Re:A Programming Language Underdog
by tluyben2 on Saturday September 22, 2018 @03:24PM
(#18047560)
> Having a lot of choice doesn't hurt anything, and benefits everybody in the long run.
But it does hurt in many cases; there is only so much programmer time; if people would invest their time in less projects, they would move on quicker.
I am as guilty of this as probably most people here, having written frameworks, orm’s, parsers, libs, languages, game engines etc instead of helping out on existing projects. I know I did it because I thought I could do better than what was there; usually that was false, however sometimes, at least I thought, it was true. For the bigger ones; frameworks, linux distros, languages, it was always false though so I would say it does hurt; I wasted time and the world did not improve. Only I improved as I liked it and learned, but I would have done as well if I had helped an existing project.
Another point to that is that a lot of people, especially people who solely use computers to make money to survive, really do not like choice in my experience. A lot of my colleagues ask me what to use and hate the fact that when they Google that there is a choice. They do not want choice, they want to use what is the de facto standard for the particular case in every case. With choice and fast change, the de facto standard isn’t there and even more experienced people experience the same angst beginners have when learning frontend web dev. It causes a lot of (probably underestimated) stress in the workplace.
But it does hurt in many cases; there is only so much programmer time; if people would invest their time in less projects, they would move on quicker.
I am as guilty of this as probably most people here, having written frameworks, orm’s, parsers, libs, languages, game engines etc instead of helping out on existing projects. I know I did it because I thought I could do better than what was there; usually that was false, however sometimes, at least I thought, it was true. For the bigger ones; frameworks, linux distros, languages, it was always false though so I would say it does hurt; I wasted time and the world did not improve. Only I improved as I liked it and learned, but I would have done as well if I had helped an existing project.
Another point to that is that a lot of people, especially people who solely use computers to make money to survive, really do not like choice in my experience. A lot of my colleagues ask me what to use and hate the fact that when they Google that there is a choice. They do not want choice, they want to use what is the de facto standard for the particular case in every case. With choice and fast change, the de facto standard isn’t there and even more experienced people experience the same angst beginners have when learning frontend web dev. It causes a lot of (probably underestimated) stress in the workplace.