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Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

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Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#461

Post by lubutu »

batista wrote: post #397
spacemanaki wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn't true anyway, since anonymous inner classes are just very verbose and awkward lambdas. (I'm a Java hater but I'm also a horrible pedant)

Horrible as in "no good" pedant? Because, no "anonymous inner classes" are no lambdas. They are, well, classes kludgily used to mimic a lambda proper.

What it is to be 'a lambda' isn't particularly well-defined. If we define it to mean an anonymous closure then Java certainly has them — so long as its free variables are final (it closes over references). On the other hand, if we define it as the operator which creates anonymous closures, then Java doesn't, because you have to actually build the closure by hand.

Since the former have a proper name (closures) and the latter doesn't, I'd be inclined to call only the operator a 'lambda'. But since you can at least 'approximate' closures in Java (with anonymous inner classes), I think it's fair to say that they are "very verbose and awkward lambdas", to some definition of lambda.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#462

Post by skrebbel »

soc88 wrote: post #454
skrebbel wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legacy code is a problem in every language. Whether the language evolves, or just the common insights of how to use it best. In fact, C# deals excellently with legacy code. While, unlike the JVM, .NET is not binary backward compatible (allowing some excellent language improvements that Java still has not managed to pull off), it is nearly (but not entirely) source code backward compatible. Sure, this allows to old co…

I don't understand the points about Scala here. Scala has pretty much the same strategy as C#. In fact, the "big breakage" in Scala everyone loves to cite was the addition of better collections. Just like C# did in 2.0 and now finally drops the old non-generic ones with WinRT/Metro. The reason it gets so much flack is that Java developers want _binary compatibility_, because that's what they are accustomed to and Sca…

Hm, hm. I guess you're right. Or, at least, I can't find any proof that you're not, so you get my benefit of the doubt :-)

I take the part on Scala back.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#463

Post by bmelton »

polshaw wrote: post #458
simonsarris wrote: post #16

C# really feels like the most mature language that I've ever dealt with. Writing it feels clear, if something is wrong the debugger is very clear. The number of features that are there is incredible (especially post C# 2.0 when they added generics). Properties are delightful. How do you convert to a string? Convert.ToString(). How about an integer? Knowing only that one, it's what you'd expect! I also picked JavaScri…

I hate to hijack this comment, but this topic really highlights an issue with the HN comments. It is now virtually impossible to have any broader discussion since this thread filled the page. A topic that is massively more broad than discussion about C#.

I've only been here a few years, but how and why is this new?

If you're implying that it has to do with the lack of visible scores, I'd point out that I think that the comments are still ordered by score, even if they aren't necessarily displayed.

If it's just because of the sheer number of comments attached to the C# specific parent, I can't remember a time when a really popular comment didn't take up a larger share of space as more comments logically take up more space.

I mean, there was the pre-pagination era, where you could just keep scrolling down, but that was also the era of HN crashing all too frequently.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#464

Post by skrebbel »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #277
mquander wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C# programmer for a couple years, and I think C# is OK (it's definitely way ahead of Java or C++) but I've definitely got a big list of things I don't like about it. The top of it reads: - Events and properties aren't first-class, which is lame. I can't even easily get the "get" or "set" method of a property without either using reflection or making a wrapper lambda. - No syntax sugar for tuples. - No syntax sugar fo…

Your list basically boils down to "C# isn't ". Which is fair of course, but most of your list wouldn't really make sense in C#.

That's just not true.

All the suggestions on the list make sense, and many like them have been added over teh past few years. To me it seems that all of them except the 'reference types that are not nullable' one could be easily added without breaking backward compatibility.

In fact, I wouldn't be amazed if a C# 6 has sugar for tuples and destructuring assignments and the likes. It matches the language well (already got a type-inferencing compiler, already on the road to incorporating increasingly many functional programming ideas).

And, well, in code you can already say

    var george = new Person();
But in property and field definitions, you still have to say

    Person george = new Person();
How is allowing "var" there a turning "C# into a different language"? Nearly the entire list the GP mentions are fixes on this level of complexity.

