by cadalac on 12/27/13, 12:16 AM with 84 comments
by TheZenPsycho on 12/27/13, 1:40 AM
For example, you might say;
Lua: SOL (our data language) doesn't have enough programming constructs.
which is historically accurate, but in a modern context you might also say:
Lua: Game engines and other apps need a really easy to integrate, reusable embeddable scripting language library.
which is a vastly different problem that lua didn't necessarily set out to solve.
by cturner on 12/27/13, 7:50 AM
The experience that motivates TCL: you'll be working on your compiled codebase and think, "damn - it should be easier to glue blocks of this together."
For perl - you'll be working in shell, and then move to awk, and find yourself using the function structures and ignoring the pattern matching. And you'll think, "damn, I wish this had more powerful programming structures in it".
In the middle you get ruby and lua, which are very similar, but came from opposites.
In an earlier draft of this post I wrote python and lua above, but then I checked some history. Interesting - it's kind of an accident that python evolution to challenge the shell/awk/perl scripting space. ABC was created from academic motivations. Python 1 didn't quite know what it wanted to be. If you joined python at 1.4 and stayed through the release of 2.0, it's easy to imagine that it would have evolved with a more functional emphasis than it did. By 2.2 (new classes) it had solidified as a objecty response to perl5.
by tikhonj on 12/27/13, 1:55 AM
This article came up about a year ago[1], so I'm just reusing my comment :P. Now I'd also add:
Go: C is the prefect language, except it's too low-level.
Ermine[2]: Scala is not functional (enough).
by cturner on 12/27/13, 7:40 AM
I'd noticed that all programming languages were tree-oriented. You kind of group logic into branches. This sounds obvious, but work with me here.
This reminded me of the early days of yahoo: it was a big directory (a tree structure). Then we had this revolution where everything became about loose data that was tagged. You'd have tagged data, and then search on the tags. This tag structure was better for scale than the tree structures we'd brought with us from personal computing problems.
I thought, "I wonder if you could build a tag-based programming language". And then I realised - that's what prolog is.
by webmaven on 12/27/13, 1:56 AM
If we're going for why Python appealed to its early adopters as opposed to the actual motivations for creating it in the first place, something more like 'other languages are all hard to read' would be fair. You could even reintroduce the Perl rivalry in the form 'Perl is too hard to read', if you insist. But it really wasn't Perl's kludgeyness per-se.
by schmichael on 12/27/13, 1:16 AM
by djur on 12/27/13, 2:13 AM
by ptwobrussell on 12/27/13, 12:47 AM
SQL: Tuple relational calculus is too low level?
Julia: Hadoop is a kludge for data science?
Clojure: We need Lisp for the JVM?
Dart: JavaScript is a kludge?
Go: C/C++ are kludges for systems programming?
by vijucat on 12/27/13, 9:04 AM
Scala : functional programming without leaving the JVM
Because enterprises have spent a decade or so building up JVM expertise in the form of Java.
by ColinWright on 12/27/13, 9:10 AM
http://www.solipsys.co.uk/new/EveryLanguageFixesSomething.ht...
There is also an enhanced version that brought it a little further up to date. Problem is, people keep insisting that it must be wrong, because X doesn't descend from Y, etc. That's why the text at the top tries to emphasise that this is a graph of "developed because of a perceived short-coming."
Added in edit: Now submitted as a separate link for more specific discussion.
by paf31 on 12/27/13, 2:50 AM
by corey on 12/27/13, 1:37 AM
by pshc on 12/27/13, 2:03 AM
by kabdib on 12/27/13, 4:48 PM
Icon: Generators are cool.
FORTH: Omit needless features! Omit needless features! Omit needless features!
by intull on 12/27/13, 2:24 AM
by vlucas on 12/27/13, 2:25 AM
by woody99 on 12/27/13, 3:25 AM
by seanstickle on 12/27/13, 2:08 AM
Alternatively:
APL: Programming should be more like math.
by fizx on 12/27/13, 2:50 AM
Go: Java is too bloated.
by grannyg00se on 12/27/13, 3:28 AM
by aabalkan on 12/27/13, 1:33 AM
by ballard on 12/27/13, 9:37 AM
by etfb on 12/27/13, 3:09 AM
Forth: all the other languages were written by somebody else.
As they say: if you've seen one version of Forth, you've seen... one version of Forth. And also: standards are a good thing, everyone should have one!
by MBlume on 12/27/13, 2:37 AM
Java as essentially Lisp's bastard child is I think undermentioned in language history.
by laureny on 12/27/13, 2:19 AM
by dschiptsov on 12/27/13, 2:45 AM
Java: not only those MIT/Stanford smart-asses can code.
Java EE: the way to avoid a drop-out from the field.
Javascript: just learnt .getElementById() now I can write an OS.
by etfb on 12/27/13, 3:11 AM
PHP: getting Perl and CGI to work on my web server is too damn hard.
Or perhaps:
PHP: I can never remember the difference between %, @ and $.
by krapp on 12/27/13, 2:57 AM
by Mikeb85 on 12/27/13, 4:50 AM
by hrabago on 12/27/13, 2:31 AM
by jayzalowitz on 12/27/13, 2:03 AM
by jbeja on 12/27/13, 2:30 AM
Python: Is cute to prefix everything with "py"
Javscript: Haha not as cool as suffix it with "js"
Ruby: Pff i have the coolest nickname and it is "Rails"
Clojure: Oh please, you aren't as classy as "La Clojure"
C: The power of soul and possibility control!
Go:tta Catch 'Em All!
Erlang: ErrrrrrrLang!!!