11–20 of 68 posts
Are there any Java developers who still haven't dabbled with dynamic languages but could still be convinced to?
I imagine that those who will already have done, and the rest will never touch any language not in the "enterprise" class (Java, C#, C++, COBOL etc.)
I never really understood the drama around switching tools. Picking the right one for the job is the first thing you should do.
From "Don't Call Yourself A Programmer..."[0] recently seen on the front page: Many asked how to know what programming language or stack to study. It doesn’t matter. There you go. That's how I feel about this post -- it doesn't matter. The points he raises -- either as complaint or as praise -- seem shallow. It's not a very sophisticated critique of anything. [0]: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yoursel…
I'm not sure if I'm alone but I spend WAY to much time in front of my computer. 8-10 hours a day working, and then I often use my laptop casually to write stuff at night in front of the TV.
There came a point several years ago where I became disgusted with Windows. Not so much Microsoft, more enterprise infrastructure teams. But the negativity flowed over to personal use. So I brought a mac for personal use, I wanted the disconnect between work and fun. Windows for me is over, I'll never have another Windows machine in my house... in fact it will mainly be appliances for me... and by that I mean Apple products.
For a long time I plugged on using mono, but I lost the drive to program it just wasn't fun anymore. I'd get 80-90% of the way through a project and just hate finishing it. As soon as the fun exploration bit was over and I had to spend time aligning pixels or whatever it just felt like work. I hated it.
By pure chance I started using python to show my unskilled friend some ideas. He could follow python without much guidance, C# confused him. Since then I've grown to enjoy programming in the evensong again. I'm not sure if its the same disconnect I needed between work/fun or what... but its working.
Especially the ability to sit with my macbook, feet up on lazy chair, half watching TV, terminal open testing bits and pieces, IDE doing the thinking for me (PyCharm gets a thumbs up from me), and a nice hassle free (and inspectable) stack. The casual nature of python just seems to click perfectly with my mood in the evenings.
So theres my advice for languages, separate work and fun. Don't use the same stack for enjoyment as you do for stress endeavors.
Seems like it would be a huge opportunity for people to start creating these science Ruby gems. Not my field, personally...
The fundamental issue I believe they all had is lack of community. There is a quite large community of folks using Python for scientific computing. Many are not professional developers but rather scientists / engineers who aren't as open to jumping around to different languages as a developer would be.
These issues combined with the fact that Ruby is mostly pigeon-holed as a web only language would make replicating the community that the NumPy/SciPy/matplotlib stack enjoys almost impossible.
It also doesn't help that such capability have to be implemented as C extensions due to performance requirements. This greatly limits the number of developers that would/could work on such a project.
Seems like it would be a huge opportunity for people to start creating these science Ruby gems. Not my field, personally...
It's been tried before. mum, Numerical Ruby and SciRuby were all attempts. The fundamental issue I believe they all had is lack of community. There is a quite large community of folks using Python for scientific computing. Many are not professional developers but rather scientists / engineers who aren't as open to jumping around to different languages as a developer would be. These issues combined with the fact that…
Ruby performance in general is getting much better and when C extensions are necessary (as they often are in any high level language) libraries like ruby-ffi have taken a lot of the pain out of that process.
Seems like it would be a huge opportunity for people to start creating these science Ruby gems. Not my field, personally...
The follow up http://wit.io/posts/the-ugliness-of-python is in my opinion, more interesting. I always find it funny how different people think different languages are ugly.
Yeah, I have the opposite reaction. I think python is very elegant, and I really appreciate it's "one and only one way" philosophy, as opposed to ruby's "you are a special snowflake" approach. It really can be just a matter of preference, though. Python and Ruby are so, so, so similar, that ultimately I find flamewars between them to be tiring at best.
The follow up http://wit.io/posts/the-ugliness-of-python is in my opinion, more interesting. I always find it funny how different people think different languages are ugly.
Yeah, I have the opposite reaction. I think python is very elegant, and I really appreciate it's "one and only one way" philosophy, as opposed to ruby's "you are a special snowflake" approach. It really can be just a matter of preference, though. Python and Ruby are so, so, so similar, that ultimately I find flamewars between them to be tiring at best.
Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1947723 OP appears to have changed domains.
For a more thoughtful comparison, feel free to check out my followup posts.
The follow up http://wit.io/posts/the-ugliness-of-python is in my opinion, more interesting. I always find it funny how different people think different languages are ugly.
Yeah, I have the opposite reaction. I think python is very elegant, and I really appreciate it's "one and only one way" philosophy, as opposed to ruby's "you are a special snowflake" approach. It really can be just a matter of preference, though. Python and Ruby are so, so, so similar, that ultimately I find flamewars between them to be tiring at best.