

Strong Feelings - cscotta
http://blog.paradoxica.net/post/858416766/strong-feelings

======
derefr
Yes, when _using_ languages, there's really no reason to go to war (unless,
like a developer fresh out of college, you only know a few, and they are
thusly your de-facto "favorites.")

But the thing about programming languages, that's different from all the other
things people have aesthetic preferences about (art, music, food...) is that
(most) programming languages are also open for _modification_ by their user
communities. Saying "PHP is crap because it leaves its functions all over the
floor" is just a mean way of saying "I vote that PHP should be changed so that
it puts its functions back on the shelf before dinner time." Picture a toolbox
where, if you complained enough about your screwdriver slipping too much, it
would _evolve_ a new head design right before your eyes. The toolbox analogy
seems to break down there, doesn't it?

The closest thing I can think of to a programming language that regular people
deal with is an apartment/office building. Just by getting the "user
community" rallied around an issue, you can actually get large changes made to
the product itself. Thus, people are always, always shouting about what's
wrong with their building, hoping that someone will agree and a mob will amass
to Get Things Done.

------
mburney
Programming languages is one of those topics which demonstrates the difference
between online and offline discussions. In an online forum I don't mind
reading a back and forth argument about languages especially if I can learn
something from it. But in person I find it comes through as just completely
pretentious, even if it is polite.

------
milesf
Bashing other languages is a lot like bashing other musical styles. People
love what they emotionally connect with.

------
jorgem
Peace is not as much fun as war.

~~~
frossie
_Peace is not as much fun as war._

Why not a Middle Way :-) We can start off by acknowledging that you can write
good code and bad code in any language; and different languages have different
strengths (and weaknesses). However I don't see what's wrong about
_preferring_ certain languages out of personal inclination and want to
advocate (politely) about the thing you love. You should be able to make a
case for why language X really rings your bell without needing to say that
language Y is crap.

It's like eating snails. I really don't want to eat snails, but I am perfectly
happy to acknowledge that there are a lot of people out there who consider it
the height of gourmandise and as far as I am concerned, they are welcome to
keep eating them. The choice isn't either for me to eat snails, or for
everybody else to stop eating them; the world is big enough for all of us.

De gustibus and all that.

~~~
chc
> We can start off by acknowledging that you can write good code and bad code
> in any language

It would be nice if we could agree to this, but it is not true. For anyone who
really believes this assertion: Go ahead and offer a sample of good Malbolge
code. It may be possible to write _better_ or _worse_ Malbolge code, but it
will all be slow and unreadable.

Obviously that's a pathological case, but once we accept that language affects
code quality, we have to conclude that Language X's "good" and "bad" code may
be better on an absolute scale than Language Y's, albeit with a smaller delta
than Malbolge vs. anything.

~~~
frossie
Well that may be true in theory (and I used to think so too) but in practice I
have only really seen two kinds of code in production: good code written by
good coders and bad code written by bad coders. Yeah, it is true that some
languages are by design bad choices in certain kinds of applications... But
really, the quality of the programmer seems to be the dominant factor in most
cases. YMMV and all that.

