PolyConf 2015 – A multi-disciplinary conference for polyglot programmers

Post by noir-york » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #43

noir-york wrote: post #17

Shouldn't programmers be polyglot by default . It's like saying there is a conference for golfers who play with more than one club!

Only if you think of programming languages as an individual golf-club. Put it this way: Is there a conference for professional basketball, baseball AND ice hockey players? I'm not even aware of anyone who managed to go pro in two of those, not to mention all three. Most programmers have a preferred domain and language. Once you scale past a pet project and have a decently sized team, specializations start to occur, e…

Post by Dewie3 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 1:01 PM UTC

noir-york wrote: post #54

dagw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about using a tool for something that it wasn't designed to do, rather using a tool for something it was designed to do, but which might still only be second or third best tool for your particular job. Calling a Common Lisp function from your Rail project might not be the best solution to your problem all things considered even if the Ruby version of that function is both slower and less elegant tha…

In that case it comes down to economics, specifically: do the benefits of using a second or third best tool outweigh the costs of using a tool that is not the ideal. Or would the benefits conferred by using the best tool outweigh the costs.

Post by userbinator » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 1:08 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #3

I almost thought they were referring to this Polyglot approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglot_%28computing%29 That would have been... frightening.

Post by noir-york » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

Dewie3 wrote: post #63

noir-york wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case it comes down to economics, specifically: do the benefits of using a second or third best tool outweigh the costs of using a tool that is not the ideal. Or would the benefits conferred by using the best tool outweigh the costs.

> In that case it comes down to economics, It doesn't come down to it : it was about economics all along. All these philosophies -- polyglot, more monoglot, etc. -- have costs. You can choose to ignore it sometimes by staunchly recommending one approach over another in generic settings. But the underlying costs are still there.

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

henderson101 wrote: post #58

pjmlp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how it could be otherwise. Back when I was learning, I had Timex 2068 Basic and Z80. Then at technical school, each class had its own programming language. Followed by CS degree, with loads of programming languages. First job, TCL, C, C++, JavaScript, C#, Java, SQL dialects. Every single job afterwards required proficiency in multiple languages, even JVM/.NET (interaction with OS, languages that ta…

cough Sinclair Basic ;-) Timex's Basic really only added a few extra commands (on err, stick, delete, free, reset and sound IIRC.) Everything else was identical.