4 ms·

"C has the fastest development interactivity of any mainstream statically typed language." This is not true. Using debuggers and crash dumps to reason about yo

by htor 12y ago

"C has the fastest development interactivity of any mainstream statically typed language." This is not true. Using debuggers and crash dumps to reason about your running program is not fast or interactive at all. It doesn't matter how good the tools are. They interrupt the workflow. Working in a REPL on the other hand, is real interaction with your program. You speak the language to the program and the program responds in the same language. This is fast.

dap 12y ago
> Using debuggers and crash dumps to reason about your running program is not fast or interactive at all. Says you. Using core dumps is a different kind of interactive. Rather than testing out what a program would do or could do (as in a REPL), you're iterating on theories of what it did do. It definitely takes getting used to, but I'm often much faster debugging (even non-fatal problems) from a core file than iterating with a step-through debugger or rerunning the program. It also helps a lot when the tools within the core dump debugger are good -- you should be able to quickly dump what's relevant to your program (not just threads and stacks and individual objects).
sampo 12y ago
But he said "mainstream statically typed language". Is there one such with a REPL? Would Scala be mainstream? OCaml or Haskell probably not.
- htor 12y ago
  Yes, I'd say Haskell and ML are mainstream languages by now.
  - sampo 12y ago
    Well, we can debate how mainstream Haskell is, but especially if you mean ML in the sense that does not include also OCaml, then ML definitely is not a mainstream language.
    - Xorlev 12y ago
      OCaml might be mainstream to armchair FP developers on HN and language theorists at Facebook, but it remains a fairly unpopular choice for developing software outside academia. Even Haskell is pretty unpopular relative to the amount of software developed daily.
      - codygman 12y ago
        Random anecdata, my coworker used to do a lot of work with OCaml.
  - angersock 12y ago
    How many companies are basing their businesses on Haskell? I'm thinking fuckall, but it's always good to know.
    - codygman 12y ago
      https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_in_industry https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_in_industry https://www.fpcomplete.com/business/resources/case-studies/ https://www.fpcomplete.com/business/resources/case-studies/ http://engineering.silk.co/post/31920990633/why-we-use-haskell http://engineering.silk.co/post/31920990633/why-we-use-haske... http://bos.github.io/strange-loop-2011/talk/talk.html#%281%29http://www.shimweasel.com/hs_gbu/ http://bos.github.io/strange-loop-2011/talk/talk.html#%281%2... http://www.quora.com/What-startups-use-Haskell-for-production-work?share=1 http://www.quora.com/What-startups-use-Haskell-for-productio... http://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-do-people-use-Haskell-at-their-work-place-How-do-they-use-it?share=1 http://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-do-people-use-Haskell-at... https://angel.co/haskell/jobs https://angel.co/haskell/jobs http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-largest-commercial-program-written-in-Haskell http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-largest-commercial-program-... http://janrain.com/blog/haskell-janrain/ http://janrain.com/blog/haskell-janrain/ http://functionaljobs.com/ http://functionaljobs.com/ http://www.haskellers.com/jobs http://www.haskellers.com/jobs And I've noticed "haskell" at least being listed in job postings more lately: http://www.dice.com/job/results?caller=basic&q=haskell&x=all&p= http://www.dice.com/job/results?caller=basic&q=haskell&x=all...
    - Dewie 12y ago
      > I'm thinking fuckall, but it's always good to know. Such genuine curiosity.
- the_af 12y ago
  True, but that's an argument to move on to other, less popular (for now) statically typed languages which are better than C and have REPLs. We could debate whether it's wise to move on from C (I think in many situations it is), whether it's likely there will be more industry adoption of $MY_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE, but that's a different debate. Also, if we keep favoring C (or Java, or whatever) because they are mainstream, then other languages will never become mainstream, and we will be stuck forever coding in horrible languages. Who wants that?

by htor 12y ago

dap 12y ago

> Using debuggers and crash dumps to reason about your running program is not fast or interactive at all. Says you. Using core dumps is a different kind of interactive. Rather than testing out what a program would do or could do (as in a REPL), you're iterating on theories of what it did do. It definitely takes getting used to, but I'm often much faster debugging (even non-fatal problems) from a core file than iterating with a step-through debugger or rerunning the program. It also helps a lot when the tools within the core dump debugger are good -- you should be able to quickly dump what's relevant to your program (not just threads and stacks and individual objects).

sampo 12y ago

But he said "mainstream statically typed language". Is there one such with a REPL? Would Scala be mainstream? OCaml or Haskell probably not.

htor 12y ago
Yes, I'd say Haskell and ML are mainstream languages by now.
- sampo 12y ago
  Well, we can debate how mainstream Haskell is, but especially if you mean ML in the sense that does not include also OCaml, then ML definitely is not a mainstream language.
  - Xorlev 12y ago
    OCaml might be mainstream to armchair FP developers on HN and language theorists at Facebook, but it remains a fairly unpopular choice for developing software outside academia. Even Haskell is pretty unpopular relative to the amount of software developed daily.
    - codygman 12y ago
      Random anecdata, my coworker used to do a lot of work with OCaml.
- angersock 12y ago
  How many companies are basing their businesses on Haskell? I'm thinking fuckall, but it's always good to know.
  - codygman 12y ago
    https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_in_industry https://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Haskell_in_industry https://www.fpcomplete.com/business/resources/case-studies/ https://www.fpcomplete.com/business/resources/case-studies/ http://engineering.silk.co/post/31920990633/why-we-use-haskell http://engineering.silk.co/post/31920990633/why-we-use-haske... http://bos.github.io/strange-loop-2011/talk/talk.html#%281%29http://www.shimweasel.com/hs_gbu/ http://bos.github.io/strange-loop-2011/talk/talk.html#%281%2... http://www.quora.com/What-startups-use-Haskell-for-production-work?share=1 http://www.quora.com/What-startups-use-Haskell-for-productio... http://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-do-people-use-Haskell-at-their-work-place-How-do-they-use-it?share=1 http://www.quora.com/To-what-extent-do-people-use-Haskell-at... https://angel.co/haskell/jobs https://angel.co/haskell/jobs http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-largest-commercial-program-written-in-Haskell http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-largest-commercial-program-... http://janrain.com/blog/haskell-janrain/ http://janrain.com/blog/haskell-janrain/ http://functionaljobs.com/ http://functionaljobs.com/ http://www.haskellers.com/jobs http://www.haskellers.com/jobs And I've noticed "haskell" at least being listed in job postings more lately: http://www.dice.com/job/results?caller=basic&q=haskell&x=all&p= http://www.dice.com/job/results?caller=basic&q=haskell&x=all...
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > I'm thinking fuckall, but it's always good to know. Such genuine curiosity.
the_af 12y ago
True, but that's an argument to move on to other, less popular (for now) statically typed languages which are better than C and have REPLs. We could debate whether it's wise to move on from C (I think in many situations it is), whether it's likely there will be more industry adoption of $MY_FAVORITE_LANGUAGE, but that's a different debate. Also, if we keep favoring C (or Java, or whatever) because they are mainstream, then other languages will never become mainstream, and we will be stuck forever coding in horrible languages. Who wants that?