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V Language Review (2023)

n-skvortsov-1997.github.io

41–50 of 115 posts

Re: V Language Review (2023)

#41

I know it's a meaningless metric, but I still find myself wondering how, exactly, vlang got to 35K stars on github, very much in the same order of magnitude as, say, cpython with 58K.

A lot of vlang-related statistics are very suspicious, probably some of the metrics are boosted by a click farm or something similar. For example, 99% of the global google searches about "vlang" are from Beijing. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

This makes very little sense to me. Keep in mind that Google is blocked in China, and has been for a long time, except maybe specific special machines from the government that may have unlimited access. Even if there is a lot of search interest from people using VPNs, it shouldn't show up as China.

Re: V Language Review (2023)

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amazing is how large the community became and how strong their love and belief was.

The V devs have promised a lot, have missed a lot but have also achieved a lot. I have written a few short programs in V. IMHO, the V syntax is concise and intuitive and the performance is good. It is lightweight and easy to install and to use. The blog post is probably right that V has many rough edges but I would say the core features in V are well planned. I actually prefer it over some other more popular language…

Yeah, when the article skipped over the first two memory management strategies to point out issues with manual memory management and an "automatic" strategy that is unfinished or broken, it really struck me that it's quite impressive for a single author to have a functional, fast language with a working garbage collector and arena allocator (with some issues) in only a few years.

The criticisms in the article, which I just read beginning to end, are largely about features it claims to provide (or claims are in development) that either no other language has, are an improvement on other languages, or are state of the art features in world class languages with hundreds to thousands of times more developer hours.

On the one hand, it's not wrong to criticize the overly ambitious nature of V's plans nor criticize the poor attitude and self-advertising strategies of its lead author. On the other hand, I'm not sure that the article is doing that, it seems much more interested in taking one of these features, showing that it doesn't work, and saying "so there!". But the fact that these are the features being complained about, not the core of the language, says something in itself.

Likewise, the fact that a hobbyist language with a single primary developer has terrible documentation is at the very least par for the course. Heck, I've found the Zig documentation horrific (in the past), and that has way more developer time and mindshare. Compare it to, say, the Oil shell (at least, where it was a few years ago), if you want to be fair.

I'm not convinced that the blog author isn't a troll, in some sense of the word. Clearly, many of their criticisms are well founded. Clearly, Alex does not react well to criticism. Clearly, V kinda sucks for practical use right now in a lot of ways that do matter. But the post (especially the end) feels like an excuse to stir the pot, not well-intentioned criticism. The author seems to want to use this post to counteract people they feel have mistreated them (with some justification).

Note: I say all this as a complete outsider. I've never written a line of V code and probably never will. My only prior experience is that I'm familiar with the controversy around V, especially on this site.

Re: V Language Review (2023)

#45
post #14

Thank you for this. Saved me a lot of time and hassle - definietly steering clear of V land. A similar review for Nim would be of interest to me. Should not be that bad I‘d hope.

Nim shouldn't really be used in the same sentence as V. I've never used Nim, but I've never seen anyone out right say anything negative like that's said of V. The only thing close to "negative" regarding Nim I've seen is this, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36563796 and the thread it links to https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/10312 I could be wrong of course. Maybe someone can point to actual negative aspects of the…

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Re: V Language Review (2023)

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The V devs have promised a lot, have missed a lot but have also achieved a lot. I have written a few short programs in V. IMHO, the V syntax is concise and intuitive and the performance is good. It is lightweight and easy to install and to use. The blog post is probably right that V has many rough edges but I would say the core features in V are well planned. I actually prefer it over some other more popular language…

Yeah, when the article skipped over the first two memory management strategies to point out issues with manual memory management and an "automatic" strategy that is unfinished or broken, it really struck me that it's quite impressive for a single author to have a functional, fast language with a working garbage collector and arena allocator (with some issues) in only a few years. The criticisms in the article, which…

> quite impressive for a single author to have a functional, fast language with a working garbage collector

From what I gather from the article, they didn't implement a garbage collector, but rather integrated the Boehm GC. This is a conservative collector, so it doesn't collect all garbage.

> But the fact that these are the features being complained about, not the core of the language, says something in itself.

Memory management is a core part of a language. According to the article this core part doesn't work, which is a pretty big flaw.

Re: V Language Review (2023)

#48

I remember there was some controversy or drama with V a couple of years ago regarding the language. I forgot what it was about but I haven’t heard about V since then. This article was interesting to read!

V claims to be the next best thing that ever happened since sliced bread, but instead its development over years is just yak shaving on steroids. These review posts just prove that.

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Re: V Language Review (2023)

#49
Interesting article, except I didn't like the last part. It sounded too personal. I would have preferred if OP had kept a neutral tone and allowed the reader to make their own opinion.

Re: V Language Review (2023)

#50
post #9

V's claims have always been dubious on their face. It promised the programming language equivalent of magic with no overhead. I'm glad that someone took the time to print receipts. The author clearly wants a reckoning, but he's unlikely to receive satisfaction. The people that still use or evangelize V are locked in, the contradictions will only make their belief stronger. Alex is a bullshitter, and arguing with some…

To top it all off, prominent folks from the V community often engage in flamewars on this exact site. dang has threatened to ban the topic entirely before [1], and honestly at this point I'm pretty supportive of it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37335249

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