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Not sure it's a red flag- I bet they're just young. I'm sure they'll grow out of it. We all had unreasonably strong opinions about arbitrary things at one time

Not sure it's a red flag- I bet they're just young. I'm sure they'll grow out of it. We all had unreasonably strong opinions about arbitrary things at one time or another. If you really hated the way pencils smelled and you're trying to get into sketching, and everyone always says "use pencils", could get frustrating. It's the best tool for the job, but you can probably also get pretty far with a pen. You can certainly be a successful engineer while never learning specific languages. That being said, a specific language can be the best tool for the job, and there are many things for which python and js are the best tools.

whalesalad 3y ago
I hear you there. I actually used to be an out of control Ruby hater - until I read Eloquent Ruby (fantastic book, my all time fav programming book) and started to understand it from first principles and all the beauty of message passing. I was Ruby-only for a few solid years of my career. The quicker a young engineer can table that kind of unsubstantiated bias the better. Then again that could go for all aspects of life!
- beeburrt 3y ago
  That's how I felt about Python for the longest time, hated it. I am currently learning Python.
- nobleach 3y ago
  I haven't been a Ruby programmer for 10 years but I totally agree on Eloquent Ruby. I sure did love that book. I still pick it up sometimes and thumb through it. I did a reading group for Getting Clojure (another book by Russ Olsen) just because I knew he wrote it. I totally agree. I have to remind myself often, I may not like the tool, but if I allow myself to get competent with it, I can complete any job. The more I sit around and hate it, the less effective I am.
  - whalesalad 3y ago
    wow TIL there is a book by the same author for clojure - gonna pick that up!
danielvaughn 3y ago
Yeah. I avoided Typescript for the longest time because years prior, I'd had a hell of a time converting a bunch of Coffeescript back into JS. When that project was done I thought "never again will I use a language that tries to 'fix' JS." It was unreasonable and emotional, but also understandable.
kccqzy 3y ago
Completely agreed. Personally I hated JavaScript too a long time ago, until one afternoon I decided to read JavaScript the Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. That one book alone was able to completely change my mind.
- mediumsmart 3y ago
  Same here, and also well worth the effort of getting gpt4 to only produce js that passes jslint.com without a single warning.
wenc 3y ago
I’ve written Python for 18 years now and I’m certainly not unaware of its warts but its sheer usefulness and productivity makes it worth it. I see languages as a means to an end — some means fit people’s brains better — but at the end of the day you gotta get the work done. Python is definitely a tool that I’ve treasured. I used to be infatuated with Lisp and Haskell and their sheer elegance. But now that I’m more experienced I’ve learned that picking a language comes down to practicality and maintainability as well as interoperability with other humans (library ecosystem, labor pool, stack overflow solution searchability).
vidarh 3y ago
My text editor is written in Ruby. My terminal is written in Ruby, including the truetype renderer and X library, and the syntax highlighting uses the Rouge Ruby-based highlighter, extended with some more Ruby to read GtkSourceView themes. My desktop manager is written in Ruby. For me the compelling reason to choose Ruby is that I could hack those things together quickly on my own in a few thousand lines of code and have an enjoyable experience both writing those tools and using them (I've done all my editing in my own editor for the last 6+ years, including editing the editor itself). The rest is newer. (The whole "stack" above takes up fewer lines of code than the "st" terminal emulator and less than 10% the size of xterm; the truetype renderer was a 1 day conversion from a small C renderer, and weighs in at about 500 lines of code - that is why I love Ruby) I'm 48. I've been writing code for 43 of those. I have no intention of spending time on Python more than absolutely necessary, because where Ruby is enjoyable to me, Python is absolutely not. I frankly find the notion of talking about people "growing out of this" quite condescending. There's nothing unreasonable about having preferences and being prepared to prioritise happiness. For my part I've easily been able to make my living in a mix of (mostly) Ruby and JS for the last 18 years without making any sacrifices for it (I've not avoided looking for jobs that requires other languages, including Python - I have experience with more than a dozen different languages so I'm not afraid of using far worse things than Python when I've had to). I've been in my field long enough to have seen many languages vax and vane in popularity, and I stopped caring about whether a language was popular 20+ years ago. My happiness is far more important. I'd say as a young developer being willing to at least pick up the basics may be worth putting aside the distaste. But soon enough you get to a career stage where it doesn't matter and where you have the flexibility to pick jobs where you can pick your tools.
- cactusplant7374 3y ago
  You started writing code when you were five years old?
  - simianpirate 3y ago
    I was 6 years old when I started with Apple Basic.

