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

erikbern.com

91–100 of 193 posts

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

#91
The Python/Ruby axis are interesting. You've got over twice as many Python to Erlang posts out there...and a fraction of the Python to Elixir's. Ruby has the opposite. A bunch of Ruby to Elixir and very few Ruby to Erlangs.

I wonder why that is?

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

#92
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Checkout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox_(operating_system)

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

#93

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…

> when it at best only represents the future popularity of a language among those who constantly switch their languages.

This is literally in the title

>The eigenvector of "Why we moved from language X to language Y"

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

#94
post #34

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…

I wonder if the data could be normalized against usage statistics somehow. Maybe not perfectly effectively, but at least better than as-is, precisely because the number of people "switching" is so much smaller than the number using a given language.

It would be interesting if the results could be controlled for time. Age of the language, year to year switch rates, etc.

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

#95
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I very much doubt that. Buffer overflows simply wouldn't happen in most languages, and those are the majority of the vulnerabilities we see.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Why can't the C bits be replaced with e.g. Rust?

Good Luck with your precious Rust to be compatible with your client's millions of lines of code. For larger, and legacy project, maintainability and continuity is the overwhelmingly top priority, being flashy is the least of their concern.

Writing Rust off as flashy is demeaning to the excellent work that has been going on in the Rust ecosystem to specifically address the area you mention with a safe language alternative.

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

#97
10000 vocal webdevs make a blogpost about moving from Node/Python/Ruby to Go because their app is slow as shit and the JVM isn't trendy enough for them. Also I wonder if I'm reading this correctly but are there actually people moving from Cassandra/DynamoDB to Mongo??

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

#98
post #73
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem isn't technical rather political. If you want to fix UNIX security issues related to C, first you need to convince kernel developers across all UNIX variants to move away from C. Then even a fully modernized UNIX kernel needs to provide support to unsafe POSIX APIs.

As we all know, Windows is totally secure, GUIs are awesome and the Burroughs architecture is unique.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And when it grows up, it becomes the toad that is C++? I'm not sure I get your analogy. Besides, Real Programmers™ eat mutable state and NULL for breakfast.

NULL is just macro for Cheerios...
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