4 ms·
If these are the ugly languages, what are the elegant ones? Python might cover some of the items on this list, like Perl and TCL, but what is the elegant altern
by s_tec 14y ago
If these are the ugly languages, what are the elegant ones? Python might cover some of the items on this list, like Perl and TCL, but what is the elegant alternative to Erlang? I can't think of anything. Most of these language have a strong niche where they are simply the right tool for the job, regardless of their elegance.
Trying to shoehorn a more elegant language into one of these niches would probably lead to awkwardness, especially if it's something the language wasn't designed to handle. In a way, I think using the right tool for the job is itself a form of elegance, regardless of the tool's superficial appearance.
- bitwize 14y agoErlang is actually a fairly elegant language, it's just weird-looking to people who are used to C or Pascal. Perl and PHP are ugly not because of how they look on the page but because of their bodged-together semantics, with magical variables that do magical things, keywords that don't mean what you think they mean, etc. If I had a word to describe Ruby it would be, fittingly, "kawaii". Like a girl from a third-rate anime whom you think is adorable as a teenager, then you get older, grow some taste and it dawns on you that her nose is in completely the wrong part of her face.
- zwischenzug 14y agoThe pro erlangers I know are mostly lisp or haskell programmers who consider erlang as a pact with the devil. It's all relative. Joe Armstrong himself said he made engineering compromises in the design of erlang because he was concerned about software useful for the telco industry, not an academic exercise.
- masklinn 14y ago> Erlang is actually a fairly elegant language, it's just weird-looking Most of the "sequential erlang" syntax is ugly as hell, from the various separators (statement, case, function) to the (downright dreadful) records syntax or the function reference syntax (both anonymous functions and reference to named functions are pretty bad). The language itself, as in the model and the underlying concepts and ideas, are generally neat, but the syntax isn't when compared to Haskell or even MLs derivatives. Aside from the literal bit syntax, that part is beautiful (for the most part, the complex modifier atoms still weird me out)
- theevocater 14y agoScala maybe? But yeah erlang has its own austere beauty.
- zwischenzug 14y agoWhy is python considered elegant where tcl is not? I find python robust rather than elegant.
- zeffr 14y agoI would say that the list boils down to free-form vs. structured more than anything else. All python code looks about the same due to it's structured nature. Because of this, the language appears more "elegant". I'm a devout PHP coder, and build on custom frameworks to do whatever it is that I need. I have some pretty big applications as well. My preference is entirely for free-form languages due to the fact that I can control elegance and readability. It may require more effort, but it is certainly doable. In fact, I'd like python a whole lot more if I wasn't forced into the structured paradigm. In short, lazy coders make ugly code despite the language.
- zwischenzug 14y agoI thought elegance was about conciseness and freedom of expression leading to creative and "neat" solutions to problems? The way you describe python as a language of structured constraint is pretty much the opposite of my understanding of programming language "elegance", with lisp or haskell being some kind of ultimate to aspire to.