| > I don't think there could be any way to win over somebody with prejudices this strong. Yes, I have long prior experience of Perl 5 - it was the first non-BASIC language I learned, and from 1995 through about 2010 the language I used for almost everything both at work and at home. That I have learned from both that experience and what followed, and that not all the conclusions I've drawn from it are favorable to either that language or its successor, you are of course welcome to describe as "prejudice" if you like. > Nor am I certain if "worse is better" is a good paradigm to act upon. The phrase was originated by Richard Gabriel during his time as the head of Lucid Inc. Are you at all familiar with the history behind it? Theirs is an honorable enough example, but also one I'd be very concerned to find myself following. > The whole point is that not all software development has to be about reading code more than writing it, and maintaining the same heap of code for eternity. You do realize, I hope, that saying stuff like this doesn't really make the "write-only language" cavil that's dogged Perl throughout its history seem any less fair... > Once again, I'm not saying that I hold the absolute truth, I am saying, however, that you are neglecting a lot of possibilities. And once again I am saying you have failed as yet to convince me those possibilities might offer productive benefit, especially when I have yet to see the theoretical advantage of language flexibility in microservices materialize in practice. I'm not saying that means it's impossible it ever will. I am saying that means you have a high bar to clear in making the argument for Raku's particular fitness - but that doesn't seem to be the argument you are trying to make, anyway. Instead you seem to plead language flexibility in microservices more or less as an excuse, on the idea that niche languages for which knowledgeable engineers are rare as hen's teeth face no barrier here because, after all, you can always throw the code away and write more. And that is not convincing, except inasmuch as I'm finding it hard to imagine by this point you have experience with the costs involved in building production software. (Also, what's so insulting about being called a partisan? Your partiality is by this point very obvious.) |
> You do realize, I hope, that saying stuff like this doesn't really make the "write-only language" cavil that's dogged Perl throughout its history seem any less fair...
Surprising, right? I frankly cannot parse that sentence but yes, by now I really hope it's clear that I'm not arguing with the "write-only" narrative. I'm arguing that there is a world of things where software doesn't have to be about sticking to the same monolithic code base for decades and pass it around across dozens of people. That there is a world where it is indeed more important to write code than to read it.
> And once again I am saying you have failed as yet to convince me those possibilities might offer productive benefit, especially when I have yet to see the theoretical advantage of language flexibility in microservices materialize in practice.
I hope I suceeded in convincing you about factual things about signatures, reflection and the existence of accumulation. I don't have research studies about the productivity of various programming languages in a microservice-based architecture; if you have something like that, I will be happy to read it.
> Instead you seem to plead language flexibility in microservices more or less as an excuse, on the idea that niche languages for which knowledgeable engineers are rare as hen's teeth face no barrier here because, after all, you can always throw the code away and write more. And that is not convincing
This is not convincing because it's a strawman. Let's throw the "niche language" part away and let's replace "after all, you can always throw the code away and write more" (which is true but indeed no argument) with "a small, single-purpose, well-tested tool of any sort is best replaced when that single purpose wears out". Which is what I stated. And it makes sense, given that it was designed and tested around one single purpose. Maintenance is not a virtue but a common technical necessity. If you don't know when to let go of software, then ironically enough, you might as well have been exposed to too much Perl.
Anyway, considering the topics you did not respond to, one can deduce what points I did nail. Also, it seems we are getting away from the insult motive, that way it may be more useful for somebody who just reads.