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Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

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Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#461

Post by tmaly »

collyw wrote: post #459
singingfish wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that django/sqlalchemy and catalyst/dbix::class are equivalent. The former being better at keeping managers happy, the latter at keeping the right kind of programmers happy ( due to the superior flexibility).

I did try Catalyst but being Perl and "more than one way to do it" caused me a lot of confusion (you could replace the template engine, the ORM and other parts to the point where I didn't know what the framework actually was). Django was a bit more beginner friendly for someone new to a framework, and the documentation is really good. And the Django admin is one of the best ways to get something up and running quickl…

Mojolicious is a really nice alternative to Catalyst.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#463

Post by davexunit »

dmux wrote: post #288
davexunit wrote: post #283

Scheme. When I write code in my free time it's always Scheme. I use it for web programming, game programming, systems programming, command line scripts, my package manager is written in it, my init system is written in it, etc. etc. etc.

Any specific implementation?

As someone else has already said, GNU Guile. But here's a handy link to the home page:

https://gnu.org/s/guile

And here's the package manager:

https://gnu.org/s/guix

And here's the init system:

https://gnu.org/s/shepherd

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#464

Post by vram22 »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #388
vram22 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can it integrate with Unix command-line filters and tools roughly as well as shell can? Interested.

Uh.... yes. At least Tcl can; I haven't used expect in years. The subject is "tcl pipes".

Did a search for that subject:

https://www.google.com/search?q=tcl+pipes

and this second result was interesting:

http://wiki.tcl.tk/17419

It compares doing the same task (getting a part of a string from the last line of a text file) in Tcl and Python. Seems to conclude that some things are easier in Tcl and some in Python (based on a quick read).

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#465

Post by dx034 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #249
danso wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still teach SQL, via SQLite, as a first language to students, even though in practice I do 90% of my data analysis through the command line or Pandas. But SQL is very direct and clear as a language, and the overhead of SQLite is...well, light. Making an index is just one more line of code that for many datasets, you run once and never touch again. What do you find simpler in terms of data querying and management?

The functionality of SQL is great but I really wish it would like more look like other programming languages. I wonder how SQL would look like if someone would design it now. It also should integrate easier with other languages. Using SQL from C# or C++ is a real pain with tons of casts and string manipulation. Better debugging would also be nice.

I found that SQL is actually an excellent language for people with no coding background. Especially in the BI field it's easy to teach people SQL so that they can perform their own (often quite powerful) queries. It's much easier than learning a proper programming language.

A re-design might be nice for programmers, but would likely lock out most people with no programming backgrounds who work on databases.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#466

Post by gurkendoktor »

pohl wrote: post #55
_vya7 wrote: post #20

Writing a brand new Mac app for myself, using Objective-C instead of Swift. So far it's a breeze. Yes I used Swift for a while, and it sure feels all academic and all, but meh, ObjC gets the job done just fine for me.

Objective C will always have room in my heart, but I'll never go back to it. There's too much .h ceremony.

I actually enjoy having separate files for interface and implementation. It's a pain in C++ where you have to put your implementation details (instance variables) in the header, but in ObjC, headers are pretty clean.

I've noticed that my Java-based coworkers often create well-documented interfaces with only a single implementation. They claim to do it for testability, but Mockito can deal with concrete classes as well - I suspect that they secretly enjoy looking at 10 lines of code that describe what a class does :)

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#467

Post by gurkendoktor »

_vya7 wrote: post #20

Writing a brand new Mac app for myself, using Objective-C instead of Swift. So far it's a breeze. Yes I used Swift for a while, and it sure feels all academic and all, but meh, ObjC gets the job done just fine for me.

I love ObjC, it's the epitome of pragmatism. Fantastic compatibility with C/C++, malleable enough for GUI glue, wonderful libraries (I love NSCalendar & friends).

My clients still accept ObjC for new projects, and they'd be crazy not to, considering how much the Swift 3 migration has cost early adopters.

Given my current pessimism about Apple technologies, I think I'll just milk my ObjC skills until everyone goes Swift-only and then look for work in a portable programming environment.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#468

Post by kls »

shaftway wrote: post #321
marcosdumay wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to imagine how it's to live in a company that has no database. But I do take issue with that: > It isn't you I hate SQL, it's what I have to think about when I use you. Do you live at the fringe of performance like that? Nobody spends much time thinking about those things, and the few times that require thinking about them would require thinking about much more complicated things if you weren't using a database.

It's not so much existing at the fringe of performance, but there have been weeks of my life lost to needing to tune a query or an index. Sure, some of that time is actually building the index I just added. But I don't want to have to figure out a query plan. If I'm building a simple CRUD app, then I don't need the complexity that SQL provides. If I'm building something bigger, then I probably need to think about the…

MSSQL has one:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176005(v=sql.1...

Postgres has explain and some third parties make query tuners.

Oracle has a host of third party tunes, Solar Winds being the first that comes to mind.

I don't know if any of these can do it off a proposed schema but you could create a dummy database and your insert/read routines run a script against it to simulate transactions and run the capture on these tools and they will explain the recommended adjustments. Some of them like MMSQL query tuner will export a script that can make the adjustments.

The biggest thing for DB performance for most CRUD applications is to ensure you eliminate table spools on joins. If you find all of those you are ahead of the game in most instances.

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#469

Post by blurbleblurble »

raboukhalil wrote: post #407
blurbleblurble wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book starts with: "Following the 2008 US elections, all eyes turned to Nate Silver... " And goes on from there ;)

Haha I may need to update the intro to reflect more recent events.

Yeah I wasn't being critical dunno why people are down voting. I thought it was funny and interesting!

Re: Ask HN: What “old” programming languages will you still be using in 2017?

#470

Post by maxxxxx »

dx034 wrote: post #465
maxxxxx wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The functionality of SQL is great but I really wish it would like more look like other programming languages. I wonder how SQL would look like if someone would design it now. It also should integrate easier with other languages. Using SQL from C# or C++ is a real pain with tons of casts and string manipulation. Better debugging would also be nice.

I found that SQL is actually an excellent language for people with no coding background. Especially in the BI field it's easy to teach people SQL so that they can perform their own (often quite powerful) queries. It's much easier than learning a proper programming language. A re-design might be nice for programmers, but would likely lock out most people with no programming backgrounds who work on databases.

Maybe simple queries like "Select where" are intuitive for non-programmers but once you start joining tables things get pretty ugly. Also, the syntax for UPDATE is totally different from INSERT although they do similar things. Why does UPDATE use key value pairs but INSERT uses list of column names followed by list of values?

Since Javascript is the best programming language ever (so I hear :-) ) maybe using Javascript syntax and objects would be nice.

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