Not Again [LWN.net]

Not Again

Posted Apr 17, 2012 3:14 UTC (Tue) by fest3er (guest, #60379)
In reply to: Not Again by Cyberax
Parent article: PHP: a fractal of bad design (fuzzy notepad)

>>or telling people that they can't use PHP or JavaScript because they are not TYPE SAFE I wonder what the Universities are really doing.
> Duh. They're right.

Really? When did it become socially fashionable for anyone to disparage another for her choice of programming language?

To attempt to add a bit of perspective to the issue, consider maintaining a 1700-program suite written in business basic over the past 30 years with one-letter var names, few comments, data packed every which way into ISAM files, and with data stored in the ISAM keys. In comparison, PHP is a fantastic and robust language and ECMA Script is a joy to use.

Competent programmers write efficient and stable software in the languages they are most skilled at using.

Decorum prohibits me from sharing my opinion of folks who tear down rather than build up.

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Not Again

Posted Apr 17, 2012 4:02 UTC (Tue) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

> When did it become socially fashionable for anyone to disparage another for her choice of programming language?

My first instinct was to say 1957, when FORTRAN came out; but there were probably earlier instances after assembly languages came out that people still hacking machine code were disparaged for not switching.

> Competent programmers write efficient and stable software in the languages they are most skilled at using.

I don't think so. Competent programmers know the art of picking a reasonable tool for the job; e.g. unless you really need to use something else, write Android programs in Java. Not only that, competent programmers in real life have to work with other programmers; you may be the best ML or Modula-3 hacker in the world, but if someone else has to work with you or will have to maintain it after you, those probably aren't the best languages to use.

Not Again

Posted May 25, 2012 15:46 UTC (Fri) by dashesy (subscriber, #74652) [Link]

you may be the best ML or Modula-3 hacker in the world, but if someone else has to work with you or will have to maintain it after you, those probably aren't the best languages to use.

Very very true, but same can be said about most other languages as well. C++ is more popular but some boost-like paradigms should be avoided in a not so technical company that does not get many job applicants with high level of skills (not Google so to speak).

If it is in a library that no body is going to see the source then it might be OK. I had to remove so many Functors+for_each statements recently and replace them with simple for loops, because over time they had evolved into ugly monsters passing and changing state. A simple rule of thumb (for work-place I described) is to try to avoid what a language does not provide naturally (not highlighted by IDE is a good sign); no lambdas for C++ even for skilled programmers, please just switch to C++11 if you need them.

A competent programmer who does not work in an elite workplace (Google, RedHat, ...), should think ahead, if working on the next Google, then even inventing a new functional language might be worthwhile let alone using Haskell, otherwise please keep it as simple as possible.