What are the three features a programming language absolutely must have in order for you to use it?
No wrong answers! Go!
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aaronpk_tv
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@hjertnes to each their own, I suppose... :)
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@nitinkhanna I don’t have a CS background, but I just learned most of the basics in my mother’s basement. And was lucky enough to get my first dev job without any of the formalities. I love learning and figuring out the best ways of doing stuff.
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@hjertnes I've not got a computer science background, so while I understand a few words like types, most of what differentiates languages, I am blind to, and thankfully so. I don't ever want to judge what's the best way of doing things, as it would be too paralysing for me. I tried to do that with app making with Ionic and React Native and all I learnt from that experience was that I don't care to learn the correct way of doing things as long as they get done!
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@nitinkhanna Python is in a weird spot for me, it is a OOP language without types. That means that none of the of the patterns I love in C# works. And when it comes to dynamic languages I prefer lisps
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@hjertnes I didn't understand the latter part. I certainly understand and sympathize with the former...
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@aaronpk lambda, map, reduce
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@nitinkhanna Not just that, but the way python handles pip packages is not that great, the short version is that they’re global. Another thing is that how I want to write code today doesn’t work that great or at all with python
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@hjertnes yeah the freedom npm seems to afford is nice...
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- a debugger
- strong typing
- good tutorials and examples -
@nitinkhanna I’ve fallen so out of love with python. I prefer C# because of how easy it is to write backed stuff in a way that makes it easy to nuit rest and extend. And I prefer node for command line stuff because of how easy it is to make a tool push it to npm and have it available anywhere through npx
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@hjertnes true that!
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@hjertnes I hear you, but I've reached a comfortable place with python...
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REPL with interactive help/inspection. Good ecosystem for primary purpose. Sensible packaging and distribution.
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@nitinkhanna Java or the JVM, like COBOL will no go anywhere in our lifetime.
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@nitinkhanna A language I want to script in and a language I want to develop in are two very different things for me. With very different requirements
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Semicolons. Definitely the semicolons.
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Static types
Compile time type checking
Good IDE tooling -
Emojis
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Examples, samples and doc - Easy setup and deploy - Cross platform - Easy debug
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An interactive interpreter prompt is essential
A really solid library ecosystem
Great HTTP and JSON support with minimal hassle -
REPL, lexical scoping, true macros
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- a mental model that works for me
- excellent quality error messages
- sufficiently expressive -
@aaronpk java - too many security issues and it’s time has come. Also, too many easier ways to do the same things. I’ve suffered through some J2EE. ObjC - too damn ugly. Always felt alien and absurd the way the Classes are named. Not my cup of tea maybe.
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@aaronpk Really good, human-readable documentation; open package management; a short time to first run without proprietary tooling.
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@aaronpk should be easy to script in it, should be easy to scale up and write OOP code in it, shouldn't be Objective C or Java.
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λ
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1. Great, accessible, well-considered documentation
2. A vibrant dev community
3. Versatile standard and “third-party but basically standard” open-source libraries -
@aaronpk 1) well documented, 2) support for higher-order functions or something similar, 3) ...and I am struggling to think of a third, tbh
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Priming :p
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Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
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car, cdr and parens
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I'll use anything but to enjoy the experience I need:
1) Statically typed functional programming
2) Vibrant library ecosystem
3) Great dev tooling (IDE, build tool, package manager) -
@aaronpk Huh, that's a tough question. Functions and some kind of module-like construct as units of code reuse, and... I guess a syntax for comments?
It's easier for me to list features I think other people might consider mandatory that I don't think are critical, like objects, or loops, or Turing-completeness 😁
Or to list features I wish every language had but can't insist on, like type inference, sum types (aka "tagged unions"), and closures.
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- robust community support and adoption
- good impedance match with problem space
- excellent support tooling
note that none of those are about the BNF. -
I don't have hard requirements, but I would say:
- deterministic destructors (like C++, but "with" in python or "using()" is C# are nice to have)
- nice syntax (I really dislike most of functional syntaxes)
- not too confusing to learn (I manage C++'s TMP but stuggle with Rust) -
Good documentation.
Nice standard library.
Package management.
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@aaronpk condition, loops, input/output