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Why do people even care about languages? I've written code in dozens of imperative, object oriented and functional languages and really can't see what the fuss

Why do people even care about languages? I've written code in dozens of imperative, object oriented and functional languages and really can't see what the fuss is about. It takes a few days to get comfortable with a new syntax and then you're back to looking up library documentation and gluing pieces together. Learning a new syntax is a fraction of the time spent writing an application. Are people just lazy, complacent or stupid?

melling 13y ago
Well, it would be nice to get more reuse out of mobile code. Having to write a mobile app twice is a bit of a hassle.
daliusd 13y ago
People want to write the same app once: not one version for iOS, another for Android and third for something else. JavaScript seems moving towards that. Qt/QML is another choice that is available now but Qt has its own problems. You should choose the right tool for the job - that's it. That's neither stupid, lazy or complacent.
- reddit_clone 13y ago
  >Qt has its own problems Could you elaborate on that? I was excited a few days back that iOS/Android is now supported by Qt/C++. I found that it still doesn't support the QtQuick Controls on mobiles. That dampened my enthusiasm a bit.
  - daliusd 13y ago
    LGPL is one. It is quite permissive license but it has its own little problems. HTML is another one. HTML gets better support on iOS and Android and there will be no reason to use something else in the future. It is much better when your app is small than it takes extra 12Mb (Qt libs). There might be other little reasons why it might not fit for you because of technological reasons. Weight Qt against your requirements well. I really like Qt/QML but it is not good for everything.
KrisAndrew 13y ago
Managers and executives often care about languages. It actually is pretty difficult to find developers who can easily pick up new languages. Most of the places I've worked at, the average number of languages known by individual developers was about 3. By the time I was 20 I had learned 13 (and 3 human languages). That's an exception. If your programming stack consists of 3-4 different languages, the mental maintenance required by the developers can become considerable. That number of languages is an inflection point. After that point is reached, you'll see resources directed to rewriting things in order to reduce the overhead, or the executives will end up creating new departments with different language requirements and roles. It's not that people are lazy, complacent or stupid, it's that on average they can't retain multiple representations of the same thing in their head. If you search around, I think you'll find the average number of human languages known by any given person is between 2.5 and 2.8. Programming languages are no different than human languages.

melling 13y ago

Well, it would be nice to get more reuse out of mobile code. Having to write a mobile app twice is a bit of a hassle.

daliusd 13y ago

People want to write the same app once: not one version for iOS, another for Android and third for something else. JavaScript seems moving towards that. Qt/QML is another choice that is available now but Qt has its own problems. You should choose the right tool for the job - that's it. That's neither stupid, lazy or complacent.

reddit_clone 13y ago
>Qt has its own problems Could you elaborate on that? I was excited a few days back that iOS/Android is now supported by Qt/C++. I found that it still doesn't support the QtQuick Controls on mobiles. That dampened my enthusiasm a bit.
- daliusd 13y ago
  LGPL is one. It is quite permissive license but it has its own little problems. HTML is another one. HTML gets better support on iOS and Android and there will be no reason to use something else in the future. It is much better when your app is small than it takes extra 12Mb (Qt libs). There might be other little reasons why it might not fit for you because of technological reasons. Weight Qt against your requirements well. I really like Qt/QML but it is not good for everything.

KrisAndrew 13y ago

Managers and executives often care about languages. It actually is pretty difficult to find developers who can easily pick up new languages. Most of the places I've worked at, the average number of languages known by individual developers was about 3. By the time I was 20 I had learned 13 (and 3 human languages). That's an exception. If your programming stack consists of 3-4 different languages, the mental maintenance required by the developers can become considerable. That number of languages is an inflection point. After that point is reached, you'll see resources directed to rewriting things in order to reduce the overhead, or the executives will end up creating new departments with different language requirements and roles. It's not that people are lazy, complacent or stupid, it's that on average they can't retain multiple representations of the same thing in their head. If you search around, I think you'll find the average number of human languages known by any given person is between 2.5 and 2.8. Programming languages are no different than human languages.