Still wish he'd elaborate more though on how the abstraction level of a language would not help a programmer do better work. Is it enough to just proclaim "There are no super programming languages, only super programmers" for it to be true?)
This is trivially easy to disprove. C vs assembly. Java/C#/Python/Ruby/etc vs C and assembly. Manually creating databases in something like C for every application vs relational databases and SQL.
I think it is painfully obvious that we have come a long way due to "triumphalism." Not all ideas bear fruit, but those that do can have a huge impact. His conclusion advocates that we should all simply program in assembly and use good practices. I feel that is an absurd notion.
Re:Programming: Attitude Trumps Intelligence
by mortenjorck on Thursday May 27, 2010 @10:05PM
(#1385479)
I think the author is responding to the self-indulgent "Reddit clone in three lines of lisp!" variety of stunt-programming, where best practices, standards, and readability take a backseat to showing off how much hard-to-read compound logic you can cram into a single line of code.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with those, as long as the practices involved in them don't seep into everyday programming.
I (and many others) couldn't care less if a language makes me appear brilliant, but I do care about what advantage that language gives me.
(EDIT: I wrote this comment before viewing the link to his previous post where he directly addresses the issue. Still wish he'd elaborate more though on how the abstraction level of a language would not help a programmer do better work. Is it enough to just proclaim "There are no super programming languages, only super programmers" for it to be true?)