Have Static Languages Won? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#31

Post by ainar-g » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

ajuc wrote: post #7

Are go/rust really that popular? I always thought they are even more niche than clojure.

Both RedMonk [1] and TIOBE [2] indexes (both flawed, but better than nothing) show that Go is somewhat more popular than Clojure. Rust is still behind, but it hit its 1.0 relatively recently, so it's just getting started.

[1] http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2015/07/01/language-rankings-6-15...

[2] http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#32

Post by Thiz » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #17

JavaScript, PHP, Python, and Ruby are all in the top 5 spots on GitHub. Java is the only STL that made the cut. There are certainly types of work that seem to favor dynamic languages, because they have the ability to do some interesting things. ORMs, for example, far more powerful in dynamic languages as far as I've encountered

> Java is the only STL that made the cut.

Because of Android.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#33

Post by nerdy » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

bpicolo wrote: post #17

JavaScript, PHP, Python, and Ruby are all in the top 5 spots on GitHub. Java is the only STL that made the cut. There are certainly types of work that seem to favor dynamic languages, because they have the ability to do some interesting things. ORMs, for example, far more powerful in dynamic languages as far as I've encountered

Even PHP has trajectory toward static types. Some examples are Hack[1] and PHP7[2]. Check out the talk Rasmus gave at Etsy[3] for more about PHP7 changes but it looks like at least limited support for static or "strict" types (whatever subtle distinction that might be) has enough merit for PHP to implement after all this time.

1. http://hacklang.org/

2. http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration70.new-features.php

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4rRWKygq0

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#34

Post by nrinaudo » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #13

Well, there's plenty of controversy in this one, but I think Compared to CS students, the average web developer is not as passionate about programming, and not as skilled a programmer. ...probably takes the biscuit; I'm not even sure where to start with it really, apart from my complete failure to understand how "web developers" and "CS students" are supposed to be two distinct groups which are able to be compared.

Not saying I agree, but there is this notion that "proper" CS students are interested in CS for its own sake - they're meant to find algorithms and data structures and programming paradigms inherently fun and interesting. Web developers are expected to be interested in the end-game, not the process - having a cool feature that works cross-browsers is something to be passionate about, the fact that it uses websockets is just plumbing.

I hasten to add that I hold no official position on the matter and merely wanted to help you see how it's possible to consider CS graduates and web designers as too distincts sets.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#35

Post by coldtea » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

No, Javascript has won, and it's dynamic.

But people are starting to appreciate static typing assurances and IDE conveniences.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#36

Post by onion2k » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:23 PM UTC

Thiz wrote: post #24

In academia and corporate? Sure. In real world? Php, Python, Ruby and Javascript still reign supreme. Mobile is another story since main platforms are controlled by corporations, but if it were for the hobbyists neither java nor swift would have had a chance.

It's worth noting that development workflow in small businesses and startups is rapidly shifting towards being more "corporate" though. Whereas a decade ago the tools necessary to write quality code needed a dedicated person to manage, now they can easily be set up and used in a few days by a single developer. That's going to drive the language of choice too - if used a typed language isn't going to be any harder than used a dynamic language then there's little reason to use a dynamic one.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#37

Post by jayvanguard » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:23 PM UTC

This post and the one that prompted it both seem to be begging the question. I don't see greater percentage use of static vs. dynamic languages now compared to ten or twenty years ago.

There is a lot of interesting research into strong static type systems but that has been going on for ages (ML family of languages).

In fact, I'd say if anything there is a big surge every decade or so in dynamic languages when a new problem space emerges.

90s - Perl, Javascript

00s - Ruby and Objective-C resurgence

10s - ES6 and JS related languages

Once an area matures, the paranoid static type people come in and harden things. Then people realize they're getting nothing done and add DSLs on top for flexibility. And on it goes.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#38

Post by chaotic-good » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:26 PM UTC

No, they didn't. This article is narrow minded and prejudiced. Of cause if we're talking about programming in general - static typing languages are often a better option. But programming doesn't ends there, there is technical computing, statistical computing, data analysis and so on. How about beating Python + numpy + pandas in data crunching or maybe R in statistics? In this fields underlying data types is almost always very simple, and because of this you simply can't benefit much from static typing.

This is not about expressiveness (the article author is wrong here IMO). It's all about flexibility and (more important) interactivity. I can do useful things in ipython console or in ipython notebook in the browser. It's like a tiny lab for small and moderately sized things, data munging, analysis and visualization, prototyping and all this stuff.

There is dynamic languages like Python, R and even MATLAB that's not going to disappear anytime soon. There is a new dynamic language called Julia that's only starts getting traction but IMO it's already more interesting then Rust, Go and Nim combined together.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#39

Post by programminggeek » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:26 PM UTC

Short answer, no they haven't and they won't.

Re: Have Static Languages Won?

#40

Post by bshimmin » Thu, Nov 26, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

skylan_q wrote: post #19

bshimmin wrote: post #13

Well, there's plenty of controversy in this one, but I think Compared to CS students, the average web developer is not as passionate about programming, and not as skilled a programmer. ...probably takes the biscuit; I'm not even sure where to start with it really, apart from my complete failure to understand how "web developers" and "CS students" are supposed to be two distinct groups which are able to be compared.

I'll tell you as a web developer who is a CS grad: CS students are terrible at programming and software development when compared to someone who does it for a living. It takes more than participation in a course to develop a skill. I understand the distinction: CS students get geared up to understand algorithms, languages, and theory. A web developer understands his tools, his workflow, his practice, and people's nee…

I remember my final project in my CS master's degree very fondly: I delivered a barely working piece of software in a totally arcane problem domain with a very complex set of instructions which enabled it to work, sort of, in one specific environment. My supervisor was delighted.

In comparison with my battles to get something to work in both Firefox and IE6 a few months later in industry (in order to ship something that people's jobs actually depended on), it was an absolute walk in the park.