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The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#21

Post by jacquesm »

reacweb wrote: post #11

IMHO, the author is completely wrong and the sentence "C is the desert island language" is closer to reality (see http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/c/intro.html ). The fact that such a poor language remains the single sane choice to build the kernel of Linux is a proof of the lack of languages. C++ was already a mess in 98. Python started as simple but has added more and more complex syntaxes. Java is in the…

> there is a need for a polyvalent language that would enable development of Linux kernel (low level and performance), that would be easy to learn and that would enable quick development

That's a pretty tall order for a single language to support all those desires. But Rust seems to at least aim for that space (it doesn't check all your boxes though).

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#22

Post by frou_dh »

eecc wrote: post #14

Vendorization. For every language out there there is a consulting firm or corporation selling tooling and support. This allows business strategies aimed at market capture and monopolization. To business, you’re not a general purpose plumber, you’re just a specially trained installer of a particular brand of water boiler.

Are you saying that the original creators of languages are motivated to a large extent by the thought of distant future consulting money? Because that does not ring true at all.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#24

Post by siscia »

I don't agree.

With times languages become obsolete, so from one side they try to "upgrade" their syntax, semantic and internal, from the other side they keep backward compatibility.

Keep adding features on top of something that was not designed for those features will simply create a huge mess to work with.

And arguably the oldest languages are the one where you need to follow "best practise", where there are thousands of way to achieve the same goal, etc...

It is not bad, but we really need newer languages to move forward the field. Most of them will fail, some of them will fail while having used a great amount of resources, but some will eventually succeed and moving the field forward.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#25

Post by fouc »

How about the reverse problem?

The cost of mindshare. Everyone grouping up on a major programming language or framework. It's a bit irritating when people often choose their language or framework because of the size of the community rather than actually evaluating alternative languages or frameworks first.

Take React for example. There are some great alternatives to it, especially inspired by react but simpler & cleaner DSLs. But people just keep with React anyways because everyone is already there.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#26

Post by jondubois »

It's annoying how new languages sometimes become popular in spite of not adding any value to the development process. I think part of the problem is that new languages open up a new market which incentivises developers to create open source libraries that will become the foundation of the new ecosystem; it's a sure way to become a 'rockstar developer'; if the language succeeds, you succeed with it; the odds of success are much higher than having to compete with other libraries and frameworks within a well established ecosystem.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#27

Post by Razengan »

jacquesm wrote: post #4
michaelmrose wrote: post #3

"However, I hope people consider carefully the social costs of creating a new programming language especially if it becomes popular, and understand that in some cases creating a popular new language could actually be irresponsible." Passion isn't fungible and there is zero gauruntee that the person who creates an interesting new language wouldn't have chosen to binge watch Netflix instead. Furthermore without a cryst…

> it's difficult to separate ahead of time which efforts will move us forward in some small or large ways. That's the point: most efforts do not move us forward but instead move us backwards because fewer people are working on the things that matter. It's a solid argument and it applies to far more of the open source community than just to programming languages, in fact programming languages are the smaller part of t…

> things that matter.

Very, very subjective.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#28

Post by pjc50 »

reacweb wrote: post #11

IMHO, the author is completely wrong and the sentence "C is the desert island language" is closer to reality (see http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/c/intro.html ). The fact that such a poor language remains the single sane choice to build the kernel of Linux is a proof of the lack of languages. C++ was already a mess in 98. Python started as simple but has added more and more complex syntaxes. Java is in the…

Dynamic typing and garbage collection go directly against the "low level and performant" goals. You can avoid GC with clever lifetime rules (Rust) but that loses "easy to learn".

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#29

Post by jondubois »

fouc wrote: post #25

How about the reverse problem? The cost of mindshare. Everyone grouping up on a major programming language or framework. It's a bit irritating when people often choose their language or framework because of the size of the community rather than actually evaluating alternative languages or frameworks first. Take React for example. There are some great alternatives to it, especially inspired by react but simpler & clea…

That's true but the learning curve difference between React and VueJS isn't anywhere near as significant as the learning curve difference between JavaScript and Elixir for example. Programming languages have a lot of nuances and patterns of use which can take years to fully absorb. Angular, VueJS and React share many similar patterns and best-practices.

Re: The Costs of Programming Language Fragmentation

#30

Post by ttty »

fouc wrote: post #25

How about the reverse problem? The cost of mindshare. Everyone grouping up on a major programming language or framework. It's a bit irritating when people often choose their language or framework because of the size of the community rather than actually evaluating alternative languages or frameworks first. Take React for example. There are some great alternatives to it, especially inspired by react but simpler & clea…

I used react for 4 years. I don't see the point in using something that is 10% different.

Then you need to hire engineers, most of them know more react than an obscure library.

React has lower chance to be discontinued.

React works well. I rather focus on building new products than changing tech. Of course during the jQuery time I hated it all the time and I was looking for alternatives, but react is exactly how I think about UI: components (html, CSS, js all in one file) and not templates.

I'm pretty efficient at react and I can't justify using something else.

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