3 ms·

And here I was hoping for some kind of thesis on the woeful state of affairs surrounding the fact they've had 2 major versions competing for developers attentio

And here I was hoping for some kind of thesis on the woeful state of affairs surrounding the fact they've had 2 major versions competing for developers attention, the with "older" fork being the more the widely supported one.

j2labs 14y ago
Every language deals with this until about x.3 of the newer version.
- debacle 14y ago
  Not every language has such a broad chasm between two versions of the language. In fact, I can't really name one. Maybe ActionScript?
  - dalke 14y ago
    Perl6 v. Perl5. Visual Basic .NET vs. VB6. ANSI C vs. K&R C. Looking now, "Appendix A of the Fortran 77 standard lists 24 things that are not backward compatible in moving from f66 and f77." Please tell me how the chasm between Python 2.7 and Python 3.3 is significantly broader than the chasm between the aforementioned languages.
    - manuscreationis 14y ago
      I would go so far as to say VB.NET vs VB6 is the same as comparing any flavor of C++ to C#. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, even though they share the same pedigree. VB.NET is effectively a different language entirely. It's programming .NET with VB-like syntax, not the VB language running on .NET (in my mind, anyways)
      - dalke 14y ago
        Ahh, but the goal is to find another language with "such a broad chasm between two versions of the language." It seems I can't win if people decided that my examples are so far apart that they are no longer two versions of the same language. ;) What about Old S v.s New S? S v.s S4? S vs. R? What about D1 and D2 of the D programming language? Classic awk vs. nawk? Honestly, I could go on. I think the person I'm responding to really doesn't know much about programming language histories.
    - debacle 14y ago
      Perl 5 and Perl 6 are completely different languages. The same can be said of VB and VB.NET. There is a difference between a language rewrite and changing just enough of a language that it might have well been a rewrite.

j2labs 14y ago

Every language deals with this until about x.3 of the newer version.

debacle 14y ago
Not every language has such a broad chasm between two versions of the language. In fact, I can't really name one. Maybe ActionScript?
- dalke 14y ago
  Perl6 v. Perl5. Visual Basic .NET vs. VB6. ANSI C vs. K&R C. Looking now, "Appendix A of the Fortran 77 standard lists 24 things that are not backward compatible in moving from f66 and f77." Please tell me how the chasm between Python 2.7 and Python 3.3 is significantly broader than the chasm between the aforementioned languages.
  - manuscreationis 14y ago
    I would go so far as to say VB.NET vs VB6 is the same as comparing any flavor of C++ to C#. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, even though they share the same pedigree. VB.NET is effectively a different language entirely. It's programming .NET with VB-like syntax, not the VB language running on .NET (in my mind, anyways)
    - dalke 14y ago
      Ahh, but the goal is to find another language with "such a broad chasm between two versions of the language." It seems I can't win if people decided that my examples are so far apart that they are no longer two versions of the same language. ;) What about Old S v.s New S? S v.s S4? S vs. R? What about D1 and D2 of the D programming language? Classic awk vs. nawk? Honestly, I could go on. I think the person I'm responding to really doesn't know much about programming language histories.
  - debacle 14y ago
    Perl 5 and Perl 6 are completely different languages. The same can be said of VB and VB.NET. There is a difference between a language rewrite and changing just enough of a language that it might have well been a rewrite.