3 ms·

> But Rust is better in the same way that Betamax was better than VHS, Mastodon is better than Twitter, Dvorak keyboards are better than QWERTY, Esperanto is be

> But Rust is better in the same way that Betamax was better than VHS, Mastodon is better than Twitter, Dvorak keyboards are better than QWERTY, Esperanto is better than English and Lua is better than Javascript Esperanto is certainly not better than English; and I really doubt Lua is better than Javascript.

david-gpu 2y ago
> Esperanto is certainly not better than English; and I really doubt Lua is better than Javascript Doesn't that depend on how one decides to "score" a language? And I think that's what the author is getting at, too.
- flysand7 2y ago
  I caught a different meaning from this entire sentence. I think the author was alluding to the fact that even if you replace a technology with something "better", at the end it doesn't matter, because Most People will keep using Twitter, Most People will keep using QWERTY layout, count all of your acquaintances, I doubt any of them speak Esperanto. Well at least the idea comes through, but I don't think it makes sense to argue whether Lua is actually better than JavaScript or not.
  - david-gpu 2y ago
    Indeed. If one primarily values certain technical aspects, Beta was "better" than VHS. But if one primarily values popularity, profitability or practicality, then VHS was "better". And so on with the other examples. So when we go back to this: > Esperanto is certainly not better than English; and I really doubt Lua is better than Javascript All I get from it is "I personally have a strong opinion about what makes a language 'better'". Nothing wrong with that, but it's independent from the argument made by TFA. Perhaps I misinterpreted.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >Doesn't that depend on how one decides to "score" a language? Not as much, because not all ways of scoring a language are as good either, and in the ways of scoring that matter, English is better than Esperanto.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    In terms of not being a bag of special cases, and thus easy to use, Esperanto is better than English. Like, if you were to design a language from first principles, you'd come up with Esperanto. The only problem is the massive inertia English has, which makes it "better". In terms of design, it's absolute trash. But it's what humanity's got. Trying to learn English as a second or third or fifth language is just so difficult.
    - mf_tomb 2y ago
      Those special cases are useful or the natural result of speakers coming from other languages. If esperanto were used widely for many years, it would also develop special cases over time. In 200 years, it would be as irregular as english, as it borrowed words and phrases from other languages.
      - D-Coder 2y ago
        > If esperanto were used widely for many years, it would also develop special cases over time. You've never dealt with Esperantists, I can tell.
        mf_tomb 2y ago
        Actually, it's already happening, without being widely used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_vocabulary#Idioms_and_slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_vocabulary#Idioms_an...
        em-bee 2y ago
        those idioms and slang still follow grammar rules though. they are not irregular. also the irregularities in english developed over centuries by contact with other languages in an environment that lacked the normative influence of globalization and modern communication tools. at the time english was also not the defacto language for international communication that it is today. this status is responsible for efforts such as a wikipedia in basic english that makes information easier to approach by non-native speakers. as esperanto was expressly created with the goal of being an international language, any attempts to introduce irregularities will meet a lot more resistance and therefore development of an irregular grammar is unlikely to happen.
yyuugg 2y ago
Having worked with Lua and JS professionally for years, Lua is far, far worse than JS.
- darknavi 2y ago
  I love Lua for game dev, but JS works fine and Typescript is awesome. I loath 1-based indexes though. Just odd.
jszymborski 2y ago
I think maybe they meant it is a better lingua franca than English, which I'm a little more likely to agree with (Esperanto is by no means perfect for this)
joshdavham 2y ago
> Esperanto is certainly not better than English Agreed. Until Esperanto starts having actual native-speaking communities, I will look at it the same way I look at Klingon or Elvish.
- dogmatism 2y ago
  Well, there are denaskuloj, but aside from that, I don't think languages are adopted into communities to replace other languages based on their merits, but based on socio-religious factors that have nothing to do with the language itself
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Until Esperanto starts having actual native-speaking communities that was the point of the OOP, yes. No one cares about quality, but popularity. And OOP feels the same.
prmph 2y ago
For me, one major weakness of English is having adjectives appearing before nouns. The more time passes, the more I hate that aspect of English. It messes up all sorts of things. Most other languages don't have this problem. Consider that in programming, technical docs, even normal writing, it is almost always better to the most important aspect of a name come first. The adjective-noun order in English makes this awkward all the time.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  You can go for 'Achilles the swift' order if you want though.
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I love its contribution to wordplay. You can write things like “yesterday we sat down to a meal of golden, moist, roast whisky” because the adjectives lead up to a set of expectations about the subject that turn out to be untrue.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  > Most other languages don't have this problem A lot of languages have this property: Germanic languages (incl. English), Slavic languages, Indian languages, most Chinese languages. Source: https://wals.info/feature/87A#7/18.104/263.320 https://wals.info/feature/87A#7/18.104/263.320 There are strictly _more_ languages with the opposite order (nouns before adjectives), at least in this dataset, but that seems to be an artifact of the huge number of distinct languages with relatively few speakers documented in Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and Africa. I suspect that weighted by number of speakers, adjective-noun is the most common order globally.

