• Valmond
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    1 year ago

    Yeah but a “good language” isn’t some obscure, “better on the paper” language or some popular one, but one that has a large community, and not only in amateur circles.

    That’s why C/C++ is so hated but also so much used. Python is way easier but has the userbase and the libraries. If you don’t need the speed, or memory management, you can do about anything with python.

    Maybe Rust will take the place one day, or typescript, or kotlin, or JavaScript, or “insert new killer language” …

    Python is used by the research community, and by a whole slew of companies since a long time. You have a problem? You’ll find the solution quickly.

    Dealing with large projects? Go with C/C++ then ;-) I mean it’s all about architecture.

    • philm@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      And yet another time I disagree with pretty much all you’ve said.

      you can do about anything with python.

      And this thinking is why we have sloppy running UI with 10000 times the power of devices compared to say 20 years ago (where UI was not sloppy…).

      Why sacrifice performance, language ergonomics(!) and write something in python for production? I get why (AI) researchers are using it because it’s easy to quickly hack stuff together, and prototype stuff.

      But as soon as it’s something larger with a bigger team you want to have static typing. because working in a team is pain in the ass with a untyped languages á la javascript or python. Also think about something like IDE tooling, it’s so much more comfortable to use rust-analyzer (which I think really is generally the best LSP by now), compared to all the python tooling I tried (and that was a lot…).

      Dealing with large projects? Go with C/C++ then ;-) I mean it’s all about architecture.

      Sorry, but you sound a little bit unexperienced, I really would suggest learning a few more programming languages, it’s not “all” about architecture. The languages/paradigms kind of suggest how you should layout your architecture, e.g. OOP by using classes (unfortunately often promoting the IMHO anti-pattern inheritance) , or functional by composing everything together without side-effects in functions.

      C++ is absolutely the last language I would choose nowadays, it’s an absolute techdebt mess, promoting all kinds of anti patterns IMHO (I’ve got roughly 10+ years of experience in it, for context). You really have to have a real good discipline and idea how to write programs to make a reasonable choice in architecture. And if you do it’s ugly as hell anyways (using iterators for example is pain in the ass although you should do that). I just default to Rust, it’s so much more comfortable than C++ in pretty much every aspect, way better designed language…

      Really learning new languages also helps thinking about architectures/laying out your code in other languages, and generally helps improving your technical skill.