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whats the one thing you don't like about your favorite language That's easy. So many hacker types dismiss you as some sort of weirdo for favoring anything that

whats the one thing you don't like about your favorite language That's easy. So many hacker types dismiss you as some sort of weirdo for favoring anything that came from Microsoft.

redthrowaway 15y ago
Or, less glibly, it's a mostly single-platform language with support for other operating systems offered only through third-party tools.
megamark16 15y ago
I don't dismiss C# developers, I'm just glad I'm not one anymore.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  Do you mind if I ask why? Not being defensive, just curious.
  - llimllib 15y ago
    Well, I'm not the gp, but I am a former C# guy who's happy to be out of that world. 1) I dislike C#'s types; they're neither as strong and intelligent as a ML/Haskell language nor as convenient as a Python/Ruby family language. 2) I much prefer the sense of design displayed by Python and Ruby open source projects over C#. (Not that there aren't issues there!) 3) I hate Visual Studio. Nice debugger, crappy interface for writing code. Horrific user interface design for the most part. (At least back when I was writing C# back in 2009!) 4) I hate Windows. Linux and Mac are far more developer friendly. I hated dealing with Cygwin to get some sort of reasonable (crappy but tolerable) command line environment. 5) I love git. Until fairly recently, git was not available and stable on Windows. For it and for many other bits of software, windows is a second class citizen. Shall I go on? Because I could. But I'll leave it at 5 for now.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've absolutely felt your pain. Some of those things have maybe improved (I use git every day, I love my PowerShell, and Visual Studio + ReSharper is glorious once you tell some of the cruft to stay out of your way) but it's still a long way from perfect.
      - DaveMebs 15y ago
        It's amazing how many people either dismiss PowerShell out of hand because it's different, or don't even think about it when talking about Windows commandline support. Getting .NET objects returned, rather than piping text around is awesome. So is having an IDE specifically for writing PowerShell scripts. I'm still learning PowerShell, and love bash, but as powerful as bash is, in some ways it feels very primitive in comparison. If PowerShell 15 years old when bash was released, would anyone consider it better than PowerShell?
        llimllib 15y ago
        Powershell did not exist when I was a C# programmer. Not saying it would have made a difference either way, just that I couldn't have mentioned it. Anyway, I don't think bash/zsh is so great, rather the tools that have grown around them for the last 20 years make them the best available option. Powershell may be nice, but it's got a long road to hoe.
        pjmlp 15y ago
        True. It has a steep learning curve, as one needs to learn a new set of commands, but once you start getting it, it is great. I just have two complaints with it: - the stupid ps1 extension; - commands are verbose when comparing with other shells
      - markkanof 15y ago
        Agreed that PowerShell really does make command line work on Windows much more pleasant than the old DOS prompt. I just discovered a PowerShell module for working with Git (https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git). It shows status info right in your prompt line and does tab completion of git commands and branches.

whats the one thing you don't like about your favorite language That's easy. So many hacker types dismiss you as some sort of weirdo for favoring anything that came from Microsoft.

redthrowaway 15y ago

Or, less glibly, it's a mostly single-platform language with support for other operating systems offered only through third-party tools.

megamark16 15y ago

I don't dismiss C# developers, I'm just glad I'm not one anymore.

MartinCron 15y ago
Do you mind if I ask why? Not being defensive, just curious.
- llimllib 15y ago
  Well, I'm not the gp, but I am a former C# guy who's happy to be out of that world. 1) I dislike C#'s types; they're neither as strong and intelligent as a ML/Haskell language nor as convenient as a Python/Ruby family language. 2) I much prefer the sense of design displayed by Python and Ruby open source projects over C#. (Not that there aren't issues there!) 3) I hate Visual Studio. Nice debugger, crappy interface for writing code. Horrific user interface design for the most part. (At least back when I was writing C# back in 2009!) 4) I hate Windows. Linux and Mac are far more developer friendly. I hated dealing with Cygwin to get some sort of reasonable (crappy but tolerable) command line environment. 5) I love git. Until fairly recently, git was not available and stable on Windows. For it and for many other bits of software, windows is a second class citizen. Shall I go on? Because I could. But I'll leave it at 5 for now.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've absolutely felt your pain. Some of those things have maybe improved (I use git every day, I love my PowerShell, and Visual Studio + ReSharper is glorious once you tell some of the cruft to stay out of your way) but it's still a long way from perfect.
    - DaveMebs 15y ago
      It's amazing how many people either dismiss PowerShell out of hand because it's different, or don't even think about it when talking about Windows commandline support. Getting .NET objects returned, rather than piping text around is awesome. So is having an IDE specifically for writing PowerShell scripts. I'm still learning PowerShell, and love bash, but as powerful as bash is, in some ways it feels very primitive in comparison. If PowerShell 15 years old when bash was released, would anyone consider it better than PowerShell?
      - llimllib 15y ago
        Powershell did not exist when I was a C# programmer. Not saying it would have made a difference either way, just that I couldn't have mentioned it. Anyway, I don't think bash/zsh is so great, rather the tools that have grown around them for the last 20 years make them the best available option. Powershell may be nice, but it's got a long road to hoe.
      - pjmlp 15y ago
        True. It has a steep learning curve, as one needs to learn a new set of commands, but once you start getting it, it is great. I just have two complaints with it: - the stupid ps1 extension; - commands are verbose when comparing with other shells
    - markkanof 15y ago
      Agreed that PowerShell really does make command line work on Windows much more pleasant than the old DOS prompt. I just discovered a PowerShell module for working with Git (https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git). It shows status info right in your prompt line and does tab completion of git commands and branches.