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Writing assembly was the idiomatic way of programming before Fortran and human-readable languages came. Writing with goto was the idiomatic way before Algol an
by nine_k 2y ago
Writing assembly was the idiomatic way of programming before Fortran and human-readable languages came.
Writing with goto was the idiomatic way before Algol and structural programming came.
Having only a handful of scalar types was the idiomatic way until structural data types came (and later objects).
Writing programs as fragments of text that get glued together somehow at build time was the idiomatic way until module systems came. (C and partly C++ continue to live in 1970s though.)
Callback hell was the idiomatic way to do async until Futures / Promises and appropriate language support came.
Sometimes it's time to move on. Writing idiomatic ES5 may feel fun for some, but it may not be the best way to reach high productivity and correctness of the result.
- skybrian 2y agoMaking analogies like this doesn't prove anything, they're just suggestive. All I'm getting out of this is that you think for loops are old-fashioned.
- Jean-Papoulos 2y agoThat's because they are. Functional code is more readable. And if you look back, basically all advances in programming languages have been about "making stuff more readable". Thus, for loops (for this usage) are "old".
- skybrian 2y agoYou say it’s more readable and I disagree with that! Is this just fashion? Is there a way to settle it other than “I like it better?”
- klibertp 2y ago> Is this just fashion? Yes. Readability is a characteristic of the reader, not what is being read. This simple truth seems to be so hard for many people to internalize. My theory as to why is that most programmers never get exposed to drastically different and unfamiliar languages and styles of programming. If they were forced to confront and internalize 2-3 different ways of writing code, they would realize this truth. Personally, I once thought Lisp was unreadable... until I learned it. I once thought BASH was unreadable... until I learned it. Same with half a dozen other languages. Same for styles. "Readability" is just a familiarity and proficiency of the reader.
- kazinator 2y ago30 plus years ago, it was a common trope in programming circles that C code is unreadable, except to, or perhaps even to the author.
- Joker_vD 2y ago> Functional code is more readable. There is no way that name: R.pipe(R.prop('name'), R.toUpper), age: R.prop('age'), isAdult: R.always(true) is more readable than name: user.name.toUpperCase(), age: user.age, isAdult: true
- nine_k 2y agoCertainly so! The first example is needlessly contrived. But instead of for (const i=0; i < data.length; i++) { new_data[i] = old_data[i].toUpperCase(); } you can write const new_data = old_data.map((x) => x.toUpperCase()); I think it's both more clear and less error-prone.
- nuancebydefault 2y agoThe second code does not compile and introduces a new dependency.
- nine_k 2y agoSorry, are we speaking about the same language? https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/?#code/MYewdgzgLgBCA2ATA+oghlNMC8MDaARCAQDQwEBO8AngQLoDcAUKJLGAKYDuqGWuCFOkwA6ALZoADgAppADwCUOAHww5IqCACqkyRwoBhNBA7SFC5i3AQEHEfBABzaZx7C0IgFYgAlmGkE5OYMQA https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/?#code/MYewdgzgLgBCA2ATA...
- nuancebydefault 2y agoMy apologies, I thought it was C++. I should learn typescript, it is one of those I'm postponing.
- Izkata 2y agoNothing in that snippet is Typescript-specific, it's just plain Javascript. All syntactically valid Javascript is also syntactically valid Typescript, it just adds stuff, though you can get runtime errors for things like reassigning variables in a way Javascript is fine with that Typescript disallows.
- CRConrad 2y ago> Functional code is more readable. All I get out of that is that you like functional code.