Re:Holiday Fun: How Programming Language Fanboys See Each Ot...
by gizmo on Tuesday December 22, 2009 @05:47AM
(#1009722)
Pettiness is a universal constant. The only way to control it is by choosing your environment (friends) wisely.
As for the FUD, I look at it like this:
Programming is an innately painful experience: you get punished for everything you do wrong, and the reward for getting it right is that the program works exactly how you pictured it in your mind N minutes/hours/days ago. So to sell a new programming language you have to convince people the language is less painful than what they're using now. This is most easily accomplished by pointing out existing pain points in other languages, and hammering on those over and over. And lo, mysql-real-escape-string and IStringBuilderFactory<T> become easy targets.
A secondary reason may be that the most vocal members of the community may not be the best spokespeople. People who are getting [stuff] done tend not to get involved in most language wars and FUD. This I assume applies to all fields, not just CompSci & CompLang.
As for the FUD, I look at it like this:
Programming is an innately painful experience: you get punished for everything you do wrong, and the reward for getting it right is that the program works exactly how you pictured it in your mind N minutes/hours/days ago. So to sell a new programming language you have to convince people the language is less painful than what they're using now. This is most easily accomplished by pointing out existing pain points in other languages, and hammering on those over and over. And lo, mysql-real-escape-string and IStringBuilderFactory<T> become easy targets.
A secondary reason may be that the most vocal members of the community may not be the best spokespeople. People who are getting [stuff] done tend not to get involved in most language wars and FUD. This I assume applies to all fields, not just CompSci & CompLang.