david-gpu 2y ago

> Esperanto is certainly not better than English; and I really doubt Lua is better than Javascript Doesn't that depend on how one decides to "score" a language? And I think that's what the author is getting at, too.

flysand7 2y ago
I caught a different meaning from this entire sentence. I think the author was alluding to the fact that even if you replace a technology with something "better", at the end it doesn't matter, because Most People will keep using Twitter, Most People will keep using QWERTY layout, count all of your acquaintances, I doubt any of them speak Esperanto. Well at least the idea comes through, but I don't think it makes sense to argue whether Lua is actually better than JavaScript or not.
- david-gpu 2y ago
  Indeed. If one primarily values certain technical aspects, Beta was "better" than VHS. But if one primarily values popularity, profitability or practicality, then VHS was "better". And so on with the other examples. So when we go back to this: > Esperanto is certainly not better than English; and I really doubt Lua is better than Javascript All I get from it is "I personally have a strong opinion about what makes a language 'better'". Nothing wrong with that, but it's independent from the argument made by TFA. Perhaps I misinterpreted.
coldtea 2y ago
>Doesn't that depend on how one decides to "score" a language? Not as much, because not all ways of scoring a language are as good either, and in the ways of scoring that matter, English is better than Esperanto.
- fragmede 2y ago
  In terms of not being a bag of special cases, and thus easy to use, Esperanto is better than English. Like, if you were to design a language from first principles, you'd come up with Esperanto. The only problem is the massive inertia English has, which makes it "better". In terms of design, it's absolute trash. But it's what humanity's got. Trying to learn English as a second or third or fifth language is just so difficult.
  - mf_tomb 2y ago
    Those special cases are useful or the natural result of speakers coming from other languages. If esperanto were used widely for many years, it would also develop special cases over time. In 200 years, it would be as irregular as english, as it borrowed words and phrases from other languages.
    - D-Coder 2y ago
      > If esperanto were used widely for many years, it would also develop special cases over time. You've never dealt with Esperantists, I can tell.
      - mf_tomb 2y ago
        Actually, it's already happening, without being widely used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_vocabulary#Idioms_and_slang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_vocabulary#Idioms_an...
        em-bee 2y ago
        those idioms and slang still follow grammar rules though. they are not irregular. also the irregularities in english developed over centuries by contact with other languages in an environment that lacked the normative influence of globalization and modern communication tools. at the time english was also not the defacto language for international communication that it is today. this status is responsible for efforts such as a wikipedia in basic english that makes information easier to approach by non-native speakers. as esperanto was expressly created with the goal of being an international language, any attempts to introduce irregularities will meet a lot more resistance and therefore development of an irregular grammar is unlikely to happen.

yyuugg 2y ago

Having worked with Lua and JS professionally for years, Lua is far, far worse than JS.

darknavi 2y ago
I love Lua for game dev, but JS works fine and Typescript is awesome. I loath 1-based indexes though. Just odd.

jszymborski 2y ago

I think maybe they meant it is a better lingua franca than English, which I'm a little more likely to agree with (Esperanto is by no means perfect for this)

joshdavham 2y ago

> Esperanto is certainly not better than English Agreed. Until Esperanto starts having actual native-speaking communities, I will look at it the same way I look at Klingon or Elvish.

dogmatism 2y ago
Well, there are denaskuloj, but aside from that, I don't think languages are adopted into communities to replace other languages based on their merits, but based on socio-religious factors that have nothing to do with the language itself
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Until Esperanto starts having actual native-speaking communities that was the point of the OOP, yes. No one cares about quality, but popularity. And OOP feels the same.

prmph 2y ago

For me, one major weakness of English is having adjectives appearing before nouns. The more time passes, the more I hate that aspect of English. It messes up all sorts of things. Most other languages don't have this problem. Consider that in programming, technical docs, even normal writing, it is almost always better to the most important aspect of a name come first. The adjective-noun order in English makes this awkward all the time.

rightbyte 2y ago
You can go for 'Achilles the swift' order if you want though.
kstrauser 2y ago
I love its contribution to wordplay. You can write things like “yesterday we sat down to a meal of golden, moist, roast whisky” because the adjectives lead up to a set of expectations about the subject that turn out to be untrue.
School-Cotton 2y ago
> Most other languages don't have this problem A lot of languages have this property: Germanic languages (incl. English), Slavic languages, Indian languages, most Chinese languages. Source: https://wals.info/feature/87A#7/18.104/263.320 https://wals.info/feature/87A#7/18.104/263.320 There are strictly _more_ languages with the opposite order (nouns before adjectives), at least in this dataset, but that seems to be an artifact of the huge number of distinct languages with relatively few speakers documented in Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea and Africa. I suspect that weighted by number of speakers, adjective-noun is the most common order globally.