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Thank You, Guido

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Re: Thank You, Guido

#291

Post by Marazan »

alanfranz wrote: post #98
3pt14159 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to long for a stack that doesn't constantly change. Just set the features and that's it. Security updates only after that. It feels like a constant grind keeping up with everything. Containers, clouds, programming languages, operating systems, frontend frameworks, transfer protocols, it seems like it takes so much effort to just build something and keep it going. That Python 2 is still around doesn't rea…

Honestly: the Java environment is exceedingly good at that. Backwards incompatible changes are truly minimal, and only those that are strictly necessary are added. And since Java 8 the language is pretty nice and offers good functional idioms. Of course, major versions of libraries still change. But there's no match with the JS approach.

Except, you know, fundamental stuff like how many cores does the JRE think it is running on.

The dance over that as we've gone from 8 to 9 to 10 to 11 is mind boggling.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#292

Post by hinkley »

Grue3 wrote: post #108
skellera wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d think it would be common sense when writing something that other people will read. We don’t see people writing books in acronyms or omitting words. How come so many people try to use code to show how smart they are?

We don't use code to show how smart we are. We just assume that other developers are as smart as we are. >We don’t see people writing books in acronyms or omitting words. Math books written for mathematicians do this all the time.

Oh, I’ve definitely worked with people who really enjoy being clever.

And telling them their cleverness is hurting other people can be traumatic, for one or both parties.

I like being clever too. I’ve just sublimated that into more beneficial things like human factors.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#293

Post by dragonwriter »

nine_k wrote: post #131
jrs95 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside is that also means a lot of the core APIs are a huge pain in the ass to work with, especially relative to something like Python, and the “solution” to this problem ends up being something like Spring which has to use so much reflection and metaprogramming to accomplish what it does that it also relies heavily on exceptions for control flow. So without even getting into the other issues, debugging becomes…

Either you have a stable platform, and it reflects the state of the art form the year of its inception, or you have a platform that keeps on improving, but this means you need to change your code along with it, to keep up with the improvements. You can't have it both ways, OTOH current JVM can still correctly run bytecode compiled by Java 1.0.1 (or maybe even earlier), so the backwards compatibility is indeed excelle…

> Either you have a stable platform, and it reflects the state of the art form the year of its inception, or you have a platform that keeps on improving, but this means you need to change your code along with it, to keep up with the improvements.

> You can't have it both ways,

You can have a continuously improving platform with full backward compatibility, and all the improvements that aren't just efficiency of established operations are opt-in.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#294

Post by xtracto »

ohduran wrote: post #22

I hated C++ and Matlab as an undergraduate. Hell, I hated programming as a whole - and effectively swear never to write a line of code once I was done with my BSc in Physics. Then, at work, I was introduced to Python. It was so...obvious, for lack of a better world. It was like a language I always knew that never spoke before. I'm now a software engineer, write Python almost all day, and looking back to the 18-year o…

Interesting. I myself come form an Software Engineering background, and started programming very young in Logo (a LISP derivate), then BASIC, C, C++, Java, Ruby and a bunch of others. I have hated programming in Python every time I have had to do it (several times through my career). It I think the only language that I have really hated ... the language itself. I've done Z80 and 8086 assembly, I've done Prolog, I've done Pascal, VB, VB.net, C#, R, Matlab, JavaScript, ActionScript and even Z (formal language) but no other language has made me swear at it haha.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#295

Post by alanfranz »

vvillena wrote: post #242
alanfranz wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly: the Java environment is exceedingly good at that. Backwards incompatible changes are truly minimal, and only those that are strictly necessary are added. And since Java 8 the language is pretty nice and offers good functional idioms. Of course, major versions of libraries still change. But there's no match with the JS approach.

Not really. The newer open versions still don't match Oracle JDK 8. Wanna bundle a JVM with your app so your users don't have to worry about the Java runtime? Well, you can't do that anymore. Wanna use JavaFX? You have to jump to Java 11 and hope your dependencies don't fail with module packaging errors. Do you use Scala? GLHF. Standing still in the Java ecosystem is fine. Keeping on with the advances is painful and…

> The newer open versions still don't match Oracle JDK 8.

Oracle JDK 8 contained some small parts that were proprietary. And they mostly had the proper package name. You took the risk.

> Wanna bundle a JVM with your app so your users don't have to worry about the Java runtime? Well, you can't do that anymore.

You mean, bundling a JVM exactly like all JetBrains IDEs currently do?

> Wanna use JavaFX? You have to jump to Java 11 and hope your dependencies don't fail with module packaging errors.

JavaFX is a bit of a strange thing, and yes, it can be painful. And some modules struggle with the new module system. The module system is a breaking change, and in fact it took quite a while.

> Scala

That's a problem with the Scala compiler AFAIK, not with Java.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#296

Post by hinkley »

rurp wrote: post #168
Grue3 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't use code to show how smart we are. We just assume that other developers are as smart as we are. >We don’t see people writing books in acronyms or omitting words. Math books written for mathematicians do this all the time.

