
If programming languages were Harry Potter characters - yulaow
http://heeris.id.au/2014/if-programming-languages-were-harry-potter-characters/
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Rooster61
_COBOL_

If ever there was a language that comes close to matching the more notorious
aspects of C, COBOL is the most likely culprit. Coming about in the same era
as the venerable FORTRAN, the two languages together ran on mainframes
everywhere in the early days to mung through endless business data, speeding
up calculations previously done by hand, all in the name of "the greater
good".

However, while their early goals were the same, FORTRAN opted for a bit more
structured, concise approach, using strongly typed vars and adopting a few of
the newer ideas along the way. COBOL, however, remained reliant upon horribly
verbose incantations, and refused to cease use of unforgivable spells such as
"goto".

FORTRAN went on to be a venerable, yet eccentric language regarded to this day
as fastest in some of the more arcane calculations after so many years past
its prime. COBOL, however, has for its crimes been largely ridiculed and its
practice considered one of the darkest of magics. It has been relegated to the
proverbial jail tower, its practitioners shunned. The famous wizard Djikstra
once stated "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should,
therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense."

COBOL is Grindelwald, a crippled old relic rotting away in long forgotten
mainframes.

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adwn
Brilliant!

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tux3
I'm surprised that people consider C a dead language.

C is very much one of the most used and needed language in the world,
especially if the Internet of Things hype keeps on getting stronger. And of
course all the current billions of lines of C didn't just disappear to be
replaced by Python ( as much as I like Python). Your OS and core programs are
still getting new versions from times to times, even if you don't directly see
the source code.

Or maybe C is being replaced by some other language that I'm not seeing.

~~~
duaneb
C isn't dead. However, it serves two niche roles—glue code and super portable
system code. It's dead in the sense that it's not growing—the unique use cases
of it are forever shrinking.

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agumonkey
By glue code you mean things like most common Foreign Interface semantics ?

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duaneb
Not just that, but also plugin and embedded APIs are typically C-oriented.

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moron4hire
This is definitely one of the better examples of these such lists. Usually,
they're just two unrelated, ordered lists, individually ranked by the author's
personal liking of the things, then zippered together with no attempt to make
any sense out of the whole. But this one not only makes some sense, it's even
internally consistent!

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oddevan
They had me at Java being Umbridge.

~~~
gknoy
I also loved that her lines were in pink. ;)

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Amorymeltzer
Of course Harry Potter would be Python - He's a parselmouth!

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Kurtz79
Heh, I always thought Harry Potter was a bit slow.

All hail You Know Who!

(Just kidding I love Python as well, I wish I could have the best of both
worlds)

~~~
towelguy
Nim?

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Spoom
Came for the PHP bashing, was not disappointed.

 _continues quietly making money with the language_

~~~
hunyeti
Well, yes, a lot of people make tons of money, doing terrible things.

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Spoom
By your comment, you seem to believe that coding in a specific language is "a
terrible thing". Would you care to explain why, or are you just trolling?

(A link to another PHP bashing session is not sufficient.)

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anindyabd
> But Fortran is… uh… getting on in years, I suppose is the polite way to put
> it. I mean, there are plenty who will tell you it’s still capable of some
> amazing stuff… but then, what language isn’t?

Whoa, whoa. Who else is as powerful as Dumbledore, except arguably Voldemort
(and possibly Harry when he's older)? It is not clear at all that Voldemort's
more powerful than Dumbledore either -- their fight at the end of the Order of
the Phoenix was very even. Dumbledore is the only wizard Voldemort was ever
afraid of, and for good reason.

Let us consider Lisp. Lisp is powerful, elegant, relevant, and respected.
Despite getting on in years, few can match Lisp's power. Lisp is kind and
benevolent: to other languages Lisp has given conditionals, functions, and
garbage collection. I say, Lisp is Dumbledore.

~~~
Rooster61
A case could be made for Lisp being Ollivander. He's not the main player, but
being THE wand maker to get your wand from, he's shaped the magic coming from
every wizard or witch for a half century.

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quarterwave
Erlang = Owls (message passing)

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bloaf
Can Wolfram Language be Gilderoy Lockhart?

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krazydad
Looked at article just to confirm that Perl would be Ron Weasley. Yep. This is
why he's my favorite character.

~~~
lkbm
I disagreed with this one. Ron is useless. It's the Weasley twins who are
frustrating and absurd jokesters, yet surprisingly powerful.

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Roboprog
Maybe Go can be Ron? Can we panic("now")?

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ununun
What about Lisps? Also, it would be interesting to read about comparisons
between programming languages and naturals ones. What's the most elegant
natural language in the world that could be said to be the Scheme of natural
languages?

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ICWiener
Common Lisp: maybe an Animagus, like Sirius Black. Or maybe Alastor Maugrey
(Mad Eye), who is quite powerful but is not necessarly attractive.

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ChuckMcM
I'd definitely make Lisp Mad-Eye Moody, terse, and complex, but quite
powerful.

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breadbox
I'm sorry, C is _Voldemort_? Buddy, you don't know from evil.

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q2
what, Ruby is not in the list? Is Harry Potter popular enough?

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jdpage
I mean, you gotta do Python == Harry Potter for the Parselmouth joke.

Ruby is a language which eschews strict rules in order to be more chummy and
get more done, but has a dark side (with monkey-patching and less discipline
than Python). Ruby is clearly Sirius Black.

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krapp
tldr: languages the author likes are good, languages the author doesn't like
are bad.

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JoeAltmaier
So which is Snape? Seems bad, turns out to be the goodest.

~~~
towelguy
Only in the latest publications.

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ctdavies
Lisp is Sirius.

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casa123456
How can you consider Python as Harry Potter? Maybe because they are both slow
as hell in actually doing stuff.

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sharmi
That was marvelous. Makes me want to try learning Haskell again.

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V-2
What about C#? :)

~~~
Roboprog
Hmm. Must go with Umbridge? Maybe the guy that David Tennant played that
impersonated Mad Eye Moody?

~~~
lkbm
Barty Crouch Jr.

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carlosthejackal
Haskell as Hermione is gold, Jerry, gold!

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j_m_b
aka "What your world looks like when all you know is blub".

~~~
gcv
At least the author heard of Haskell!

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yuashizuki
I want to DO haskell!

~~~
pekk
Get a monad, you two

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Navarr
This week in "How are we going to hate on PHP today"

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McUsr
AppleScript should have been Luna Lovegood and C should have been Dumbledore,
I guess forth would have been so Harry Potter. :)

Allegories are interesting and funny.

