Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by codingbinary 3954 days ago
That statement isn't constructive either and also tends towards zero signal. Even if "du-jour" languages don't end up being used in production, some of them add really nice new concepts/ideas. Take for example Rust and its compile time borrow/ownership checking.

Judging by your argument, we all should've sticked with C and wouldn't even need C++.

Taking a look beyond the current horizon sometimes ends up being useful.

1 comments

Judging by your argument, we all should've sticked with C and wouldn't even need C++.

Perhaps I was unclear.

My argument is that you should use the right tool for the situation, given all the context of that situation.

Simply stating that language X simply shouldn't be used anymore is an utter nonsense. We absolutely should not have stuck with C. That's crazy, and you know that's not what I was suggesting; please drop that passive-aggressive nonsense. We're not children and we don't need it.

New languages (barring toy languages that are written for the fun of it, such as Ook!) arrive to meet particular needs that particular people have in particular situations, be that to explore something in programming or for actual application. That's a lot of specific context. To take a new language and declare that because this new language exists an existing one should now be simply dropped is to ignore all the context and, as a bonus, reveal oneself to be very inexperienced or to hold a very narrow view of programming. If such people are lucky, someone will contend their point. If they're unlucky, the people around them will simply say nothing.