5 ms·

Why is [programming language] so...?

39 points by tylermauthe 12y ago

noobermin 12y ago
"Why is fortran so fast" reminded me of this [1] [1] http://unriskinsight.blogspot.com/2014/06/fast-functional-goats-lions-and-wolves.html http://unriskinsight.blogspot.com/2014/06/fast-functional-go...
- oofabz 12y ago
  Fortran is fast because it has implicit "restrict". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrict
aylons 12y ago
"Why is [language] so popular" may have two meanings: The person is curious about the popularity of a language. The person is intrigued to why a bad language has become popular.
- beggi 12y ago
  It can have a few meanings. I think this type of question is common to get a overview of the good things about language X.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Same with "Why is [langauge] so bad?" It could be "Gah, I'm frustrated working with [language], let's see if I can find some explanation for this insanity!" Or it could be, "I've never encountered [language], but I keep hearing it's bad. Why are people saying that?" I very much expect COBOL is overwhelmingly the result of the latter. (Of course, neither of these is a good sign, just that they're somewhat different dynamics.)
beggi 12y ago
"why is python documentation so bad" Really? Did not see that one coming
- hackinthebochs 12y ago
  I'll tell you whats wrong with python docs. When I google for a function and I see from the search results that the page has exactly what I'm looking for, when I click on the link I am instead presented with a long page of irrelevant information that I then have to filter through. It's so bad that I actively avoid the official docs.
  - IgorPartola 12y ago
    CTRL + f / Command + f => "module.function" and you are done.
    - flebron 12y ago
      He already searched, on google. He shouldn't have to search twice for the same thing.
      - rambojohnson 12y ago
        google is not python docs.
    - hackinthebochs 12y ago
      I'd be fine with that if it ended there, but usually the word I'm searching for is in the document in a hundred different places (I forgot to mention that I usually don't know the exact method/object name). It almost always turns into a frustrating process of scanning the page manually.
      - IgorPartola 12y ago
        Well, if you don't know the exact method or object name, how do you expect Google to guess what you need? Let's take a simple example of searching for Python's os.unlink method: 1. Google "Python os.unlink". 2. First link is https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html which starts at the very top of the documentation for the os module. 3. CTRL + f/Command + f for "os.unlink". 4. The first result on the page is right around https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.mkfifo https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.mkfifo. 5. Click on os.unlink words because it's an actual link. That last bit is very important. Every bit of documentation typically has a link from any module/object/method to its canonical documentation location. Contrast this with Django REST Framework, which does not do this and their docs are basically unusable because of this. I agree that this could be shortened somehow to Google "Python os.unlink" and the first result being https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.unlink https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.unlink but it's such a minor flaw compared to everything else I've ever seen in terms of searching for docs that I am willing to live with it. Contrast this with PHP's docs. Here, it's great: just go to http://php.net/YOUR-FUNCTION http://php.net/YOUR-FUNCTION and you'll get the docs. For example: http://php.net/implode http://php.net/implode. What I don't like about these docs is that they often lie to your face. As in, they are just plain inaccurate and the way you find this out is by having your production code blow up. That right there is actual bad documentation.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bhauer 12y ago
It's a bit amusing that "why is Java so slow" is in there. I have to think that's coming from people who are familiar with Java from the horrible Java browser plug-in rather than server-side Java.
- TacticalCoder 12y ago