The only reason I see for not doing things like this is to avoid becoming the next C++, in which there's just too many features and things to understand.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#465

Post by aswanson »

simonsarris wrote: post #16

C# really feels like the most mature language that I've ever dealt with. Writing it feels clear, if something is wrong the debugger is very clear. The number of features that are there is incredible (especially post C# 2.0 when they added generics). Properties are delightful. How do you convert to a string? Convert.ToString(). How about an integer? Knowing only that one, it's what you'd expect! I also picked JavaScri…

I have to agree with this. If only ruby or python had such a powerful development environment (sigh). There's simply nothing in the open source community that rivals the beautiful, simple power of that IDE and language combination. Tools matter when you're trying to ship code.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#466

Post by gjulianm »

mquander wrote: post #229
hackinthebochs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agree with you on C#. It feels like this is what a standard, mature, widespread language should be. There are other languages that are better for specific tasks, but for the general programming language, C# really hits the sweet spot in terms of features, expressability, readability, and environment. This is the language that Java should have been--could have been. Also, I dread getting asked on my next in…

C# programmer for a couple years, and I think C# is OK (it's definitely way ahead of Java or C++) but I've definitely got a big list of things I don't like about it. The top of it reads: - Events and properties aren't first-class, which is lame. I can't even easily get the "get" or "set" method of a property without either using reflection or making a wrapper lambda. - No syntax sugar for tuples. - No syntax sugar fo…

I don't know if I misunderstanding you, but you can indeed specify class Something where T : new Check this out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d5x73970.aspx

And about numerical types, I agree that would be great to have a base class "Number" for double, int, etc. But meanwhile you can use this trick: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3329576/generic-constrain...

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#467

Post by skrebbel »

dos1 wrote: post #333
mattmanser wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen, I almost totally jumped ship when MVC was a 'new' thing, if they hadn't brought out ASP.Net MVC when they did I would have left. The only thing I hate about C# is the 'magic' they keep trying introducing to the frameworks. ASP.Net was bloody awful but if you haven't checked out MVC 4, this is truly WTF were you thinking MS: http://www.asp.net/web-api/overview/getting-started-with-asp... GetAllProducts magically…

Sorry, wait - how is this different than the RoR magic. Where you can do stuff like MyObject.findByArbitraryProperty and it just works? That's PFM if you ask me. Django, RoR, and Node all have lots of magic bits. You don't have to use any of the magic, which also goes for MVC. (I do agree with you though - just because other frameworks have magic bits doesn't mean I like it in MVC. I would also prefer it not be there…

It doesn't fit the language and the environment.

ASP.NET MVC is way too much of a RoR clone than is good for them. C# programmers aren't used to magic: they're used to compilers telling them about typos. Convention over configuration is nice, but it's essentially the concept of dynamic typing translated to frameworks. It fits badly in a statically typed language.

I'd have much preferred ASP.NET MVC to have less magic and, for instance, decent, controllable, IDE-supported and compiler-guarded routing.

Example: in an action method, parameter names are mapped to URL parameters. This is horrible, I should be able to change the parameter name in any method without calling code being affected. Or, when this is not the case (e.g. when C# 4's named arguments feature is used in calling code), I want a compiler error saying that calling code can't find the parameter anymore.

In ASP.NET MVC, I get neither of those things. I might have as well gone Ruby all the way, then.

In short, it's brittle.

Compiled languages have pros and cons, but if you're compiling anyway, please use all the pros to the max. APS.NET MVC doesn't, and that's a shame.

It's still a nice enough framework, but it screams "missed opportunity", much like all those Java libraries that were ported over to C# back when .NET was new.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#468

Post by petepete »

aswanson wrote: post #465
simonsarris wrote: post #16

C# really feels like the most mature language that I've ever dealt with. Writing it feels clear, if something is wrong the debugger is very clear. The number of features that are there is incredible (especially post C# 2.0 when they added generics). Properties are delightful. How do you convert to a string? Convert.ToString(). How about an integer? Knowing only that one, it's what you'd expect! I also picked JavaScri…

I have to agree with this. If only ruby or python had such a powerful development environment (sigh). There's simply nothing in the open source community that rivals the beautiful, simple power of that IDE and language combination. Tools matter when you're trying to ship code.

The beauty of Ruby and Python is that you aren't restricted to an IDE in order to use them; I wouldn't enjoy using them if I was. I like to choose my own tools. This isn't quite so easy when using an all-encompassing (and platform specific) IDE like Visual Studio.

I use tmux (with tmuxinator), with windows for my editor, shell, debugger, source control, logs. I'm able to, effortlessly, change any part of it.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#469

Post by nsomething »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #262
kaolinite wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it compare to QtCreator, do you know?

Don't know, but QTCreator is a C++ IDE (I think?) which makes it a non-starter for me.

You also can develop just in QML, which is really nice.

Re: Poll: What's Your Favorite Programming Language?

#470

Post by rtisticrahul »

C still remains my favorite programming language. Though compared to modern languages it has fallen way behind, still nothing beats the simplicity of C.

With less theory to learn compared to other languages, the power of C lies in the implementation only. Just few simple ayntaxes combined with terrific logic can make some really powerful applications.

Also, maybe little bit nostalgic here, but it feels good to return to C every now and then just to make some highly logical program and challenge the logical side of my brain.

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