201–210 of 284 posts
I wish these language websites would put an example of some code right there on the homepage so I can see what the language "feels" like. I finally found some code in the tutorials https://tutorial.ponylang.io/getting-started/hello-world
Probably hiding the fact that it's whitespace significant
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Honestly, I get it. The document wants to tell you what's new and different under the hood, not what the language looks like superficially. Code examples don't actually tell you what the language feels like in production. It's kinda like judging a person's character by how they dress. I would be torn if I had to write intro documentation like this. On the one hand, people demand code examples, but on the other hand,…
> the majority of people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual new ideas and concepts that go way beyond just the syntax I believe that, regardless of our personal preferences, the reality is that syntax is a major criteria for adopting a programming language. Some people have trouble following Lisp code, and won't touch your project if it looks like…
Some love short, mnemonic built-in variables and short built-in function names of the sort you see in APL or Perl (although Perl has longer-named versions optionally for a lot of things). Others love long, self-documenting names for keywords and functions. They might want no built-in variables at all.
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It's sad that the only company using it in production switched to using Rust.
The only company "publicly" using it. I know Sean has mentioned there's a lot of fintech (i think) using it, just not blogging about it.
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They aren't selling anything, and they didn't write their documentation with HN in mind ... the OP is probably not associated with them.
> they didn't write their documentation with HN in mind The programming language documentation wasn't written for an audience primarily composed of programmers? That would be an odd choice.
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The syntax is the least interesting thing about the language, and hello-world examples demonstrate almost none of the syntax. This bit from the About page is notable: "never write a programming language. That’s like rule #1. Everybody will just tell you it isn’t needed and then argue about syntax."
The way a Ferrari looks is the least interesting part of it too. I still want to see the thing front and center on its homepage. The syntax is the language. To show me the language you have to show me its syntax.
This is obviously false.
As always with the languages, I think about what the ecosystem looks like. What libraries exist? Seems there is a list of available packages on their website: https://www.ponylang.io/use/packages/
I clicked one at random (net_ssl) to get a sense of what a package looked like in this ecosystem and how to install it, but it takes you straight to a github page which says it's deprecated and to use a different package (ssl) instead, which is not listed on the packages page. Not a great look, although it looks like it was only deprecated 2 weeks ago, so I'll give them a pass.
https://github.com/ponylang/ponylang-website/commit/89211a89...
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> Most people visiting such websites are programmers who are more often than not busy as all hell. Apparently not too busy to visit HN and post shallow dismissals. I agree with GP. Not everything is for everyone and expecting every project to cater to your very specific needs is rather entitled. If you're not interested, feel free to move on - I do that all the time for most of the content on here.
Wild response to simply receiving feedback on the design of a website.
I'm afraid UI/UX design principles are universal, a website about a language is going to have to hit certain criteria to be any good.
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You're talking from a position I don't think many would agree with, at all, and I think the responses you're getting are reflecting that. Syntax is probably one of the single most important things in any language. It matters for writing, but especially for reading. Bad syntax leads to all kinds of implementation mistakes. It comes with footguns primed ready to go off, probably at the worst possible time. Bad syntax c…
Aside from this being argumentum ad populum, my upvotes and some of the other comments say otherwise. And I find comments like yours full of strawmen and taking things out of context, to the point where it's simply not worthwhile to debate the substantive points.
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Good faith argumentation, or really argumentation in general, went out the window when you started treating whether syntax matters (for this language and in general) as a universal truth / (binary) logical statement rather than just an opinion.
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We must not be communicating clearly, because that doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with what I wrote. I thought it was clear that the discussion was about the syntactic specifics of programming languages. I certainly wasn't claiming that Pony doesn't have a syntax, or that it's not important to use the correct syntax to write a Pony program.
People like to make themselves sound smart and important by finding the most trivial and low effort ways to discount and invalidate your point, instead of expending effort to respond to a more substantial argument that I could easily read from what you wrote. It's just the nature of online forums I think. It's easy (but incorrect) to conclude this place is full of jerks, because sometimes jerks are more likely to res…