this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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It is so weird when people idolize programming languages. They are all flawed and they all encourage some bad design patterns. Just chill and pick yours.
Yeah, but that makes it sound like they're all equal, and there hasn't been any progression, which is untrue. You're either insane or a historical reenactor if you write something new in COBOL.
I think Rust is genuinely a huge leap forwards compared to C/C++. Maybe one day it will be shitty and obsolete, and at the very least it will become a boring standard option, but for now...
There have been "improvements" but fundamentally in my perspective, these "improvements" could be revealed to be a mistake down the line.
Assembly has produced some insane pieces of software that couldn't be produced like that with anything else.
Maybe types in programming languages are bad because they are kinda misleading as the computer doesn't even give a shit about what is data and what is code.
Maybe big projects are just a bad idea in software development and any kind of dependency management is the wrong way.
I like modern languages, types and libraries are nice to have, but I am not the student of the future but of the past.
That's a valid argument, but a very weak one. If we are not completely sure something is an improvement in all aspects are we just to dismiss it altogether?
Yeah, you could dismiss combustion engines for the same reason, or like, carpentry. You wouldn't be wrong, they have caused problems down the line at various points (modern climate change, medieval deforestation), but you bet I'd still call them an advance on mule power, or on no carpentry.
This is pretty much an nullification of the idea of technological progress existing at all, which is a kinda hot take.
@[email protected], so you can reply in the right place.
I see your perspective and I think you kinda miss my perspective which I am to blame for.
I don't say there weren't improvements. I am saying that given the uncertainty of "goodness". Maybe we shouldn't idolize it. You can appreciate the attempt of creating memory safe code through a programing language without thinking the bare metal code should be written in that language. You can like a typeless easy to write language like Js without thinking desktop app should be written in it. You can like the idea behind functional programming while believing that any application is in the end about side effects and therefore a purely functional application impossible.
You can approach the whole topic as an area of study and possible technological advances instead of a dogma.
Oh, well I can agree with that.
It's a bit of a tangent, but if you're doing something completely deterministic and non-interactive, like computing a digit of pi, it's great in practice as well. I use Haskell semi-regularly for that kind of thing.
You could argue printing the output is a side effect, but is a side effect followed by termination really "side"?
I agree.
I think it is a side effect if it runs on a modern Os. But honestly who cares...