Re:We need less powerful languages (2015)
by hinkley on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @07:08PM
(#34620137)
> When everyone knows the 10 features the language has
You have to be careful here because people will give you/expect emergent behavior to pick up the slack, and then you get a language that has barely any syntax or semantics and all of the functionality comes from stringing a bunch of NewSpeak-looking bullshit together into a system that would make Rube Goldberg suicidal.
As simple as possible, but no simpler.
Re:We need less powerful languages (2015)
by kelipso on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @09:20PM
(#34621218)
Haha, brainfuck is simple and only has five features that everyone knows but...there's going to be a decent number of patterns you'll have to memorize.
Re:We need less powerful languages (2015)
by hinkley on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @10:35PM
(#34621709)
As someone who's spent a thousand hours or so thinking about the board game Go, I'm quite familiar with the idea of simple rules with an explosion of consequences.
Unfortunately I'm also familiar with the consequences in software. Fractal code sounds like it might be cool until you have to edit it, especially if it's someone else's. This is the domain of madmen.
I remember this great talk Growing a Language by Guy Steele, totally on point, about Java... I liked Java: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0
I even liked the original C++ when it came out, and used it (although needing to do >> > was a bit silly). But then it jumped the shark with C++0x and thereafter. Concepts. Lamdas. Time travel. Quantum mechanics. Even Bjarne Stroustrup quit and is like "whaaa"
In this interview with Dennis Ritchie, James Gosling, Bjarne Stourstrup, the latter is the most verbose. And it shows in the C++ features hehe.
When everyone knows the 10 features the language has, teams can work together without a language lawyer and tricky "look ma no hands" code