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Programming breakthroughs we need

yoyo-code.com

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Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#111

Post by pramodbiligiri »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

Have you tried any of the Low-Code/No-Code tools of the recent years? Do you feel they are a big leg up from Ruby when it comes to small webapps done by solo developers?

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#112

Post by the_af »

6510 wrote: post #92
the_af wrote: post #78

Everytime someone proposes a non-textual representation of code I cringe. There's a reason no one single alternative has triumphed over text. And many have been proposed! Standards are hard. Proprietary tools lock you in. Text is universal (OK, restricted to plain ASCII, which is a big deal but has already happened). You can open and modify a text file with whatever editor of your choice, the simplest possible editin…

But how do we know which part of our preference for the querty keyboard is it's efficiency and which part is not wanting to learn? If I think of non textual rep I'm getting a picture of someone trying to strike a pinata with a blind fold on where the someone is me.

Good question!

I think there's always going to be friction for old programmers used to their ways, but why then aren't new programmers more successful with their piñata alternatives to text? ;)

Alternatives have been proposed and they haven't caught on so far (for general usage, I'm not talking about specialized applications where they make sense).

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#113

Post by j_crick »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

> patterns and flows and data models and extensions

Might I suggest that you could probably try some Clojure and see how it goes.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#114

Post by samiskin »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

This all makes sense given "for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs)". Unfortunately for you most software (and therefore what most developers work with) isn't for those contexts, but rather for larger projects written by multiple devs, where being lower level and compiled (runtime speed) and having static typing (more explicit and easily understood by other devs) become much more valued.

You'll probably always be in the minority with your preferences because of this.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#115

Post by jaredcwhite »

heurisko wrote: post #105
jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

> Static typing everywhere. I think the industry has generally recognised that static typing makes more reliable software. I started with PHP and have seen its type system evolve. Similarly Typescript. I since moved to other staticly typed languages. I wouldn't want to go back.

Depends on the context. When you're programming a transactional banking system? Heck yeah I want static types.

When you're programming a form on a web page? It's way-ay-ay more effort for dubious gains, with new downsides added into the mix.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#116

Post by jaredcwhite »

pramodbiligiri wrote: post #111
jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

Have you tried any of the Low-Code/No-Code tools of the recent years? Do you feel they are a big leg up from Ruby when it comes to small webapps done by solo developers?

I can't say that I have specifically tried any, but I feel like if someone had come out with a new "the Rails for X" where X is a programming language even more abstracted than Ruby, I would have heard about it.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#117

Post by mikewarot »

the_af wrote: post #108
mikewarot wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Standards are hard. Proprietary tools lock you in. Text is universal (OK, restricted to plain ASCII, which is a big deal but has already happened). You can open and modify a text file with whatever editor of your choice, the simplest possible editing tool. Some weirdos (joking) even print source code. Ideas are impossible to specify precisely, which is why we use words, with all their myriad definitions. However, if…

Thanks for your reply! I'm not sure if this is what you're saying, but I think the AST is not meant for "human" consumption (so it'd be outside the scope of this debate, I think), but also, translations that result in alternative and radically different representations between what you see and what I see can be problematic. "I don't understand your program, it's hard to follow." "What do you mean? The yellow and blac…

>I'm not sure if this is what you're saying, but I think the AST is not meant for "human" consumption, but also, translations that result in alternative and radically different representations between what you see and what I see can be problematic.

File systems aren't meant for human consumption either, they're a practical solution to the need to store various bits of data on a disk in a coherent manner. We've made tools for representing the inodes and other structures in human readable form. We also represent them visually.

We can do the same for the AST. It doesn't have to be a dump of the structure, a tool just has to present a view that is close enough for our brains to impedance match, and we're off to the races.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#118

Post by jaredcwhite »

j_crick wrote: post #113
jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

> patterns and flows and data models and extensions Might I suggest that you could probably try some Clojure and see how it goes.

I'm sure Clojure is very exciting for Clojure fans…but afraid it's utterly inscrutable and unreadable to me.

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#119

Post by the_other »

I stopped reading at this point:

> We spend endless amounts of time bikeshedding the right syntax, indentation level, tabs vs spaces, or where to put code in the structure of files, but this all feels just pointless - these are all properties of text, but the text is just a tool to manipulate some abstract model of the program.

No we don't spend endless time doing this. We automate as much of that as possible. I haven't cared about syntax for whitespace for years (I mean, I care and I have opinions, but I almost never have to work on it).

One item from the list, which we can't automate, is a really important part of the job: "where to put code in the structure of files". This is an intrinsic part of the solution modelling. Often this is something you want to change as the project expands. What are the modules and objects of your application? What are their responsibilities? Does this new object now have responsibility for that thing over there? These are key questions to answer on a daily basis.

I agree with the complaints against boilerplate. Boilerplate can help decide where a bit of code should live, but it also gets in the way when changing that decision is the best thing to do. We don't teach or celebrate refactoring enough (at least, not in the places and projects I've worked).

Perhaps I should read more of the article...

Re: Programming breakthroughs we need

#120

Post by correlator »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #99

As a dyed-in-the-wool Rubyist, I consider Ruby the pinnacle of high-level, abstracted, expressive programming for the contexts I care about (small web applications largely written by solo devs). What's sad to me is that the modern follow-up to Ruby seemingly doesn't exist. Every hot "language du jour" which has come after Ruby has gone BACKWARDS. Lower-level, more systems programming oriented. Maybe even compiled. St…

Ruby was also the first thought in my mind reading this article.
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