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I truly don't understand this constant crying about programming languages that our community participates in. Seriously. Great frameworks and libraries out ther

by bdg 12y ago

I truly don't understand this constant crying about programming languages that our community participates in. Seriously. Great frameworks and libraries out there exist and hide most of the cruft you deal with. I write absurd amount of code and I truly do not start crying because I'm using PHP, JS, or something else. I run into style issues, for instance, in PHP I might use is_num instead of typeof foo === "integer" like in javascript. When I have a problem with a tool I'm using, it's more like "Arg, the API for new modules in angular is too close to the API for calling already created modules!!" not, "Oh no, jQuery is bad because Backbone is bad, because backbone is written in JavaScript, and you can do some mighty awful things in JavaScript!" If you're crying about things on the language level, you're not building robust systems.

phaer 12y ago
...or you are trying to build extra robust systems. And to do that, it helps to choose carefully which libraries to use because one has to understand them all. And then readability of the language is becomes an issue and I'd argue that average readability varies between programming languages.
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  You don't say "I'm going to build an extra robust tool, let's start <?php class ExtraRobustTool { ... }" To build an extra robust tool you need a lot of planning, and a lot of factors are considered during the planning.
debacle 12y ago
I don't know. Just today I was crying because I can't pass an object property to a function with proper scoping and that I can't pass an instance method as a closure. These are interpreter deficiencies brought about by weak programmers writing a programming language. Both of these things can be rectified by some gymnastics or call_user_func_array (very slow), but it's something that I could do in JavaScript or C# or almost any other language if I wanted to, but not PHP. It drives me crazy, and almost every day there are one of these things. I never have to say "I wish JavaScript did $x," unless there's a library I need that I don't have. On the other hand, in PHP there has never been a time that I've had to say "Oh, there's no library for this." It's a game of tradeoffs, and, for me, bitching about syntax is greatly preferable to having to port a library to another language or start from scratch.

by bdg 12y ago

phaer 12y ago

...or you are trying to build extra robust systems. And to do that, it helps to choose carefully which libraries to use because one has to understand them all. And then readability of the language is becomes an issue and I'd argue that average readability varies between programming languages.

Aldo_MX 12y ago
You don't say "I'm going to build an extra robust tool, let's start <?php class ExtraRobustTool { ... }" To build an extra robust tool you need a lot of planning, and a lot of factors are considered during the planning.

debacle 12y ago

I don't know. Just today I was crying because I can't pass an object property to a function with proper scoping and that I can't pass an instance method as a closure. These are interpreter deficiencies brought about by weak programmers writing a programming language. Both of these things can be rectified by some gymnastics or call_user_func_array (very slow), but it's something that I could do in JavaScript or C# or almost any other language if I wanted to, but not PHP. It drives me crazy, and almost every day there are one of these things. I never have to say "I wish JavaScript did $x," unless there's a library I need that I don't have. On the other hand, in PHP there has never been a time that I've had to say "Oh, there's no library for this." It's a game of tradeoffs, and, for me, bitching about syntax is greatly preferable to having to port a library to another language or start from scratch.