  Java is quite fast compared to most languages but for some things it is still terribly slow compared to C / C++. I had to do some big integers crunching lately and tried: Java, Go, Go with GMP, C (GMP) and Haskell (using GMP under the hood). Eventually I went for good old C with the latest GMP version for it was the fastest for my use case (with Haskell and Go with GMP coming close but still not as fast as C). Java was, for the computation I needed to do... Eight times slower than C! I know I was hitting a edge case for a very specific kind of computation but still. The situation is so bad that there are people who wrote wrappers calling GMP from within Java. I think some Java devs don't realize how slow some of the Java API are for certain tasks. For example there's no way Java BigInteger can compete with GMP and there's no way GMP is getting ported to Java anytime soon (GMP is open source: just go and look at some of the optimization going on and you'll see what I'm talking about). Most Java devs don't realize how complex and optimized some libraries out there are and how low-level you need to go when you need the utmost performance. Sure, server-side Java is fast for most things it's used for. But not everything is "server-side" and there are several domains where Java simply doesn't cut it compared to good old C + assembly. And people finding Java being nearly one order of magnitude slower than the alternative for some tasks may be tempted to ask "Why is Java so slow...". Now this isn't a criticism of Java: Java is the language I know best and used (and still use) the most. And I know it well enough to know when it's probably a good idea to try to find an alternative.
  - jbooth 12y ago
    Last time I checked and did the math, I counted about 500 bytes of overhead in a java BigInteger. Still, I wouldn't call that "java being slow", more, "java having a god awful BigInteger library class".
- chc 12y ago
ashmud 12y ago
"why is lua so" why is lua so fast why is lua so popular in games Several other popular languages had nothing or only (subset of) fast/slow/hard/popular/powerful.
_random_ 12y ago
To have auto-suggestions is already a great achievement.
- smorrow 12y ago
  So far, I've never started typing until I knew what I wanted to ask, so I find them distracting. Sometimes I start reading them and then forget what my own query was.
  - _random_ 12y ago
    I meant for a language :). The ones like Kotlin and Idris have no suggestions at all.
perlgeek 12y ago
"why is perlmonks so slow" made me chuckle. Perlmonks is indeed slow (used to be much slower), the user interface is ugly (but quite usable once you got used to it), but it's still the best place for deep discussions about Perl. If you ask an interesting question (not just "how do join two files on a common column"), you often get several amazing answers.
- mtmail 12y ago
  perlmonks.org lost a lot of credit in my eyes because they store passwords in clear text. All passwords got hacked&leaked in 2009, they notified the users but continue to do it (tried today). This website is run by [any programming language] professionals?
mrweasel 12y ago
Hehe, Google want to correct "Why is golang so" to "Why golang is awesome".
JasonFruit 12y ago
One of the top three suggestions for me was, "Why is Scheme so pale and wan?" I had no idea one of my favorite languages was so . . . poetic.
owenversteeg 12y ago
The "hard" languages are ASP.NET, C++, C#, Haskell, Lisp, and Objective-C. Here's a breakdown of the languages with the number of positive/negative suggestions (popular was assumed to be a good thing): ASP.NET : +1 -3 = -2 C++ : +1 -2 = -1 C# : +2 -1 = +1 COBOL : +0 -1 = -1 Erlang : +1 -1 = +0 FORTRAN : +2 -0 = +2 Haskell : +2 -2 = +0 Java : +2 -2 = +0 JS : +2 -2 = +0 Lisp : +3 -1 = +2 Obj-C : +0 -4 = -4 Perl : +0 -2 = -2 PHP : +1 -3 = -2 Python : +1 -2 = -1 Ruby : +2 -1 = +1 Smalltalk: +1 -0 = +1 VB.NET : +1 -1 = +0 By this metric, Objective-C is the worst language, twice as bad as PHP (oh my!), and Lisp and FORTRAN are the best languages.
- jaxytee 12y ago
  So I guess my next project should be written in some arbitrary Lisp or Fortran.
yoodenvranx 12y ago
It looks like some search terms are blocked. If you type "my penis" or "my boobs" nothing happens, but for "my finger" or "my toe" you get some results.
izietto 12y ago
"Why is Go so..." Why is Go so slow Why is Go so hard for computers I realized after a bit that the last was referring to the game :)
deadghost 12y ago
>why is erlang so slow >why is erlang so fast ???
stefanu 12y ago
I think that if people were more familiar with Smalltalk, the Objective-C would not get that bad rating. I find the Smalltalk message passing syntax is way more readable than more common function(args) syntax. ObjC is nothing more than a plain C with message passing in square brackets. What might make it less attractive is the verbosity of Cocoa (formerly known as OpenStep), too many class name prefixes, missing native literal objects and use of pointers. This is problem of the framework, not the language itself though.

