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The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

erikbern.com

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Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#81

Post by hasenj »

The_suffocated wrote: post #29

The research methodology in this blog post is fundamentally flawed. The author only counts how many people move from X to Y, but he doesn't count how many of them do not move at all. The whole diagonal of his (sample) transition matrix are actually missing values, but he treats them as zeroes. This greatly distorts the equilibrium distribution. As a result, he misinterprets each equilibrium probability as the "future…

This is similar to people measuring popularity of a library or language by stackoverflow question counts.

Sure, you can't get a lot of questions for an obscure library that on one uses, but the mere fact that tons of people post questions about it doesn't mean it's good or popular. It might mean lots of beginners want to use it because it's been marketed and hyped as easy to use. (Angular comes to mind).

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#82

Post by sirbranedamuj »

hasenj wrote: post #81
The_suffocated wrote: post #29

The research methodology in this blog post is fundamentally flawed. The author only counts how many people move from X to Y, but he doesn't count how many of them do not move at all. The whole diagonal of his (sample) transition matrix are actually missing values, but he treats them as zeroes. This greatly distorts the equilibrium distribution. As a result, he misinterprets each equilibrium probability as the "future…

This is similar to people measuring popularity of a library or language by stackoverflow question counts. Sure, you can't get a lot of questions for an obscure library that on one uses, but the mere fact that tons of people post questions about it doesn't mean it's good or popular. It might mean lots of beginners want to use it because it's been marketed and hyped as easy to use. (Angular comes to mind).

It might also mean that it's confusing and poorly designed, leading many, many of its users to ask questions about it.

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#83

Post by hasenj »

sirbranedamuj wrote: post #82
hasenj wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is similar to people measuring popularity of a library or language by stackoverflow question counts. Sure, you can't get a lot of questions for an obscure library that on one uses, but the mere fact that tons of people post questions about it doesn't mean it's good or popular. It might mean lots of beginners want to use it because it's been marketed and hyped as easy to use. (Angular comes to mind).

It might also mean that it's confusing and poorly designed, leading many, many of its users to ask questions about it.

Exactly! (That's what I intended to say but I just realized that I didn't emphasize the point).

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#84

Post by bluejekyll »

w8rbt wrote: post #75

I love golang, but I hate trying to search HN articles for the word go... I need a find go but not ago search button in FireFox ;) grep go | grep -v ago

I can't tell you the number of times that I've searched for Rust and get back results about protecting your old favorite car. And project names like corrode don't help narrow the search, it in fact raises the error rate.

It's funny, there was this company Yahoo! that was trying to organize the internet to try and fix this...

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#85

Post by jrobn »

voidlogic wrote: post #76
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly getting rid of C means getting rid of UNIX, as they are symbiotic and UNIX vendors will surely never rewrite them in anything else or replace POSiX standard.

Maybe, I think it would be possible to take a BSD or Linux (tech not a UNIX) and port the kernel space to Rust and user space to Go? Not all UNIXs are closed source.

Might as well write it from scratch without POSIX and all the lessons we've learned since then.

I think rust opens the door to designing kernels that are small and tight with most of the OS stuff that was traditionally in kernel space moved into user space.

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#86

Post by bluejekyll »

rjbwork wrote: post #60

Highly skeptical of so many people migrating from C# to C, or python to Matlab, to give a couple of examples. This seems like a highly flawed methodology from many perspectives, as pointed out in comments.

Or Rust to COBOL? I had the same thought.

Then reading more I realized the results included things like optimizing certain portions of programs into a language for hot areas of code. Though the Rust to COBOL one I should go read. That's nuts.

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#87

Post by JustSomeNobody »

rjbwork wrote: post #60

Highly skeptical of so many people migrating from C# to C, or python to Matlab, to give a couple of examples. This seems like a highly flawed methodology from many perspectives, as pointed out in comments.

Indeed. C# devs tend to go full in on Microsoft and Microsoft isn't about C these days.

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#88

Post by JustSomeNobody »

tray5 wrote: post #4

Well the fact that C is going so strong guarantees we'll be dealing with easily preventable bugs for the next 100 years

All software has bugs. Any half arsed developer can create a lot of them in any language. C alone doesn't guarantee anything. Heck maybe there's fewer because C devs don't get lulled into thinking the language has their back?

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#89

Post by bluejekyll »

rocqua wrote: post #54
pjmlp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly getting rid of C means getting rid of UNIX, as they are symbiotic and UNIX vendors will surely never rewrite them in anything else or replace POSiX standard.

C and say, rust or c++ can interface. You don't need to rewrite, just stop writing extra stuff in C, maybe when you do a really big refactor in C, port it. In the end, we can migrate away from C gradually. That makes me wonder, is there any chance in hell we get some RUST in the Linux source code?

One issue that would make Rust more likely in Linux would be a GCC toolchain for Rust. I personally don't want to see fragmented development of the language, though. Perhaps a backend for MIR for GCC could be done?

But, Linus et al still love C...

Re: The eigenvector of “Why we moved from language X to language Y”

#90

Post by JustSomeNobody »

lmm wrote: post #59
peterwwillis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C is a tadpole in the ocean of easily preventable bugs.

Then why do we see a major internet security bug that would be simply impossible in any other language every couple of months?

Because the vast amount of C code running the internet. That's all. Rewrite everything in and you'd see just as many security vulnerabilities.
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