I didn't take the comment to mean that other developers can't understand clever code, rather that writing overly clever code just isn't the best approach when a more plain solution will do. Writing code that takes another developer an hour to read through and understand wastes a lot of time compared to code that can be read and understood at a glance.

This is most important when scanning code.

When I’m trying to add functionality of fix a bug, I’m going to read dozens and dozens of functions to winnow down to a handful of candidates.

Simple code can be filtered quickly and cheaply. Clever code requires contemplation. Which clears working memory.

Yes, I can understand your code. But I shouldn’t have to work for it.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#297

Post by xtracto »

jsshah wrote: post #199

Someone who worked at Dropbox shared an anecdote. Guido received an email from some recruiter along the line "You seem to have great experience in Python. How many years of experience you have with Python?" To which he replied "All of it!". I am not sure if it is true story.

Haha, reminded me of a time when I had just quit from a company as head of engineering, and a couple of weeks later a new Jr. recruiter for said company sent me one of those generic emails telling me that she liked my LinkedIn profile, and how she would love to talk to me about an open developer position at the company.

I chuckled and forwarded the email to the then head of HR and CEO. I am good friends with both, and I knew they will take it with humor.

It is difficult to find good recruiters.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#298

Post by marktangotango »

hinkley wrote: post #282
skellera wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d think it would be common sense when writing something that other people will read. We don’t see people writing books in acronyms or omitting words. How come so many people try to use code to show how smart they are?

I’ve ratcheted this up a notch with jr devs. When are you having fun reading someone else’s code? You’re usually there trying to solve a problem. Your plans for the day have gotten away from you. You may even be having a Bad Day. And this is at least doubly true for failing tests. Take pity on the person.

I've also begun to stress this in code reviews and mentoring interaction but the question is; how to present this idea in a way that "early in their career" developers (and not so early) can appreciate? Simply admonishing them about "keep it readable!" isn't effective in my experience.

An example that frequently occurrs is decomposing a large method into smaller methods. Okay, there are now more lines of code (due to adding method declarations), but what was really gained? The gain that can be had is identifying common use cases and factoring some of those methods out to utility classes that can be referenced from the same source file and others. This can be difficult to identify unless one learns to really look for these oppurtunities.

The approach I've been taking recently is presenting the idea as there's always a minimal level of abstraction, and code should try to achieve it. I'm interested to hear what others think about this.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#299

Post by RangerScience »

3pt14159 wrote: post #79
not2b wrote: post #16

Did you notice this: "He has already put into motion the conversion of the Dropbox server code from Python 2 to Python 3." Even the company that hired Guido is still heavily dependent on Python 2, and it doesn't surprise me at all; my own employer still has a lot of it in internal tools.

I'm starting to long for a stack that doesn't constantly change. Just set the features and that's it. Security updates only after that. It feels like a constant grind keeping up with everything. Containers, clouds, programming languages, operating systems, frontend frameworks, transfer protocols, it seems like it takes so much effort to just build something and keep it going. That Python 2 is still around doesn't rea…

I feel like pure Ruby meets this. I've been using Sinatra for years, it's been basically the same that entire time, and the language feels pretty stable in my usage (some nice added things, like stabby syntax and `.then`, but those are really just sugar).

Rails is so-so.

Re: Thank You, Guido

#300

Post by AnimalMuppet »

earenndil wrote: post #273
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It was done at least once" != "it was a good choice", though. There's a reason why most OSes are not written in Lisp, and it's not because the OS writers aren't smart enough to learn Lisp. It's not because they don't know it exists. It's because there are better languages to write an OS in.

I think it's pretty obviously wrong to say that a language is unpopular (for a task) because it isn't good (at that task). Otherwise no one would be using java, javascript, or c++; and lisp and haskell would be a lot better used. OSes aren't written in lisp because lisp isn't terribly popular, and subset of lisp programmers who are interested in OSes is pretty small--this is a much more interesting factor to look at…

> I think it's pretty obviously wrong to say that a language is unpopular (for a task) because it isn't good (at that task). Otherwise no one would be using java, javascript, or c++; and lisp and haskell would be a lot better used.

I think you are confusing "languages that are good" with "languages that you think should be good". I will admit that there are a fair number of programmers that are fashion-following zombies, but there are a large number who are not easily led by the crowd. If Lisp and Haskell were better suited for the bulk of real-world programming, they would be better used. (The alternative - that you're one of the enlightened few, and almost everyone else is a mindless sheep - may feel satisfying, but the very degree to which it is satisfying should make you more wary of accepting it as truth.)

> OSes aren't written in lisp because lisp isn't terribly popular, and subset of lisp programmers who are interested in OSes is pretty small--this is a much more interesting factor to look at than subset of OS programmers who are interested in lisp.

OS programmers in particular are not among those easily led by fashion. If Lisp gave them a real advantage, some of them would use it. ("Some" meaning "more than just Lisp Machines way back in the day".)

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