39 points by tylermauthe 12y ago

"Why is fortran so fast" reminded me of this [1] [1] http://unriskinsight.blogspot.com/2014/06/fast-functional-goats-lions-and-wolves.html http://unriskinsight.blogspot.com/2014/06/fast-functional-go...

oofabz 12y ago
Fortran is fast because it has implicit "restrict". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrict

aylons 12y ago

"Why is [language] so popular" may have two meanings: The person is curious about the popularity of a language. The person is intrigued to why a bad language has become popular.

beggi 12y ago
It can have a few meanings. I think this type of question is common to get a overview of the good things about language X.
dllthomas 12y ago
Same with "Why is [langauge] so bad?" It could be "Gah, I'm frustrated working with [language], let's see if I can find some explanation for this insanity!" Or it could be, "I've never encountered [language], but I keep hearing it's bad. Why are people saying that?" I very much expect COBOL is overwhelmingly the result of the latter. (Of course, neither of these is a good sign, just that they're somewhat different dynamics.)

beggi 12y ago

"why is python documentation so bad" Really? Did not see that one coming

hackinthebochs 12y ago
I'll tell you whats wrong with python docs. When I google for a function and I see from the search results that the page has exactly what I'm looking for, when I click on the link I am instead presented with a long page of irrelevant information that I then have to filter through. It's so bad that I actively avoid the official docs.
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  CTRL + f / Command + f => "module.function" and you are done.
  - flebron 12y ago
    He already searched, on google. He shouldn't have to search twice for the same thing.
    - rambojohnson 12y ago
      google is not python docs.
  - hackinthebochs 12y ago
    I'd be fine with that if it ended there, but usually the word I'm searching for is in the document in a hundred different places (I forgot to mention that I usually don't know the exact method/object name). It almost always turns into a frustrating process of scanning the page manually.
    - IgorPartola 12y ago
      Well, if you don't know the exact method or object name, how do you expect Google to guess what you need? Let's take a simple example of searching for Python's os.unlink method: 1. Google "Python os.unlink". 2. First link is https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html which starts at the very top of the documentation for the os module. 3. CTRL + f/Command + f for "os.unlink". 4. The first result on the page is right around https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.mkfifo https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.mkfifo. 5. Click on os.unlink words because it's an actual link. That last bit is very important. Every bit of documentation typically has a link from any module/object/method to its canonical documentation location. Contrast this with Django REST Framework, which does not do this and their docs are basically unusable because of this. I agree that this could be shortened somehow to Google "Python os.unlink" and the first result being https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.unlink https://docs.python.org/2/library/os.html#os.unlink but it's such a minor flaw compared to everything else I've ever seen in terms of searching for docs that I am willing to live with it. Contrast this with PHP's docs. Here, it's great: just go to http://php.net/YOUR-FUNCTION http://php.net/YOUR-FUNCTION and you'll get the docs. For example: http://php.net/implode http://php.net/implode. What I don't like about these docs is that they often lie to your face. As in, they are just plain inaccurate and the way you find this out is by having your production code blow up. That right there is actual bad documentation.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bhauer 12y ago

It's a bit amusing that "why is Java so slow" is in there. I have to think that's coming from people who are familiar with Java from the horrible Java browser plug-in rather than server-side Java.