whalesalad 3y ago

I hear you there. I actually used to be an out of control Ruby hater - until I read Eloquent Ruby (fantastic book, my all time fav programming book) and started to understand it from first principles and all the beauty of message passing. I was Ruby-only for a few solid years of my career. The quicker a young engineer can table that kind of unsubstantiated bias the better. Then again that could go for all aspects of life!

beeburrt 3y ago
That's how I felt about Python for the longest time, hated it. I am currently learning Python.
nobleach 3y ago
I haven't been a Ruby programmer for 10 years but I totally agree on Eloquent Ruby. I sure did love that book. I still pick it up sometimes and thumb through it. I did a reading group for Getting Clojure (another book by Russ Olsen) just because I knew he wrote it. I totally agree. I have to remind myself often, I may not like the tool, but if I allow myself to get competent with it, I can complete any job. The more I sit around and hate it, the less effective I am.
- whalesalad 3y ago
  wow TIL there is a book by the same author for clojure - gonna pick that up!

danielvaughn 3y ago

Yeah. I avoided Typescript for the longest time because years prior, I'd had a hell of a time converting a bunch of Coffeescript back into JS. When that project was done I thought "never again will I use a language that tries to 'fix' JS." It was unreasonable and emotional, but also understandable.

kccqzy 3y ago

Completely agreed. Personally I hated JavaScript too a long time ago, until one afternoon I decided to read JavaScript the Good Parts by Douglas Crockford. That one book alone was able to completely change my mind.

mediumsmart 3y ago
Same here, and also well worth the effort of getting gpt4 to only produce js that passes jslint.com without a single warning.

wenc 3y ago

I’ve written Python for 18 years now and I’m certainly not unaware of its warts but its sheer usefulness and productivity makes it worth it. I see languages as a means to an end — some means fit people’s brains better — but at the end of the day you gotta get the work done. Python is definitely a tool that I’ve treasured. I used to be infatuated with Lisp and Haskell and their sheer elegance. But now that I’m more experienced I’ve learned that picking a language comes down to practicality and maintainability as well as interoperability with other humans (library ecosystem, labor pool, stack overflow solution searchability).

vidarh 3y ago

My text editor is written in Ruby. My terminal is written in Ruby, including the truetype renderer and X library, and the syntax highlighting uses the Rouge Ruby-based highlighter, extended with some more Ruby to read GtkSourceView themes. My desktop manager is written in Ruby. For me the compelling reason to choose Ruby is that I could hack those things together quickly on my own in a few thousand lines of code and have an enjoyable experience both writing those tools and using them (I've done all my editing in my own editor for the last 6+ years, including editing the editor itself). The rest is newer. (The whole "stack" above takes up fewer lines of code than the "st" terminal emulator and less than 10% the size of xterm; the truetype renderer was a 1 day conversion from a small C renderer, and weighs in at about 500 lines of code - that is why I love Ruby) I'm 48. I've been writing code for 43 of those. I have no intention of spending time on Python more than absolutely necessary, because where Ruby is enjoyable to me, Python is absolutely not. I frankly find the notion of talking about people "growing out of this" quite condescending. There's nothing unreasonable about having preferences and being prepared to prioritise happiness. For my part I've easily been able to make my living in a mix of (mostly) Ruby and JS for the last 18 years without making any sacrifices for it (I've not avoided looking for jobs that requires other languages, including Python - I have experience with more than a dozen different languages so I'm not afraid of using far worse things than Python when I've had to). I've been in my field long enough to have seen many languages vax and vane in popularity, and I stopped caring about whether a language was popular 20+ years ago. My happiness is far more important. I'd say as a young developer being willing to at least pick up the basics may be worth putting aside the distaste. But soon enough you get to a career stage where it doesn't matter and where you have the flexibility to pick jobs where you can pick your tools.

cactusplant7374 3y ago
You started writing code when you were five years old?
- simianpirate 3y ago
  I was 6 years old when I started with Apple Basic.