The "you don't want a full programming language" trope I see repeated a lot but I think far more people end up wishing for a Turing complete language than wishing it _wasn't_ Turing complete.
They do, until a configuration endless loop brings down their production system.
This is not really different than C vs Rust, or even Perl regular expressions (unbounded execution time) vs real regular expression. With great powers comes great abilities to shoot yourself in the foot.
The power/guarantee balance is delicate, and you can’t hold the stick at both ends. People will always complain.
This is exactly what the Starlark language was developed to solve, initially for Bazel but also used other places. It's a "full scripting language" but intentionally doesn't (in default configuration) support recursion or unbounded loops, so is deterministic and bounded execution time. I really wish more projects would reach for it as a configuration language.
I have such mixed feelings about Starlark and Bazel macros. When I write Bazel macros, they're great, the perfect tool for the job. When I encounter macros written by someone else, they are awful, a mistake and the bane of my existence.
In the same way that it's possible to have an xml/json/yaml/toml config that creates despair in those who have to maintain it, a python or bash script can grow into a monster in the basement.
Or, it could be a cogent script that makes its intent and operation obvious. I prefer that when possible.
The environment around the language can put in limits (on time, number of operations, etc.)
Convex does this well, replacing SQL (somewhat yaml-like sucky old declarative language) with JS/TS but in a well-locked-down environment with limits to ensure one mutation or query doesn’t take down the whole DB.
The number of times I've seen a configuration endless loop bring down anything are so few compared to the time wasted on DSLs and having to bend over backwards to do things a first-class programming language can do simply. Same with PCRE I've seen that maybe.. once.
Again, what do you think it is? I don't see anything it could be besides what was written. You could call it endocrine imbalance or disrupted hormone household if you wanted to be less precise and skirt around the actual biological problem, but it still doesn't change anything.
I don't know what it is, thats why I asked. Is the assertion that you're trying to make that drugs and gambling being addictive is a result of hormone imbalance in the addicts, rather than the addictive nature of those things?
I use Claude Code all day and use Gemini CLI for personal projects and I don't see the huge gap that other people seem to talk about a lot. Truthfully there are parts of Gemini CLI I like better than Claude Code.
I agree. I like using Antigravity for some of my frontend work, and I find it does a better job than Claude Code - Opus 4.6. I’ve also found the Gemini Flash models to be good at legal defense research—I use them to help New Yorkers fight parking tickets (https://nyceasyparking.com). That said, the Claude models are still amazing at agentic work.
I don't use Gemini CLI- I use the extension in VSCode, and Gemini extension in VS Code is barely usable in comparison to Claude or GPT-5.4. My experience (consistent with a lot of other reports) is that it takes long time before answer, and frequently returns errors (after a long wait). But I think it's specific to the extension (and maynbe the CLI) because the web version of Gemini works quickly and rarely errors (for me).
Can you get TouchID to register multiple fingers and script the actions; maybe your middle finger unlocks touchID, but your index finger disables touchID until you enter your password.
During the covid period, the price of hand sanitizer, which is thickened alcohol, rose to exceed the price of drinkable alcohol.
Several beverage factories proposed to rework themselves to produce sanitizer instead, which would have been good for everyone.
But they couldn't, because federal law would have required them to poison the sanitizer, which would have contaminated their machinery so badly that they would have been unable to switch back to producing drinkable alcohol afterwards.
So - even if we ignore the idea that intentionally poisoning people is wrong - there was a serious cost to the legal regime, one that still exists.
This is false. Several breweries and distilleries started producing sanitizer basically overnight [0]. The requirement to add denaturing components to alcohol was suspended during the pandemic specifically to allow it [1].
reply