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Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

amber-lang.com

221–230 of 330 posts

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#221

Cool idea. In practice: they already did this and it's called PERL! Why would I ever use this instead of just using perl5, which solves all these problems already and is preinstalled on every Unix machine I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot from HPUX to AIX) since there's always some ancient innards component that depends on it, so it's basically impossible to remove... And even if you don't know perl, you're better…

Perl is not quite as universally installed as you claim, especially in containers.

Not in containers by their nature, but you have control over those so you probably won't use amber or bash or perl but just whatever you actually wanted..., but I assure you the underlying hypervisor has perl

Even bash or sh need not be installed in a container so that's a weird objection

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find all the "Why should I use this when X exist" nonsensical. If you can't see any use for it then it's not for you. There are a whole lot of people who will find this more attractive than Perl.

Because they've heard the "lol perl is line noise" jokes and taken them very seriously instead of the jokes they are. Perl is way more mature with way more libraries, stability, documentation, etc. I hope I don't have to work with some young fool who decided without trying that perl, an incredibly well documented language, is "too hard" and instead signed our whole team up to work with some experimental 3 month old l…

Have you stopped to think that maybe people will use this "experimental 3 month old language" for their personal stuff, and that not everything in programming is for your "whole team"?

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#223
post #218
post #214

I know it’s not done to comment only on the websites appearance, but on a small screen the website is a mess: https://pasteboard.co/JoVqLPM106ks.png

That looks like a render error, on mobile Firefox it looks fine and scales well with an adjusted layout and sizes.

Could be. For reference my 4inch screen is 320px wide.

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want it to compile to POSIX sh but you're unhappy it doesn't use more POSIX-incompatible features? Maybe full POSIX sh compat is WIP, or in some simpler cases maybe it already is?

Retr0id, not sgarland want posix. > Maybe full POSIX sh compat is WIP Still - I sure hope it's possible to do a comparison in sh without spawning two processes.

As I've just updated my comment to reflect, TIL that parameter substitution is supported (with some exceptions) by `sh`.

More broadly though, yes, there's a tendency for people to pop sub-shells without giving it a second thought. Those aren't free; use shell built-ins whenever possible!

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#225

Cool idea. In practice: they already did this and it's called PERL! Why would I ever use this instead of just using perl5, which solves all these problems already and is preinstalled on every Unix machine I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot from HPUX to AIX) since there's always some ancient innards component that depends on it, so it's basically impossible to remove... And even if you don't know perl, you're better…

I find all the "Why should I use this when X exist" nonsensical. If you can't see any use for it then it's not for you. There are a whole lot of people who will find this more attractive than Perl.

I'm trying to help people here. I know some young people may not even be aware of older options and not realize this problem has already been solved repeatedly. They are free to disregard my advice, so I find your objection more nonsensical

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#226

Cool idea. In practice: they already did this and it's called PERL! Why would I ever use this instead of just using perl5, which solves all these problems already and is preinstalled on every Unix machine I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot from HPUX to AIX) since there's always some ancient innards component that depends on it, so it's basically impossible to remove... And even if you don't know perl, you're better…

Why would I ever use perl5 instead of just using AWK? /s

Silly comment. Awk is nonstandardized, different in different environments. Perl5 is the same everywhere. don't you recall that that's actually the main reason perl was invented, as a more powerful and more uniformly compatible replacement for awk?

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find all the "Why should I use this when X exist" nonsensical. If you can't see any use for it then it's not for you. There are a whole lot of people who will find this more attractive than Perl.

I'm trying to help people here. I know some young people may not even be aware of older options and not realize this problem has already been solved repeatedly. They are free to disregard my advice, so I find your objection more nonsensical

How does this help though? Why should we stick to old software? Why advocate for inertia?

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#228
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I ever use this instead of just using perl5 Because the syntax in Amber is way easier to grasp. For me that's a very strong selling point

Have you tried perl or are you just judging it based on strreotypes? The only weird syntax relative to something like JavaScript is $ at the front of variables. There's a lot of funky syntax and features available but you do not have to use any of them. If you are writing a new script from scratch it is easy to make it look almost the same as JavaScript but with every variable having a $ on front. Also, amber is a ne…

maybe this is outdated prejudice at this point but I learned early that perl as a language is fine, right up until you need to deal with scripts someone else wrote. particularly scripts written in anger.

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#229
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would I ever use this instead of just using perl5 Because the syntax in Amber is way easier to grasp. For me that's a very strong selling point

Have you tried perl or are you just judging it based on strreotypes? The only weird syntax relative to something like JavaScript is $ at the front of variables. There's a lot of funky syntax and features available but you do not have to use any of them. If you are writing a new script from scratch it is easy to make it look almost the same as JavaScript but with every variable having a $ on front. Also, amber is a ne…

> There's a lot of funky syntax and features available but you do not have to use any of them.

The problem is that it's difficult to know which features you should use and which you shouldn't. And good luck enforcing your desired style if you're working with other developers (it's possible, but painful).

Perl is a highly complicated language with many sharp edges that catch out even experienced Perl devs.

The Perl ecosystem is also completely dead: modules languish with no updates, there is no decent tooling to speak of.

Of course, this new language also has no ecosystem. But maybe one day it will. Let's not stamp out its flame for no reason.

Re: Amber: Programming language compiled to Bash

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to help people here. I know some young people may not even be aware of older options and not realize this problem has already been solved repeatedly. They are free to disregard my advice, so I find your objection more nonsensical

How does this help though? Why should we stick to old software? Why advocate for inertia?

Old software has had use, discussion, support, and resources that are usually still easily available. New software may have to reinvent a lot of wheels, so the barrier to entry may be higher despite the language's features. Choosing one over the other is all dependent on the problem that's being solved
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