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Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

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Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#231

Post by zaphar »

esrauch wrote: post #193
Darmani wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, It's a phenomenon frequently called "using in anger". The interesting thing about php is you don't have to use it very long before you use it in anger. Most of the time you can tell if someone is well versed in a language if they use it in anger. With PHP all you can tell is they've used it.

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#233

Post by zaphar »

handzhiev wrote: post #205
zaphar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second statements communicates to me that you like it because it's a toy language. It may be useful for just getting something small done and getting started but for someone who looks at programming as an enjoyable craft php loses it's shine. Especially once you've been exposed to other languages that highlight how much better it could be.

What is the definition of "something small"? Millions of users and companies use PHP based software for various business needs, from small to big. Yes, the language has a lot of flaws, but I disagree that you can't create useful and rather "big" software with it. And it's easier compared to other languages. If it solves people problems, why not?

Nothing I said was meant to indicate you couldn't use php for something big. All I meant to indicate was that once you've seen what other languages have to offer and have started to look on programming as a craft php starts to lose it's shine.

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#234

Post by [deleted] »

robomartin wrote: post #192
zaphar wrote: post #133

I 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…

[deleted]

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#235

Post by zanny »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #139

Some comments on popular choices: I chose C++ because it's a horrible language that holds a lot of industry hostage. You can't use anything else because of tooling and network effect, but writing C++ is painful and dangerous. A few years ago I would use PHP because it's so horrible and it destroyed a lot of innocent souls who entered programming via it, forever damaging their understanding of consistency, abstraction…

I still would rather have web browsers say "can't find an interpreter for type=ruby" than be stuck with javascript. Thats why I voted javascript, because in every other case, I have a choice - the languages I dislike, I dislike less because I can just not use them. No the case with JS.

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#236

Post by magice »

I chose Python not because of the language itself (in fact, it is not that different from a bunch of languages that I love), but because it is a preacher under the cloak of a language.

I mean, yes, by default, I do a lot of things that Python requires. However, that does NOT mean I need a stupid computer program to rub into my face what I am supposed and not supposed to do. Oh, and for an incomplete, not fully ideal language (look at it stupidity in lambda form, fake private fields in classes), it's a sorry excuse for a preacher who attempts to "right" already right programmers.

Programming is about self expression, about creativity, and about practicality. It's not about preaching, high ideal, and hypocrisy. Reading Python's mailing list always makes me want to puke and stab someone.

Lastly, Python's popularity constantly reminds me of the sad state of, you know, freedom of speech, expression, and thinking. Oh, did you realize that the only thing Python is better than other languages is its library? Yeah, the language itself sucks, restricts people, cumbersome, and fails to implement all features (again, lambda and private). Yet, it's popular. Sad.

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#237

Post by robomartin »

soc88 wrote: post #199
robomartin wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hu…

My general point is that evaluating languages based on personal or technical preferences might just be a flawed metric. Unless what you are doing is a hobby you have to deal with additional criteria. I pointed out just one such data points.

I, for example, really love APL. I would also never think of using APL as the basis of a commercial project unless there was an overwhelming reason to do so.

A friend of mine built a nice company around a product built entirely around Forth. He loved the language. And, he lived to regret making that decision. He eventually paid gobs of money to have the entire code base re-written in C. A couple of years later he sold the business for several million. Potential buyers did not want to touch him with the Forth code base. Just a reality of business.

To clarify, the potential buyers were not interested in the Forth code base because they did not use Forth themselves. Acquiring a company whose products were based around Forth would mean adding a new layer of developers to their team and, effectively, byfurcating their efforts and skill sets. A code base written in C was a no-brainier for most interested parties. With C on the table the language was just a check-box item that did not require further discussion. With Forth the discussions stopped right there.

Again, nothing to do with the merits of the language and everything to do with business realities.

Re: Poll: What's Your Most Disliked Programming Language?

#238

Post by batista »

LesZedCB wrote: post #185
batista wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A redesigned transport model other than HTTP? Continuations? A saner front-end language that can also be used at the server side and it's not the Node.js failfest?

That's a good point. How come we are still using http? I mean, the closest we've come AFAIK to something almost useful is ajax, but that's still not very good considering it's javascript... Maybe I'm unaware of some secret google development.

There's Google's SPDY, but it doesn't fix all that we might like from HTTP, mostly performance stuff.

I guess, it's the agreeing on something and then adopting it and then having it catch the market part that's making this difficult.

On another field that I follow, we haven't had anything better replace MIDI for like 30 years...

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