TacticalCoder 12y ago
Java is quite fast compared to most languages but for some things it is still terribly slow compared to C / C++. I had to do some big integers crunching lately and tried: Java, Go, Go with GMP, C (GMP) and Haskell (using GMP under the hood). Eventually I went for good old C with the latest GMP version for it was the fastest for my use case (with Haskell and Go with GMP coming close but still not as fast as C). Java was, for the computation I needed to do... Eight times slower than C! I know I was hitting a edge case for a very specific kind of computation but still. The situation is so bad that there are people who wrote wrappers calling GMP from within Java. I think some Java devs don't realize how slow some of the Java API are for certain tasks. For example there's no way Java BigInteger can compete with GMP and there's no way GMP is getting ported to Java anytime soon (GMP is open source: just go and look at some of the optimization going on and you'll see what I'm talking about). Most Java devs don't realize how complex and optimized some libraries out there are and how low-level you need to go when you need the utmost performance. Sure, server-side Java is fast for most things it's used for. But not everything is "server-side" and there are several domains where Java simply doesn't cut it compared to good old C + assembly. And people finding Java being nearly one order of magnitude slower than the alternative for some tasks may be tempted to ask "Why is Java so slow...". Now this isn't a criticism of Java: Java is the language I know best and used (and still use) the most. And I know it well enough to know when it's probably a good idea to try to find an alternative.
- jbooth 12y ago
  Last time I checked and did the math, I counted about 500 bytes of overhead in a java BigInteger. Still, I wouldn't call that "java being slow", more, "java having a god awful BigInteger library class".
chc 12y ago

ashmud 12y ago

"why is lua so" why is lua so fast why is lua so popular in games Several other popular languages had nothing or only (subset of) fast/slow/hard/popular/powerful.

_random_ 12y ago

To have auto-suggestions is already a great achievement.

smorrow 12y ago
So far, I've never started typing until I knew what I wanted to ask, so I find them distracting. Sometimes I start reading them and then forget what my own query was.
- _random_ 12y ago
  I meant for a language :). The ones like Kotlin and Idris have no suggestions at all.

perlgeek 12y ago

"why is perlmonks so slow" made me chuckle. Perlmonks is indeed slow (used to be much slower), the user interface is ugly (but quite usable once you got used to it), but it's still the best place for deep discussions about Perl. If you ask an interesting question (not just "how do join two files on a common column"), you often get several amazing answers.

mtmail 12y ago
perlmonks.org lost a lot of credit in my eyes because they store passwords in clear text. All passwords got hacked&leaked in 2009, they notified the users but continue to do it (tried today). This website is run by [any programming language] professionals?

mrweasel 12y ago

Hehe, Google want to correct "Why is golang so" to "Why golang is awesome".

JasonFruit 12y ago

One of the top three suggestions for me was, "Why is Scheme so pale and wan?" I had no idea one of my favorite languages was so . . . poetic.

owenversteeg 12y ago

The "hard" languages are ASP.NET, C++, C#, Haskell, Lisp, and Objective-C. Here's a breakdown of the languages with the number of positive/negative suggestions (popular was assumed to be a good thing): ASP.NET : +1 -3 = -2 C++ : +1 -2 = -1 C# : +2 -1 = +1 COBOL : +0 -1 = -1 Erlang : +1 -1 = +0 FORTRAN : +2 -0 = +2 Haskell : +2 -2 = +0 Java : +2 -2 = +0 JS : +2 -2 = +0 Lisp : +3 -1 = +2 Obj-C : +0 -4 = -4 Perl : +0 -2 = -2 PHP : +1 -3 = -2 Python : +1 -2 = -1 Ruby : +2 -1 = +1 Smalltalk: +1 -0 = +1 VB.NET : +1 -1 = +0 By this metric, Objective-C is the worst language, twice as bad as PHP (oh my!), and Lisp and FORTRAN are the best languages.

jaxytee 12y ago
So I guess my next project should be written in some arbitrary Lisp or Fortran.

yoodenvranx 12y ago

It looks like some search terms are blocked. If you type "my penis" or "my boobs" nothing happens, but for "my finger" or "my toe" you get some results.

izietto 12y ago

"Why is Go so..." Why is Go so slow Why is Go so hard for computers I realized after a bit that the last was referring to the game :)

deadghost 12y ago

>why is erlang so slow >why is erlang so fast ???

stefanu 12y ago

I think that if people were more familiar with Smalltalk, the Objective-C would not get that bad rating. I find the Smalltalk message passing syntax is way more readable than more common function(args) syntax. ObjC is nothing more than a plain C with message passing in square brackets. What might make it less attractive is the verbosity of Cocoa (formerly known as OpenStep), too many class name prefixes, missing native literal objects and use of pointers. This is problem of the framework, not the language itself though.