7 ms·

Anyone else find this Mojo hype and release cycle strange? Maybe it's because FOSS has driven so much innovation in the open for the last few years, but somethi

Anyone else find this Mojo hype and release cycle strange? Maybe it's because FOSS has driven so much innovation in the open for the last few years, but something feels off about how Mojo is being teased and released.

omneity 3y ago
Agreed. Here is a serious contender[0] minus all the hype and the $100M in VC money. You would expect a minimum of interest given how Mojo is received by the community, but not really in practice. [0]: https://chapel-lang.org/ https://chapel-lang.org/
- ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
  I wonder if there's a happy medium between the two. Mojo definitely didn't need $100M in funding... but maybe Chapel could use $100K or so for better marketing.
  - jrk 3y ago
    Chapel has at least several full-time developers at Cray/HPE and (I think) the US national labs, and has had some for almost two decades. That's much more than $100k. Chapel is also just one of many other projects broadly interested in developing new programming languages for "high performance" programming. Out of that large field, Chapel is not especially related to the specific ideas or design goals of Mojo. Much more related are things like Codon (https://exaloop.io https://exaloop.io), and the metaprogramming models in Terra (https://terralang.org https://terralang.org), Nim (https://nim-lang.org https://nim-lang.org), and Zig (https://ziglang.org https://ziglang.org). But Chapel is great! It has a lot of good ideas, especially for distributed-memory programming, which is its historical focus. It is more related to Legion (https://legion.stanford.edu https://legion.stanford.edu, https://regent-lang.org https://regent-lang.org), parallel & distributed Fortran, ZPL, etc.
- dom96 3y ago
  For what it's worth, I think what Mojo does do better is that it's trying to be a better Python. Chapel's syntax immediately discourages me from using it.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    How many of Python's warts does it fix?
    - shwaj 3y ago
      It is not aimed at fixing Python’s warts. It seeks to provide (near?) 100% source compatibility, so those warts need to work the same.
      - pmarreck 3y ago
        So, we'll have to run every fucking Python project in a separate Docker image as usual, then. Got it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivpCKEiQOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivpCKEiQOQ
- skdotdan 3y ago
  I'm sure Chapel has its merits, but one of the main selling points of Mojo is the aspiration to be part of the Python ecosystem, and so far I haven't seen any other programming language offering a similar promise, other than Python itself coupled with DSLs or other extensions for high performance.
  - bradcray 3y ago
    Those interested in the intersection between Python, HPC, and data science may want to take a look at Arkouda, which is a Python package for data science at massive scales (TB of memory) at interactive rates (seconds), powered by Chapel: * https://github.com/Bears-R-Us/arkouda https://github.com/Bears-R-Us/arkouda * https://twitter.com/ChapelLanguage/status/1688588977732001793 https://twitter.com/ChapelLanguage/status/168858897773200179...
  - behnamoh 3y ago
    > to be part of the Python ecosystem I'd rather use Python if I'm in the Python ecosystem. So many attempts were made in the past to make a new language compatible with the Python ecosystem (look up hylang and coconu -- https://github.com/evhub/coconut https://github.com/evhub/coconut). But at the end of the day, I'd come back to Python because if there's one thing I've learnt in recent years it's this: minimize dependencies at all costs.
    - EnergyAmy 3y ago
      I don't think those fill the same niche. They're nice-to-haves on top of Python. The promise of Mojo is that it's for when Python isn't good enough and you need to go deeper, but you want the Python ecosystem and don't want to write C.
    - skdotdan 3y ago
      I believe the main Mojo use cases are scenarios in which you'd need dependencies anyway. Code that you can't write in Python due to performance concerns, so you'd need to call C/C++/Rust/CUDA/Triton/etc anyway.
  - 3y ago
- V1ndaar 3y ago
  I mean honestly, the closest language to Mojo really is Nim. In the latest Lex Fridman interview with Chris Lattner [0] when he talks about his ideas behind Mojo it pretty much sounds like he's describing Nim. Ok fair, he wants Mojo to be a full superset of Python, but honestly with nimpy [1] our Python interop is about as seamless as it can really be (without being a superset, which Mojo clearly is not yet). Even the syntax of Mojo looks a damn lot like Nim imo. Anyway, I guess he has the ability to raise enough funds to hire enough people to write his own language within ~2 years so as not have to follow random peoples whim about where to take the language. So I guess I can't blame him. But as someone who's pretty invested in the Nim community it's quite a shame to see such a hyped language receive so much attention by people who should really check out Nim. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [0]: https://youtu.be/pdJQ8iVTwj8?si=LfPSNDq8UKKIsJd3 https://youtu.be/pdJQ8iVTwj8?si=LfPSNDq8UKKIsJd3 [1]: https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy
jmull 3y ago
