Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
blog.deckc.hair
Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
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Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#2Remember when programming languages were free?
When your compiler/editor didn't call back to some corporation every time you compiled code?
When our package managers weren't linked to data aggregators watching our every move?
When we used free tools to build free software.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#3Terrible arguments.
Golang and Android Studio are both open source, and you could compile them yourself. Telemetry can be turned off in Android Studio, and you can use stuff like flatpaks to isolate the software from your system, and completely turn off networking permissions if you don't trust the settings.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#4Remember when programming languages were free? When your compiler/editor didn't call back to some corporation every time you compiled code? When our package managers weren't linked to data aggregators watching our every move? When we used free tools to build free software.
Hmmm... back in the day there were IBM PL/I, Microsoft BASIC, Borland's Turbo Pascal, ...
Post 1990 or so the FSF came out with gcc, gcl, etc. Since then there are free languages like Python and PHP. However, many open source projects are "corporate dominated" for better or worse. LLVM would not be the quality framework it is if Apple hadn't invested in it. Linux got SMP scalability thanks to IBM. No Google, No V8, No node.js. A language like Nim might have no corporate sponsor now but if it catches on it may very well get one.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#5Terrible arguments. Golang and Android Studio are both open source, and you could compile them yourself. Telemetry can be turned off in Android Studio, and you can use stuff like flatpaks to isolate the software from your system, and completely turn off networking permissions if you don't trust the settings.
Also, you end up with very similar questions for non-corporate languages like Nim because you don't really know who created the software, what their motives might be, and whether the binaries you are receiving are really what the source code says it is.
Reproducible builds help, but once you are going down this path of verifying instead of trusting, then it doesn't really matter who built the software.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#6Remember when programming languages were free? When your compiler/editor didn't call back to some corporation every time you compiled code? When our package managers weren't linked to data aggregators watching our every move? When we used free tools to build free software.
> When your compiler/editor didn't call back to some corporation
If you use compilers/IDEs from megacorps when there are so many great alternatives, you only have yourself to blame.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#7Remember when programming languages were free? When your compiler/editor didn't call back to some corporation every time you compiled code? When our package managers weren't linked to data aggregators watching our every move? When we used free tools to build free software.
> When our package managers weren't linked to data aggregators watching our every move?
I haven't heard of this before (other than TFA's bare question-raising). Do you have an example?
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#8Open source projects are under financed and their maintainers are overwhelmed.
I would rather read proposed solutions about that because that seems like the more important problem.
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#9Terrible arguments. Golang and Android Studio are both open source, and you could compile them yourself. Telemetry can be turned off in Android Studio, and you can use stuff like flatpaks to isolate the software from your system, and completely turn off networking permissions if you don't trust the settings.
I agree, but I do think that you have to think of the ecosystem of the language if the major cooperation steps away or dials back, maybe thinking of them more like 'dependency'. Go lived through community alone, how well will twitters projects hold up without their involvement because I imagine it's not very lean for twitter to spend time on.
I think this argument is better had for frameworks and JavaScript libs. Have caution about who you trust, especially in this new phase of everyone pivoting around AI/BI applications
Re: Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
#10I would highly recommend Odin to anyone who has looked at Zig or Nim (as the author did here). Also not corporate controlled, but used in production at several corporations.