> A couple of years should be enough (PER LANGUAGE).
Reminded me of http://norvig.com/21-days.html
"I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
21–30 of 183 posts
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#22To me, this list is great except for one small thing. - C - Prolog - Erlang - Smalltalk - Javascript - Hakell / ML /OCaml - LISP/Scheme/Clojure Javascript?! Over Ruby or Python or Lua? What is it with people liking Javascript. I really don't get it. What can I do that is so beautiful or mindbending that I can't do in python? From my experience there is only two reasons to learn Javascript: to be able to build web app…
Javascript has true closures, Python doesn't (or didn't?)
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#23I spat my coffee out at this bit:
if you want a quick fix go buy
"learn PHP in ten minutes" and spend
the next twenty years googling for
"how do I compute the length of a string"Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#24>> The crazy think is we still are extremely bad at fitting things together - still the best way of fitting things together is the unix pipe Is that sad or pure genius?
I struggled with that point of his. From a coding speed perspective, he's right. But from an efficiency perspective, even some of the slowest interpreted languages will run circles around a shell script.
However it's still an interesting and thought provoking point. It makes you wonder about other ways of plugging different objects / modules together.
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#25Just for a moment, consider who this man is and what he has done. We would all do well to take a step back and consider his manner of response. Notice that he continued learning new languages after creating Erlang (instead of just evangelizing it at the one true language). He did not immediately say "choose these three languages" as if they were the only ones you could possibly learn. Does it really help our professi…
> Even on Hacker News I've seen vitriol directed at [...] To be fair, the author himself is pretty vitriolic about C++: "I saw C++ coming and read the book - or at least tried to read the book - there's a dent in the wall behind my piano, where the book hit the wall - Improvements to C should make things easier not more complicated, I thought"
You are absolutely correct, of course. But he was sharing his personal frustrations with C++, not engaging in the programming equivalent of "slut-shaming" someone for using C++. That's an important distinction that I think has been lost with the HN community. Without criticism, nothing would get better, but if you criticize someone for making something or making a choice, you might just encourage them to stop being a maker. And that's sad for all of us.
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#26"Things improved - I went to CERN and used the CRAY1 this could compile 100K lines of FORTRAN in 1 picosecond (ie about a zillion times slower than my mobile phone today)"
I don't like how he mixes together some precise numbers (, RAM size) with completely unrealistic (you can't do anyting in a picosecond, you can't compile 100k likes of code without noticing the time it takes the even today on any hardware.
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#27To me, this list is great except for one small thing. - C - Prolog - Erlang - Smalltalk - Javascript - Hakell / ML /OCaml - LISP/Scheme/Clojure Javascript?! Over Ruby or Python or Lua? What is it with people liking Javascript. I really don't get it. What can I do that is so beautiful or mindbending that I can't do in python? From my experience there is only two reasons to learn Javascript: to be able to build web app…
The core Javascript design is a mix of Scheme and Self, which is interesting in its own right. Most people will recommend: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596517748.do
So is Lua, just done more consistently...
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#28To me, this list is great except for one small thing. - C - Prolog - Erlang - Smalltalk - Javascript - Hakell / ML /OCaml - LISP/Scheme/Clojure Javascript?! Over Ruby or Python or Lua? What is it with people liking Javascript. I really don't get it. What can I do that is so beautiful or mindbending that I can't do in python? From my experience there is only two reasons to learn Javascript: to be able to build web app…
Javascript has true closures, Python doesn't (or didn't?)
Python has closures, it just doesn't have a very convenient anonymous function syntax. I can't say I miss function () { .. } very often though.
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#29For when the moderators inevitably change this post to reflect the page's actual title, here's the title under which it was originally submitted: I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it
I thought that statement taken out of context sounded a bit arrogant (though perhaps well deserved!). However, when read in context it really didn't come across like that at all.
Perhaps a title change in this case wouldn't be all that bad.
Re: "I couldn't really learn Erlang, 'cos it didn't exist, so I invented it"
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even on Hacker News I've seen vitriol directed at [...] To be fair, the author himself is pretty vitriolic about C++: "I saw C++ coming and read the book - or at least tried to read the book - there's a dent in the wall behind my piano, where the book hit the wall - Improvements to C should make things easier not more complicated, I thought"
You are absolutely correct, of course. But he was sharing his personal frustrations with C++, not engaging in the programming equivalent of "slut-shaming" someone for using C++. That's an important distinction that I think has been lost with the HN community. Without criticism, nothing would get better, but if you criticize someone for making something or making a choice, you might just encourage them to stop being a…
I've yet to see anyone who 'slut-shames' based on language produce anything of value.
The wanna-be makers project their own failings more readily.