AppleScript
The only problem I have with AppleScript is its verbosity, but it seems to do what it's meant to do well (script the Apple GUI)
Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
191–200 of 366 posts
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#192I chose PHP because it's gathers everything I hate about any language in one spot. * It has everything including the kitchen sink but nothing in the decor matches. There is no unifying principle to help you grok the language * The Community is all about quick hacky fixes to already broken code and this approach seems to flow from the core developers out. * It's not type safe, not even at runtime. I don't know if I ev…
What would you use in place of PHP to build a web app? The only requirement is that you have to be able to hire developers just as easily as you can hire PHP developers. This might be where rubber meets the road. It's easy to dislike a tool based on all kinds of criteria. In the real world one has to be able to get work done and, if needed, find developers to expand a team. Proposing a subjectively or objectively better language that does not have a large enough developer base to call upon when needed isn't really a business solution as much as it is an interesting academic exercise.
To clarify, I have no feelings either way. I've had to learn so many languages over the years that I just see them as another tool in the toolbox. Life goes on.
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facebook uses a lot of PHP and seems to do fine, just because a language allows you to write horrible code doesn't necessarily mean it can't be used to write good code. PHP obviously has a lot of warts, but I think the bigger problem is that it gives you just enough rope to hang yourself.
There are two kinds of programmers at Facebook: The ones who curse PHP every work day, and the ones who don't use it. "This language really sucks." -- paraphrased, intro to PHP on Facebook's internal Wiki
I wouldn't be surprised if it happened more than usual with PHP, but in my experience programmers always curse the language/framework/api that they use heavily. You always learn the seams and hit issues with the design if you work with something for long enough.
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#194I don't expect that the responses to this will be enlightening. In fact, I can predict right now that the winner of this poll will be the most commonly-used language which isn't widely considered to be "nice". Depending on the precise demographics of this site, that's either going to be Java, C++ or Javascript, despite the fact that there are clearly worse languages out there (Fortran, COBOL, Brainfuck...) The reason…
I refute that Fortran is axiomatically worse than Java. I've spent a few years working in each, so I got to know them decently well. Fortran is like C with great math support; that is to say, C is like Fortran with great systems facilities. In each language's domain, it is more expressive and more performant than Java. Outside its domain, you don't want a bad programmer going near it for too long, but you can absolut…
I think fortran77 should have been listed separately.
Any language that requires six spaces at the start of the line in order to maintain legacy punchcard compliance makes me gag.
fortran90 or hpf on the other hand are pretty useful in their domain.
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#195The programming languages that would make me the most sad/angry/annoyed I don't use , so it's difficult to make a choice. I suppose I'll have to go with Javascript because it's the de facto 'Web language' which people use to force me to evaluate arbitrary code whenever I want to read anything on the Web. Even with a sandbox that seems a terrible idea. If we're talking about programming languages I hate but still use…
Sublimetext 2 + sublime lint plugin makes for a very nice python programming experience
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#196The programming languages that would make me the most sad/angry/annoyed I don't use , so it's difficult to make a choice. I suppose I'll have to go with Javascript because it's the de facto 'Web language' which people use to force me to evaluate arbitrary code whenever I want to read anything on the Web. Even with a sandbox that seems a terrible idea. If we're talking about programming languages I hate but still use…
I'm going to sign in as a partisan here. I firmly believe that Python is the worst language that people actually use.
DuckTyping is the most deeply misguided aspect of python. With the discover of Hindley-Milner type inference 40 and 30 years ago, this sort of sloth is simply inexcusable.
Pythonistas will say "Oh, I don't care if it's a duck or a swan, as long as it quacks." Guess what? You can treat function calls as a statement that an object is an instance of some typeclass and that typecheck that. With a sufficiently intelligent compiler/interpreter author this is transparent to the programmer.
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#197I can't believe you don't have MUMPS on this list!
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#198Comparable question: What's your favourite religion?
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#199I chose PHP because it's gathers everything I hate about any language in one spot. * It has everything including the kitchen sink but nothing in the decor matches. There is no unifying principle to help you grok the language * The Community is all about quick hacky fixes to already broken code and this approach seems to flow from the core developers out. * It's not type safe, not even at runtime. I don't know if I ev…
What would you use in place of PHP to build a web app? The only requirement is that you have to be able to hire developers just as easily as you can hire PHP developers. This might be where rubber meets the road. It's easy to dislike a tool based on all kinds of criteria. In the real world one has to be able to get work done and, if needed, find developers to expand a team. Proposing a subjectively or objectively bet…
Just wondering ... what is "large enough developer base"?
If you are hiring, you are not hiring 10000 people, you are hiring one or two people.
If you can choose between a pool of 10000 developers in PHP and 100 in Haskell (whatever...) you will probably find more candidates you want to hire in the second pool.
And it is certainly more likely that you find the appropriate candidate if you don't have to wade though hundreds of applications.
Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?
#200I chose PHP because it's gathers everything I hate about any language in one spot. * It has everything including the kitchen sink but nothing in the decor matches. There is no unifying principle to help you grok the language * The Community is all about quick hacky fixes to already broken code and this approach seems to flow from the core developers out. * It's not type safe, not even at runtime. I don't know if I ev…
What would you use in place of PHP to build a web app? The only requirement is that you have to be able to hire developers just as easily as you can hire PHP developers. This might be where rubber meets the road. It's easy to dislike a tool based on all kinds of criteria. In the real world one has to be able to get work done and, if needed, find developers to expand a team. Proposing a subjectively or objectively bet…
Yaron Minsky said in one of his talks that hiring OCaml programmers was the easiest thing in the world: he posted an ad on the mailing list, got 20 applications, 15 of which were worthy of a phone interview. Of those 15, 5 were asked to come in for an in-person interview and 3 of those were hired.
Sure, he might not be able to hire 80 programmers in one batch, but I don't think Jane Street would need to do that, or that they are worried about a shortage of OCaml programmers. Also, I would be more confident of the capabilities of an OCaml programmer than of a PHP programmer.