I'm wondering what the business model is exactly. Or rather what it will become once the VCs who are paying for all this start the squeeze. I'd be nervous about getting in too deep with tools from a company with what looks to me like an utterly unsustainable business model. The house of card will have to come down, won't it? You don't want your stuff to go down with it. IDK, been wrong before, could be here too. It's disconcerting, though.
- EnergyAmy 3y ago
  If it gets open sourced before that happens, it'll get forked if it's good enough. Just happened recently with OpenTF. I'm really interested in it, but I'll wait until it gets put under a permissive license before getting too invested.
  - barryrandall 3y ago
    Same. I don’t feel strongly about project governance or specific OSI-approved license choice, but I’m not stepping on this rug while VC is still holding on with both hands.
- synthos 3y ago
  nod.ai was just acquired by AMD for a chunk of money. I expect they hope to find a similar exit once they can show an end-to-end product: Take a model written in Pytorch, upcast it to mojo, and put it through their unified compiler stack to accelerate on <hardware>
- subharmonicon 3y ago
  > Or rather what it will become once the VCs who are paying for all this start the squeeze. How do we know that squeeze isn’t already happening? The mojo launch was extremely underwhelming, and I wonder if it was forced by early investors to help drive hype and the next round of funding.
- twoodfin 3y ago
  Wild speculation: 1) Have a compelling enough product to become an essential tool in data-focused workflows across the massive Python ecosystem. 2) Get acquired by someone interested in a deeply wedged stake across the massive Python ecosystem. At that point, it doesn’t matter if they’re open source or not.
qaq 3y ago
Well thats fairly similar to how Swift was done so not very surprising.
- machinekob 3y ago
  Not even close Swift was created inside biggest corporation in modern history, this is just some grab on AI VC money with some strange Sillicon Valley (tv show) vibes.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    > biggest corporation Nit: it's worth the most, or has been at times, but Apple is not a big company or organisation compared to others, and I think the number of people involved is perhaps the more useful comparison here rather than market cap. They're roughly an order of magnitude below the top end.
    - theldnsn 3y ago
      [dead]
  - qaq 3y ago
    This was re: going closed source until you get to something meaning-full and then open sourcing. Not a funding model.
- singularity2001 3y ago
  And similarly Swift has failed to get any traction outside the Apple garden
  - qaq 3y ago
    thats a separate issue Kotlin was not immediately open sourced and is doing fine
    - pjmlp 3y ago
dom96 3y ago
Yeah, I do. It's what ultimately discouraged me from using the language. They are keeping a tight grip on Mojo, they may promise open sourcing it, but that didn't stop them from doing things like preventing an online repl for Mojo being built[0]. Presumably because they want to use Mojo to gather as many sign ups as possible for their business. Fair I guess, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 0 - https://mojo.picheta.me/ https://mojo.picheta.me/
ModernMech 3y ago
It's because making money with a programming language is very hard. They are trying to build a moat around their product while courting people who abhor moats to use it.
- dimitrios1 3y ago
  It's ironic isn't it? On one hand we lament the plight of the OSS developer getting a pithy amount of donations relative to their value added, on the other hand if someone dare try to charge for their work, out come the pitchforks.
  - ebiester 3y ago
    I'm fine with charging for your work, but I have a very high bar for the value you create if I am putting man-years of effort behind building on your ecosystem.
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      Yup and that’s the thing, is that programming languages require a lot of work, more than anyone is willing to fund (these days most accurately measured in man-decades). Except corporations and sometimes VCs, and that’s why we most of us use the same handful of mostly identical (in the space of PLs they are all in the same corner) corporate-sponsored programming languages.
      - dimitrios1 3y ago
        The thing is though, it used to be the norm to pay for software. At some point, I think with the rise of "free" social network platforms that gave you tons of features, people then began expect high quality software for free (obviously not realizing they are the product).
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Yeah, it is the only profession where a group of people expect to be paid while actively refusing to pay for the work of others, that actually make their own work possible in first place.
mtillman 3y ago
The idea of a closed source Nim in 2023 is bananas. Getting vcs to pay to make you famous instead of just contributing to better projects is certainly an option I suppose.
- N1H1L 3y ago
  Chris Lattner is already famous
- jitl 3y ago
  Lattner wrote LLVM and created Swift. It’s pretty easy to see how he’s able to secure 100M funding probably at pretty good terms even in a tighter market. Honestly given the current VC climate anyone who can get such funding numberwang would be foolish not to - good to have a long long runway for something like this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
raytopia 3y ago
It is intresting given how much hype mojo has especially when there are many similar projects for Python like Cython, Numba, Taichi Lang, PyPy, etc. Mojo must have better marketing.
pjmlp 3y ago
Yeah, specially how Swift for Tensorflow ended up. I keep looking into Julia and Chapel instead.

