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Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

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Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize that Python was not only built to appeal to "non-devs" ... as an alternative to C++ and Perl. And in that respect, it is a snap to pick up. It is pretty easy, not as easy as, say, Javascript, but still easy to pick up, I agree. Node.js is cancer. We all use it, because of the momentum it has with designers instantly being able to declare themselves "full-stack devs", but make no mistake -- Node.js an…

I'm surprised to see JS described as easier than Python. I'd say it's considerably harder and more complex. The first reason being that it forces you to think about asynchronosity constantly, and that's something a beginner's going to struggle with -- not just the idea that your code won't run in order, but that there are so many ways to deal with it (callbacks, promises, async/await, event emitters) all with their o…

> My dream is still a statically-typed version of Erlang

So something like Haskell?

http://learnyouahaskell.com/introduction#so-whats-haskell

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that Python was not only built to appeal to "non-devs" as well ad devs but, does, in fact, enjoy some of its strongest support from them- scientists, engineers, statisticians, etc., who do not consider themselves to be good developers. And, man, they can develop some crappy code/systems in Python too. I like Python too (as well as node,) but your characterization of node is over-broad and, imo, inaccur…

> You do realize that Python was not only built to appeal to "non-devs" ... as an alternative to C++ and Perl. And in that respect, it is a snap to pick up. It is pretty easy, not as easy as, say, Javascript, but still easy to pick up, I agree. Node.js is cancer. We all use it, because of the momentum it has with designers instantly being able to declare themselves "full-stack devs", but make no mistake -- Node.js an…

"x is cancer" is cancer. These sorts of hyperbolic generalizations lower the level of discourse. You haven't actually given any reason for your opinion.

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i'm sure i'm going to burn karma for comparing node with vb but... I'll take the hit for you and flat-out say that node.js is the new VB. In fact, for those of you that have been around a while, I think we can all agree that node.js is the new PHP was the new Visual Basic, etc. Not in the sense that they do the same things, but that they were purposely built for non-programmers (baby-devs) to be able to program (wh…

As someone who does a ton of Node/JS coding as well as some Python, I am personally offended! Ok, not really, but I think you're wrong :) I think VB is more similar to Python in the sense that both languages were designed with some sense of simplicity and straight-forwardness in mind. Both PHP and Javascript are much more complex from a language design standpoint, which makes them more difficult to learn "well" for b…

I think they differ in that PHP is copypasta and Javascript is an infinite dependency tree of third party libraries that the developer has no idea (or care) of their inner workings.

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#115

Python is the language that, once you know it, you'll never go back. It's gotten to the point where I use it to run an entire backend as well as simple terminal scripts. It's faster to write a Python script to "switch the first and third columns in a file", rather than Googling for an appropriate awk command (or spending the time to come up with one myself).

I know python fairly well, and had previously done most web development with flask or django. I had to learn JS so that I could do front end web dev, things like D3 and such for visualizations of data. I tried out a few of the frameworks that I came across for back-end web dev as well, things like Koa, knex, passport, etc - and I have to say that these days I start far more projects as JS/Node.JS projects than I do python.

I still love and use python quite often, but more in data analysis/manipulation projects with Jupyter - Node definitely doesn't have anything on python in that dept.

p.s., check out pandas if you're not already familiar with it.

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize that Python was not only built to appeal to "non-devs" ... as an alternative to C++ and Perl. And in that respect, it is a snap to pick up. It is pretty easy, not as easy as, say, Javascript, but still easy to pick up, I agree. Node.js is cancer. We all use it, because of the momentum it has with designers instantly being able to declare themselves "full-stack devs", but make no mistake -- Node.js an…

"as an alternative to C++ and Perl" Do you have a citation for that? My understanding of the timeline and Guido's writings on the subject make it seem very unlikely that C++ or Perl had any significant impact on the decision to create Python or the design of Python. Python would very likely still exist in a world without C++ or Perl, as far as I can tell. Python isn't even in the same lineage as either of those langu…

From the wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language)#...

"Over six years ago, in December 1989, I was looking for a "hobby" programming project that would keep me occupied during the week around Christmas. My office ... would be closed, but I had a home computer, and not much else on my hands. I decided to write an interpreter for the new scripting language I had been thinking about lately: a descendant of ABC that would appeal to Unix/C hackers. I chose Python as a working title for the project, being in a slightly irreverent mood (and a big fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus)."

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#117
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy did you miss something in the 90s! It was call active pages (or some bullshit, I have tried to block it from my memory) and it made Internet Explorer the king of browsers and still locks in a lot of government agencies and business from upgrading their infrastructure, because they don't want to lose or have to pay to redevelop "critical" applications to their daily work.

ActiveX? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX

I think they mean Active Server Pages, ie. classical ASP, which you could program using Visual Basic?

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#119
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy did you miss something in the 90s! It was call active pages (or some bullshit, I have tried to block it from my memory) and it made Internet Explorer the king of browsers and still locks in a lot of government agencies and business from upgrading their infrastructure, because they don't want to lose or have to pay to redevelop "critical" applications to their daily work.

ActiveX? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX

No, this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Desktop

Kind of related, it was a COM control you could stretch over your whole desktop, that received push notifications.

Also, I believe it was TOTALLY secure.

Edit: Dang it, I missed where they said "and it made ie the king of browsers." -- Yes, ActiveX

Re: Announcing Azure Command-Line Interface 2.0 Preview

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised to see JS described as easier than Python. I'd say it's considerably harder and more complex. The first reason being that it forces you to think about asynchronosity constantly, and that's something a beginner's going to struggle with -- not just the idea that your code won't run in order, but that there are so many ways to deal with it (callbacks, promises, async/await, event emitters) all with their o…

> weird invisible things that trip you up like hoisting Huh? How can you get tripped up by hoisting? I'm genuinely curious.

Any time you have a closure that captures the hoisted variable. Most often, this happens with loops. Say, someone might start with this:

  for (var i = 0; i 
Then when they realize why this doesn't work, try something like:

  for (var i = 0; i 
And then that breaks too, and it's not at all clear why.

It's not that other languages don't have similar limitations - Python also doesn't have block-local variables, for example. The problem with JS is that is uses syntax that strongly implies that it does have block scope, but then quietly makes it do something unexpected when you try.

Ironically, the only other language that I know of that has the same exact problem is VB (pre-.NET one) - its "Dim" statement can similarly be used anywhere inside a function, including inside loops and other block constructs, but the scope is always the entire function.

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