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I don't think "power" is really that helpful a metric in determining how useful a programming language is. If you think of programming from the standpoint of tr

by saghm 1y ago

I don't think "power" is really that helpful a metric in determining how useful a programming language is. If you think of programming from the standpoint of trying to specify the program you want out of all of the possibly programs you could write, one of the most helpful things a programming language can do is eliminate programs that you don't want by making them impossible to write. From that standpoint, constraints are a feature, not a drawback.

zovirl 1y ago
And at the extremes, too much power makes a tool less useful. I don’t drive an F1 car to work, I don’t plant tulips with an excavator, I don’t use a sledgehammer when hanging a picture. Those tools are all too powerful for the job.
- tsegratis 1y ago
  planting flowers? trowel planting foundations? excavator once you specify "the job", the best tool is "the solution" to that job only. anything else is excess complexity however if "the job" is unspecified, power is inverse to the length of "the solution" so is constraint of power bad? -- a fascinating question just like music can be created by both additive and subtractive synthesis; every line of code creates both a feature and a constraint on the final program in which case power can be thought of as the ability to constrain...
  - tsegratis 1y ago
    that is quite wild... it implies expressivity is the ability to constrain it implies drawing on a page, or more broadly, every choice we make, is in equal parts a creative and destructive act so maybe life, or human flourishing is choosing the restrictions that increase freedom of choice? it's so meta it's almost oxymoronic; concretely: we imprison people to maximize freedom; or, we punish children with the aim of setting them free from punishment this is the same as the walk from law into grace found in Christian ethics maybe the ultimate programming language then, provides the maximal step down that path, and this is also the most useful definition of "power" i.e. place on people those restrictions that increase their ability to choose

by saghm 1y ago

zovirl 1y ago

And at the extremes, too much power makes a tool less useful. I don’t drive an F1 car to work, I don’t plant tulips with an excavator, I don’t use a sledgehammer when hanging a picture. Those tools are all too powerful for the job.

tsegratis 1y ago
planting flowers? trowel planting foundations? excavator once you specify "the job", the best tool is "the solution" to that job only. anything else is excess complexity however if "the job" is unspecified, power is inverse to the length of "the solution" so is constraint of power bad? -- a fascinating question just like music can be created by both additive and subtractive synthesis; every line of code creates both a feature and a constraint on the final program in which case power can be thought of as the ability to constrain...
- tsegratis 1y ago
  that is quite wild... it implies expressivity is the ability to constrain it implies drawing on a page, or more broadly, every choice we make, is in equal parts a creative and destructive act so maybe life, or human flourishing is choosing the restrictions that increase freedom of choice? it's so meta it's almost oxymoronic; concretely: we imprison people to maximize freedom; or, we punish children with the aim of setting them free from punishment this is the same as the walk from law into grace found in Christian ethics maybe the ultimate programming language then, provides the maximal step down that path, and this is also the most useful definition of "power" i.e. place on people those restrictions that increase their ability to choose