omneity 3y ago

Agreed. Here is a serious contender[0] minus all the hype and the $100M in VC money. You would expect a minimum of interest given how Mojo is received by the community, but not really in practice. [0]: https://chapel-lang.org/ https://chapel-lang.org/

ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
I wonder if there's a happy medium between the two. Mojo definitely didn't need $100M in funding... but maybe Chapel could use $100K or so for better marketing.
- jrk 3y ago
  Chapel has at least several full-time developers at Cray/HPE and (I think) the US national labs, and has had some for almost two decades. That's much more than $100k. Chapel is also just one of many other projects broadly interested in developing new programming languages for "high performance" programming. Out of that large field, Chapel is not especially related to the specific ideas or design goals of Mojo. Much more related are things like Codon (https://exaloop.io https://exaloop.io), and the metaprogramming models in Terra (https://terralang.org https://terralang.org), Nim (https://nim-lang.org https://nim-lang.org), and Zig (https://ziglang.org https://ziglang.org). But Chapel is great! It has a lot of good ideas, especially for distributed-memory programming, which is its historical focus. It is more related to Legion (https://legion.stanford.edu https://legion.stanford.edu, https://regent-lang.org https://regent-lang.org), parallel & distributed Fortran, ZPL, etc.
dom96 3y ago
For what it's worth, I think what Mojo does do better is that it's trying to be a better Python. Chapel's syntax immediately discourages me from using it.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  How many of Python's warts does it fix?
  - shwaj 3y ago
    It is not aimed at fixing Python’s warts. It seeks to provide (near?) 100% source compatibility, so those warts need to work the same.
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      So, we'll have to run every fucking Python project in a separate Docker image as usual, then. Got it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivpCKEiQOQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivpCKEiQOQ
skdotdan 3y ago
I'm sure Chapel has its merits, but one of the main selling points of Mojo is the aspiration to be part of the Python ecosystem, and so far I haven't seen any other programming language offering a similar promise, other than Python itself coupled with DSLs or other extensions for high performance.
- bradcray 3y ago
  Those interested in the intersection between Python, HPC, and data science may want to take a look at Arkouda, which is a Python package for data science at massive scales (TB of memory) at interactive rates (seconds), powered by Chapel: * https://github.com/Bears-R-Us/arkouda https://github.com/Bears-R-Us/arkouda * https://twitter.com/ChapelLanguage/status/1688588977732001793 https://twitter.com/ChapelLanguage/status/168858897773200179...
- behnamoh 3y ago
  > to be part of the Python ecosystem I'd rather use Python if I'm in the Python ecosystem. So many attempts were made in the past to make a new language compatible with the Python ecosystem (look up hylang and coconu -- https://github.com/evhub/coconut https://github.com/evhub/coconut). But at the end of the day, I'd come back to Python because if there's one thing I've learnt in recent years it's this: minimize dependencies at all costs.
  - EnergyAmy 3y ago
    I don't think those fill the same niche. They're nice-to-haves on top of Python. The promise of Mojo is that it's for when Python isn't good enough and you need to go deeper, but you want the Python ecosystem and don't want to write C.
  - skdotdan 3y ago
    I believe the main Mojo use cases are scenarios in which you'd need dependencies anyway. Code that you can't write in Python due to performance concerns, so you'd need to call C/C++/Rust/CUDA/Triton/etc anyway.
- 3y ago
V1ndaar 3y ago
I mean honestly, the closest language to Mojo really is Nim. In the latest Lex Fridman interview with Chris Lattner [0] when he talks about his ideas behind Mojo it pretty much sounds like he's describing Nim. Ok fair, he wants Mojo to be a full superset of Python, but honestly with nimpy [1] our Python interop is about as seamless as it can really be (without being a superset, which Mojo clearly is not yet). Even the syntax of Mojo looks a damn lot like Nim imo. Anyway, I guess he has the ability to raise enough funds to hire enough people to write his own language within ~2 years so as not have to follow random peoples whim about where to take the language. So I guess I can't blame him. But as someone who's pretty invested in the Nim community it's quite a shame to see such a hyped language receive so much attention by people who should really check out Nim. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [0]: https://youtu.be/pdJQ8iVTwj8?si=LfPSNDq8UKKIsJd3 https://youtu.be/pdJQ8iVTwj8?si=LfPSNDq8UKKIsJd3 [1]: https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy https://github.com/yglukhov/nimpy

jmull 3y ago

I'm wondering what the business model is exactly. Or rather what it will become once the VCs who are paying for all this start the squeeze. I'd be nervous about getting in too deep with tools from a company with what looks to me like an utterly unsustainable business model. The house of card will have to come down, won't it? You don't want your stuff to go down with it. IDK, been wrong before, could be here too. It's disconcerting, though.

