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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?

#361
post #204
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think PHP's main problem on websites like these is that it's too mainstream of a language. It's like asking someone who's an avid fan of world cinema about the latest Michael Bay film. I'm not that interested in programming, so I think it's a great language. All those years back when first learning to use it, I remember going through a book and being so happy that it did practically everything itself.

Doesn't the fact that Python won the "Favorite Language" poll kind of show that it's not just about hating on mainstream languages? Python's pretty mainstream, I'd say... definitely top 10.

Python has a very low barrier to entry and that is bad. Very bad, trust me.

That sort of a market generally gets swarmed by low price developers very quickly.

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

#362
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then there's python.

The reason people don't complain about Python is because if you don't like the language, there is no reason to use it, so they don't. When people are forced to use it, they do complain--stupid scoping, horrible lambdas, no pattern-matching, weird desugaring, idiotic default argument semantics and so on. (These are all the things I've heard about it from other students in my compilers course.) People use C and C++ whe…

I have always felt Python is the new Java. Same qualities of verbosity, low barrier to entries.

And weird level of verbosity for a scripting language.

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

#363
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All sorts of places. I'd be willing to wager that there's hardly an OCaml programmer in this world who isn't also skilled in a few other languages.

That still doesn't make a case to learn OCaml. What it means is, People who learn OCaml generally have to learn something else too. Because the jobs just aren't there. Which in case the person is better off learning that something else properly. And that is a very big problem.

I generally pass over resumes where someone doesn't list at least one programming language that isn't very marketable, fashionable, or part of C's extended family. It's a quick way to winnow out folks for whom programming is likely to be more than just a paycheck.

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

#364
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…

I always compare those who program in PHP to those young teen who are rushing to Justin Bieber Concerts ,and to the cinema just to watch Twillight ,and they are so exited ,but they ignore that there is a hole world out there ,where music is not judged by appearances,and movies are not judged by makeup and love scenes,and where there is some powerful programming languages that let you enjoy building a scalable ,powerful projets in some hours.

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

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of "bad" is subjective and can't be proven. Don't blame the tools for what the people do with them.

Fair enough. Bad is too broad a term. But I think most developers agree that PHP is inconsistent and lacks type safety. For a long time it lacked namespaces which made for some really silly design patterns. It lacks some neat features too, like lambdas and its support for closures is minimal. The list can go on.

All of the things you listed are missing from at least one of the languages that you listed as your favorites.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do the people you know have experience with other comparable languages, and still think PHP is a well-designed language and platform? Is this the only thing upon which to base your opinion of a language? As someone who's seen at least a glimpse of the world beyond PHP, I'd concede that the design of the language, especially in earlier versions, is probably not its biggest selling point. But as you and I agreed belo…

> I'd concede that the design of the language, especially in earlier versions, is probably not its biggest selling point. Keep in mind, the design of the language wasn't to create a new language, but instead, make using various libraries easily usable in a web environment. Hence the reason for the multitude of c or c-like functions. Eventually, the shift moved in a different direction. I like to think that while PHP…

+Heyo for evolution > intelligent design
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