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What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

damienkatz.net

1–10 of 105 posts

Re: What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

#2
Programming discussions would be much better if everyone could be this critical of their favourite programming languages.

There are languages everyone is happy for you to criticize online. Then there are a small few that cause people to lose their shit when you offer a critique. It's really sad - you really shouldn't be so personally invested in a tool you didn't write.

Re: What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

#3

Programming discussions would be much better if everyone could be this critical of their favourite programming languages. There are languages everyone is happy for you to criticize online. Then there are a small few that cause people to lose their shit when you offer a critique. It's really sad - you really shouldn't be so personally invested in a tool you didn't write.

Every language has its flaws, and experts know their language's ones and work around them. Unfortunately sometimes in doing so they forget that their methods of skirting around problems are workarounds and instead call people out for trying to do something "the wrong way".

Re: What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

#5
post #4

That is why I love elixir, the power of erlang with a better syntax. Of course elixir is not perfect, but it is really good at making erlang better.

I would amplify this by pointing out that Elixir was not even a gleam in anybody's eye when Damien wrote this criticism.

That said, I would say most everything that Damien says here and is not already labeled as fixed remains an issue as written. Erlang is an exceeding conservative language community, from its telecommunications heritage, and its syntax has hardly budged from when it was first written.

Re: What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

#7
post #6

Erlang's statement separators seem to me more like English. I don't hear a lot of complaints about commas, semicolons, and periods in English and I don't find it an issue in Erlang.

People fuck up commas and semicolons basically constantly in English.

Re: What Sucks About Erlang (2008)

#8

Programming discussions would be much better if everyone could be this critical of their favourite programming languages. There are languages everyone is happy for you to criticize online. Then there are a small few that cause people to lose their shit when you offer a critique. It's really sad - you really shouldn't be so personally invested in a tool you didn't write.

'You can divide programming languages into two groups - those that people complain about, and those that nobody uses'
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