Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

spf13.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 206 posts

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#191

Post by pjmlp »

Zak wrote: post #106
mamcx wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot agree that programming language choice is a primary driver in a product's success or failure.... This and similar are common ideas for the people that never see the real whole world of programming, and maybe have the fortune of be in the "startup" circles. I see the opposite, and is very good predictor to know how bad a product or a team is, using the programming language AND the main DB engine, but that i…

I'm reminded of Paul Graham writing > the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent [Windows] NT developer he would have had to use NT voluntarily, multiple times, and I couldn't imagine a great hacker doing that https://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

Meanwhile Valve has to make use of Proton, because the CTOs of game studios prefer to ignore GNU/Linux existence as gaming platform.

Maybe first rate hackers don't play games. /s

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#192

Post by Zak »

pjmlp wrote: post #191
Zak wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of Paul Graham writing > the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent [Windows] NT developer he would have had to use NT voluntarily, multiple times, and I couldn't imagine a great hacker doing that https://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

Meanwhile Valve has to make use of Proton, because the CTOs of game studios prefer to ignore GNU/Linux existence as gaming platform. Maybe first rate hackers don't play games. /s

Maybe first rate hackers aren't a large market for games. Maybe long-term binary compatibility has created difficulties for game studios. Maybe Windows isn't as unusable as it was in 1995.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#193

Post by pjmlp »

Zak wrote: post #192
pjmlp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile Valve has to make use of Proton, because the CTOs of game studios prefer to ignore GNU/Linux existence as gaming platform. Maybe first rate hackers don't play games. /s

Maybe first rate hackers aren't a large market for games. Maybe long-term binary compatibility has created difficulties for game studios. Maybe Windows isn't as unusable as it was in 1995.

It was usable enough in 1995 for the same game studios.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#194

Post by lproven »

tpoacher wrote: post #187
lproven wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulverism Hardly, no. The entire point of the article is pointing out an entirely different cognitive fallacy.

It's Bulverism because first you need to defend and establish that your proposition is true before you can start explaining "why" it is true. At the very least the title is clear Bulverism. Admittedly, I did enjoy the article, even if I was initially a bit predisposed not to from the title. And I think the quote "if you hire a rust evangelist to choose your programming language, you've already chosen rust" is very in…

He established his proposition in the opening paragraphs -- the ones that most HN commentators have seized up and not even noticed the actual argument and discussion.

AFAICS you don't seem to have even noticed the initial example.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#195

Post by Zak »

pjmlp wrote: post #193
Zak wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe first rate hackers aren't a large market for games. Maybe long-term binary compatibility has created difficulties for game studios. Maybe Windows isn't as unusable as it was in 1995.

It was usable enough in 1995 for the same game studios.

Games in 1995 were targeting DOS and Windows 95, not Windows NT. They were doing so because that's what was on the majority of consumer PCs, and their objective was to sell games. People selecting a server-side OS and dev tools didn't have to worry about what ran on end user machines.

If you look hard enough, you'll find exceptions of course. I think Ebay was built on Windows servers, but in the late 1990s, building your web startup on Windows was a sign that your technical leadership had bad taste and a competitor would run circles around you.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#197

Post by wrathofmonads »

pron wrote: post #37

A reasonable rate at which to consider a new primary programming language for non-niche, non-throwaway production software is once every 15 years. Adventurous, risk-seeking teams can try for 10, but that's pushing it. If you find yourself searching for a replacement language more frequently, you should stop, take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself: 1. Something has clearly gone wrong last time, since you're l…

What’s your take on older languages gaining new life in production because of ecosystem improvements? I’m thinking of Python, which for most of its 34 year history wasn’t always a go-to choice, but nowadays its ecosystem is being scaled with Rust and C++ libraries and tooling. I’ve noticed a similar trend in JavaScript, where Go and Rust are improving bundlers, type-checkers, etc. The way we deploy our software has also changed dramatically with Kubernetes, code running at the edge (thinking of Cloudflare Workers, AWS Lambda).

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#198

Post by pjmlp »

Zak wrote: post #195
pjmlp wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was usable enough in 1995 for the same game studios.

Games in 1995 were targeting DOS and Windows 95, not Windows NT. They were doing so because that's what was on the majority of consumer PCs, and their objective was to sell games. People selecting a server-side OS and dev tools didn't have to worry about what ran on end user machines. If you look hard enough, you'll find exceptions of course. I think Ebay was built on Windows servers, but in the late 1990s, building…

Still it was Windows, and not first rate hackers operating systems.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#199

Post by pdimitar »

seneca wrote: post #64
bri3d wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they hired what I would term language specific technicians instead of engineers. I have seen this too, and I really like the way you phrased it - I think I'll use that in the future! I do think it's an easier trap to fall into with some languages, but I still don't think the language really drives it. I worked on a large-scale Rust project that could probably have been a Go project a while ago and while Language Te…

> I do think it's an easier trap to fall into with some languages, but I still don't think the language really drives it. Yeah, in the end poor hiring practices drive it. The language you choose just makes the probability of that failure possibility higher or lower. > I worked on a large-scale Rust project that could probably have been a Go project a while ago and while Language Technicians were a big hiring hazard,…

Can you give us a bit more details? I'm intrigued by what was spotted and how did it obstruct the company's mission.

Re: Why engineers can't be rational about programming languages

#200

Post by pron »

wrathofmonads wrote: post #197
pron wrote: post #37

A reasonable rate at which to consider a new primary programming language for non-niche, non-throwaway production software is once every 15 years. Adventurous, risk-seeking teams can try for 10, but that's pushing it. If you find yourself searching for a replacement language more frequently, you should stop, take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself: 1. Something has clearly gone wrong last time, since you're l…

What’s your take on older languages gaining new life in production because of ecosystem improvements? I’m thinking of Python, which for most of its 34 year history wasn’t always a go-to choice, but nowadays its ecosystem is being scaled with Rust and C++ libraries and tooling. I’ve noticed a similar trend in JavaScript, where Go and Rust are improving bundlers, type-checkers, etc. The way we deploy our software has a…

Python is doing very well, and the really good thing about established languages is that their pros and cons are known. Not many people would choose Python to write a high-performance server or a program that's expected to grow to a million lines or so, and if they do, they have no one but themselves to blame. With newer or less popular languages, you might not know what you're really getting yourself into, and if, five or seven years in, you end up not where you wanted, well, you also have no one but yourself to blame.
Post reply on HN