Without responding to everything in your message, two quick points: For being written by someone afraid 'of the terrible level of violence, in [your] view, present in the programming "community"', your message is awfully condecending and dismissive of a huge amount of hard work by curageous people. The Rust designers have made it very clear that they don't share your views on how much the language should differ from pre-existing widely-used languages. You seem to say that that necessarily means that they're conformist cowards who only do their work for 'fame, honour, status, money, power' or '[t]o mentally masturbate on the idea of having made something "sucessful"'. Would you say that to someone's face? If not (actually, regardless), please don't do it on a mailing list.
As for your main argument (as far as I understand it), that languages are designed too timidly, I quite simply don't believe that you don't see the argument that a language might not be adopted if it breaks with too many conventions that people have gotten used to. You're saying that you'll gladly try out languages that break with everything you learned before. That's commendable, but not something a language designer can expect of everyone in their target audience. Now you might disagree with the strategy of introducing enough change to make the language clearly superior to its competition, while keeping the learning curve bearable. Please don't dismiss it as "madness" you don't even need to argue against, though. On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 12:56 PM, spir <[email protected]> wrote: > Holà! > > [This is a rather personal and involved post. Press del if you feel like > it...] > [also, it is long] > [copy to rust-dev mailing list: actually the post is inspired by a thread > there "Thoughts on the Rust Roadmap"] > > There is a point obvious to me; apparently most people including many > language designers don't share it, or act as if they did not: > > a language should be successful iff it is of high quality > > A kind of symmetric statement also holds; > > let us hope low quality languages have no success! > > There are various reasons to hope this, the most stupid beeing that > successful languages influence others, present & future. This is in my view > a symptom of our civilisation's funny spirit (read: madness), and related > to the actual points I intend to state (if, for once, I manage to express > my thought). > > Apparently, many language designers proceed more or less the following > way: there are a few key points (for them) they consider mis-designed or > missing or wrong in some way in existing languages (not all the same for > every language). Thus, they want to make a language that repairs these > points, all together. Then, certainly in fear that too many changes may > repel potential adopters of their language, in hope to maximise its chances > of success *despite* it breaking habits on the key points more important to > them, they won't change anything else, or only the bare minimum they can. > They want instead to remain as mainstream as possible on everything else. > [4] > > I consider this spirit bad; I mean, very bad. This is the way basic design > errors propagate from successful languages to others, for instance. [1] > Apparently, it takes a great dose of courage to break any existing practice > in a _new_ language: tell me why, I do not understand. > > Note that I am here talking of wrong design points in the opinion of a > given language designer. Choices he (since it's mostly men) would not do if > programming were a new field, open to all explorations. (There are indeed > loads of subjective or ideological design points; see also [1] & [3]) > However, while programming is not a new field anymore, it is indeed open to > all explorations, for you, for me, if you or me wants it. Nothing blocks us > but our own bloackages, our own fears, and, probably, wrong rationales, > perhaps non-fully-conscious ones. > > Deciding to reuse wrong, but mainstream, design decisions in one's own > language is deciding to intentionally make it of lower quality. !!! Funny > (read: mad), isn't it? It is thus also intentionally deciding to make it > not worth success. This, apparently, to make its actual chances of success > higher. (Isn't our culture funny?) > Then, why does one _actually_ make a new language? For the joy of making > something good? To contribute to a better world, since languages and > programming are a common good? [2] For the joy of offering something of as > high a quality as humanly possible? Else, why? For fame, honour, status, > money, power? To mentally masturbate on the idea of having made something > "sucessful" (sic!)? > > We are not in need of yet another language trying, or pretending, to > improve on a handful of disparate points, leaving all the rest as is, > meaning in bad state. And, as an example, we are not in need of yet another > failed trial for a successor to C as major low-level lang. > Differences, thought of by their designer as significant quality > improvements, are the *reasons* for programmers to adopt a new language. > There are the _only_ (good) reasons to do so. Thinking that programmers may > adopt a new language _despite_ its differences is thinking backwards; this, > in addition to preventing oneself from working for the common good; by > fear, probably; fear of truely thinking by oneself and/or of making one's > true thinking public truely. (I can understand that, however: I often do > not disclose my thinking by fear of the terrible level of violence, in my > view, present in the programming "community" [hum!], and among geeks in > general. This, rather than sharing and mutual help and cooperation, for the > common wealth. Our civilisation... again.) > > I have recently decided to adopt possible differences even if i am not > that convinced of their betterness; to give alternatives a try; to give > them at least a chance to show us (or just me) how good they actually are, > or not, in practice, maybe on the long term [3]. > This may go too far; it is a personal decision. > > However, deciding not to change what one sees wrong is weird for the > least. It means removing points of quality according to one's own views, > removing chances to contrbute to a better world, removing sources of > personal satisfaction, removing reasons for others to judge a language > better, thus removing motivation for programmers to adopt it. Maybe, > certainly, many programmers do not adopt a language on the base of its > quality, only; however, this counts; people I wish would adopt my lang, if > ever, are those people who judge first on quality, not hype followers or > otherwise conservatives. > What I mean is, apart from working against the common wealth, in addition > to preventing one's own enjoyment of doing what one does, such an attitude > may also work against a language's potential success. Is this (a factor) > why we have no successor to C yet, what do you think? because most > designers kept most of its design bugs unchanged? [4] just to have a > minimal chance, should a potential successor instead break as much as > possible? (And not have a builtin interface to C? ???) > > Also note that attitudes and spirits are psycho-sociologically contagious. > In particular, fear and lack of courage and angst are highly contagious (in > our world, with such a close to universal high level of anxiety...) What if > more (would-be) language designers boldly thought by themselves and boldly > assumed their thoughts? > > Final note: isn't it weird that such conformism is _that_ prevalent among > language designers? Precisely the ones who should be bearers of novelty? > the one "milieu" which could & should be a network of interacting > counter-cultures and individual iconoclasts (idol breakers)? > > I do not expect anyone shares (all of) this. I just hope it may open new > ways of thinking or questionning to a few. > > Denis > > [1] Including the funny usage of "=" for assignment and "==" for equality, > after at least 5 decades, lol! Still my favorite syntactic error after > dozens of thousands of hours of programming in languages which nearly all > use this amusing convention. Why not use "if" to mean 'try' or 'switch' or > 'foreach', and "ifif" to mean 'if'? What do you think? > > [2] Actually, they are both communal and social. Better quality languages > may contribute to a better world, at a communal level because we > programmers share code and read others' code all the time, and at a social > level because apps are a significant part of the world's state. > > [3] As you certainly know, it takes time to unlearn, especially to stop > judging something bad while it is just different. (Think at C programmers > and their beloved code block {} braces. I for one have better usage for > brace ;-.) > > [4] As an anecdote, somewhat complementary, in the course of my > explorations about programming languages, I often stepped on lists of C > design bugs, at least a dozen of them. Typically endless lists that take a > quarter of an hour to read in one go, without comments. There is space to > works for a language lover :-). If not enough, usually such critics seems > to agree on more than half of the points (and the remaining ones may not > figure on some lists just because the critic not think at it or did not > study this point) (but their solutions may diverge...). > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rust-dev mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev >
_______________________________________________ Rust-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev
