic rules, and you had to be licensed in every state in order to drive there. E.g. In one state you had to drive on the left hand side but only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In another state, it cost too much to put up traffic signs and signals, so, all drivers had to stop at all intersections unless you were going in a North or South direction. One aspect is that it would make an interesting situation at the borders between states. And that's kinda sorta what we have now with programming languages. > Stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. Couldn't that also be too many choices? Like if you specialize in JS instead of C, you're not going to have all the knowledge a C expert might know. Instead of utilizing proven, existing C libraries, you're going to write stuff from scratch in JS?
- stefncb 3y ago
  The difference is that states require you to follow the rules, but you can choose what language you want to use yourself. I don't need to know Java if I want to use Lisp, and you don't need to know Lisp if you want to use Java. Yes, stuff will need to be rewritten. If you want choice you trade efficiency for it. I'm okay with that. If everyone uses the "proven" libraries and languages and whatever we'll have no innovation. I don't want to live in a rigid world where we somehow ended up choosing a set of things and nobody uses anything else; I want to see more software written in weird languages. Arguments that go like "but nobody is gonna learn a whole language to contribute to your stuff" are depressing - if it's good, I, like many others, would. Without experiments like these we'd still be in the 60s using COBOL because it's "industry proven" or "battle tested" or "blazingly fast" or whatever. That world is boring. This is Hacker News after all.

bb88 3y ago

Imagine if every state had their own completely different traffic rules, and you had to be licensed in every state in order to drive there. E.g. In one state you had to drive on the left hand side but only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. In another state, it cost too much to put up traffic signs and signals, so, all drivers had to stop at all intersections unless you were going in a North or South direction. One aspect is that it would make an interesting situation at the borders between states. And that's kinda sorta what we have now with programming languages. > Stuff on top of stuff on top of stuff. Couldn't that also be too many choices? Like if you specialize in JS instead of C, you're not going to have all the knowledge a C expert might know. Instead of utilizing proven, existing C libraries, you're going to write stuff from scratch in JS?

stefncb 3y ago
The difference is that states require you to follow the rules, but you can choose what language you want to use yourself. I don't need to know Java if I want to use Lisp, and you don't need to know Lisp if you want to use Java. Yes, stuff will need to be rewritten. If you want choice you trade efficiency for it. I'm okay with that. If everyone uses the "proven" libraries and languages and whatever we'll have no innovation. I don't want to live in a rigid world where we somehow ended up choosing a set of things and nobody uses anything else; I want to see more software written in weird languages. Arguments that go like "but nobody is gonna learn a whole language to contribute to your stuff" are depressing - if it's good, I, like many others, would. Without experiments like these we'd still be in the 60s using COBOL because it's "industry proven" or "battle tested" or "blazingly fast" or whatever. That world is boring. This is Hacker News after all.