EnergyAmy 3y ago
If it gets open sourced before that happens, it'll get forked if it's good enough. Just happened recently with OpenTF. I'm really interested in it, but I'll wait until it gets put under a permissive license before getting too invested.
- barryrandall 3y ago
  Same. I don’t feel strongly about project governance or specific OSI-approved license choice, but I’m not stepping on this rug while VC is still holding on with both hands.
synthos 3y ago
nod.ai was just acquired by AMD for a chunk of money. I expect they hope to find a similar exit once they can show an end-to-end product: Take a model written in Pytorch, upcast it to mojo, and put it through their unified compiler stack to accelerate on <hardware>
subharmonicon 3y ago
> Or rather what it will become once the VCs who are paying for all this start the squeeze. How do we know that squeeze isn’t already happening? The mojo launch was extremely underwhelming, and I wonder if it was forced by early investors to help drive hype and the next round of funding.
twoodfin 3y ago
Wild speculation: 1) Have a compelling enough product to become an essential tool in data-focused workflows across the massive Python ecosystem. 2) Get acquired by someone interested in a deeply wedged stake across the massive Python ecosystem. At that point, it doesn’t matter if they’re open source or not.

qaq 3y ago

Well thats fairly similar to how Swift was done so not very surprising.

machinekob 3y ago
Not even close Swift was created inside biggest corporation in modern history, this is just some grab on AI VC money with some strange Sillicon Valley (tv show) vibes.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  > biggest corporation Nit: it's worth the most, or has been at times, but Apple is not a big company or organisation compared to others, and I think the number of people involved is perhaps the more useful comparison here rather than market cap. They're roughly an order of magnitude below the top end.
  - theldnsn 3y ago
    [dead]
- qaq 3y ago
  This was re: going closed source until you get to something meaning-full and then open sourcing. Not a funding model.
singularity2001 3y ago
And similarly Swift has failed to get any traction outside the Apple garden
- qaq 3y ago
  thats a separate issue Kotlin was not immediately open sourced and is doing fine
  - pjmlp 3y ago

dom96 3y ago

Yeah, I do. It's what ultimately discouraged me from using the language. They are keeping a tight grip on Mojo, they may promise open sourcing it, but that didn't stop them from doing things like preventing an online repl for Mojo being built[0]. Presumably because they want to use Mojo to gather as many sign ups as possible for their business. Fair I guess, but leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 0 - https://mojo.picheta.me/ https://mojo.picheta.me/

ModernMech 3y ago

It's because making money with a programming language is very hard. They are trying to build a moat around their product while courting people who abhor moats to use it.

dimitrios1 3y ago
It's ironic isn't it? On one hand we lament the plight of the OSS developer getting a pithy amount of donations relative to their value added, on the other hand if someone dare try to charge for their work, out come the pitchforks.
- ebiester 3y ago
  I'm fine with charging for your work, but I have a very high bar for the value you create if I am putting man-years of effort behind building on your ecosystem.
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    Yup and that’s the thing, is that programming languages require a lot of work, more than anyone is willing to fund (these days most accurately measured in man-decades). Except corporations and sometimes VCs, and that’s why we most of us use the same handful of mostly identical (in the space of PLs they are all in the same corner) corporate-sponsored programming languages.
    - dimitrios1 3y ago
      The thing is though, it used to be the norm to pay for software. At some point, I think with the rise of "free" social network platforms that gave you tons of features, people then began expect high quality software for free (obviously not realizing they are the product).
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Yeah, it is the only profession where a group of people expect to be paid while actively refusing to pay for the work of others, that actually make their own work possible in first place.

mtillman 3y ago

The idea of a closed source Nim in 2023 is bananas. Getting vcs to pay to make you famous instead of just contributing to better projects is certainly an option I suppose.

N1H1L 3y ago
Chris Lattner is already famous
jitl 3y ago
Lattner wrote LLVM and created Swift. It’s pretty easy to see how he’s able to secure 100M funding probably at pretty good terms even in a tighter market. Honestly given the current VC climate anyone who can get such funding numberwang would be foolish not to - good to have a long long runway for something like this.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

raytopia 3y ago

It is intresting given how much hype mojo has especially when there are many similar projects for Python like Cython, Numba, Taichi Lang, PyPy, etc. Mojo must have better marketing.

pjmlp 3y ago

Yeah, specially how Swift for Tensorflow ended up. I keep looking into Julia and Chapel instead.