Programming Language Flame Wars
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
One of the "selling" points of .NET is that developer can use a language he/she is familiar with or likes. What language to use is really a personal preference. Not so much which one is better. Compared with scripting, these languages do show some advantages, at least "easier to use". I would think that if a developer can recommand any .NET languages to those who use scripting languages to try out, it would be a good gesture. Certainly, there is no reason to say "your language suck...". I am sure that any language has its strength that can do something that other languages can't do or can't easily do.
TOMZ_KV
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
Hehe, nice post. It's funny to read the knuckleheads CP'ers who argue back and forth about who's daddy will beat the other daddy's butt for using [fill in prefered development language here]. I've had at least 6 different jobs (both contracting and FTE) in the last 10 yesrs and pretty much done development in as many languages/DB/platforms (Java, VB, ASP, C#, VB.NET, Oracle, SQL...). If it works for the particular company/job at hand, then great. Is any one better then the nex? Sure..depending on th job at hand as I mentioned. But let's keep the flame wars alive, it makes for great reading. :laugh:
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Hehe, nice post. It's funny to read the knuckleheads CP'ers who argue back and forth about who's daddy will beat the other daddy's butt for using [fill in prefered development language here]. I've had at least 6 different jobs (both contracting and FTE) in the last 10 yesrs and pretty much done development in as many languages/DB/platforms (Java, VB, ASP, C#, VB.NET, Oracle, SQL...). If it works for the particular company/job at hand, then great. Is any one better then the nex? Sure..depending on th job at hand as I mentioned. But let's keep the flame wars alive, it makes for great reading. :laugh:
Zhat wrote:
the knuckleheads CP'ers
The implication here is that all CPians are knuckleheads...
Sig history "You're an idiot." John Simmons, THE Outlaw programmer "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon Unix is a Four Letter Word, and Vi is a Two Letter Abbreviation
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
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Language wars are good fun but ultimately a waste of time.
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language
There is widespread, near-rabid hostility to VB from C-syntax developers. Like you I'm a C-syntax developer but I'm relaxed about VB. Have used both classic and .NET versions a lot.
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills.
Indeed. Plus IMO .NET developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in both C# and VB .NET.
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty.
Yes, that's what happens on our project. Guy doing the WPF gets a professional designer (in Photoshop and then converted to XAML) to do the design and he just writes the code. Pretty impressive too.
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
Language wars are good fun but ultimately a waste of time.
Isn't that the only real reason why they exist? I see no other purporse. I just use them to have a laugh or two... nothing more. Like said, use the right tool for the right job... that's the only way to do it!
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
There is widespread, near-rabid hostility to VB from C-syntax developers.
I don't like it, either. I don't like Pascal's syntax, too. But I've used Delphi lots of times, it did the job perfectly and it got me some really good money. I believe that's more important that "liking the syntax". It's just a syntax, get over it!
Kevin McFarlane wrote
.NET developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in both C# and VB .NET
Even non-.Net developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in C, C++, C#, Java, Pascal, Basic, etc... It's the same thing. The principal is the same... whether you use { or begin doesn't make much difference...
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
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Your post is great, but talk about beating a dead horse....we must've had this conversation about a million times. In fact the number of times we've discussed how dumb language wars now outweighs the number of times we've had a language war :rolleyes:
And each and every time there's at least one post that says: "We've had this discussion already" :)
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
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Kevin McFarlane wrote:
Language wars are good fun but ultimately a waste of time.
Isn't that the only real reason why they exist? I see no other purporse. I just use them to have a laugh or two... nothing more. Like said, use the right tool for the right job... that's the only way to do it!
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
There is widespread, near-rabid hostility to VB from C-syntax developers.
I don't like it, either. I don't like Pascal's syntax, too. But I've used Delphi lots of times, it did the job perfectly and it got me some really good money. I believe that's more important that "liking the syntax". It's just a syntax, get over it!
Kevin McFarlane wrote
.NET developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in both C# and VB .NET
Even non-.Net developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in C, C++, C#, Java, Pascal, Basic, etc... It's the same thing. The principal is the same... whether you use { or begin doesn't make much difference...
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
rastaVnuce wrote:
I don't like Pascal's syntax, too.
Eiffel has Pascal-like syntax but is less verbose. IMO it strikes a good balance between terseness and readability. Unfortunately, there's no motivation to learn it.
rastaVnuce wrote:
Even non-.Net developers should be able to read and [at least roughly] understand code in C, C++, C#, Java, Pascal, Basic, etc... It's the same thing.
I wouldn't go as far as that because outside .NET you're talking about different libraries as well as different language features. It's not just syntax.
Kevin
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Your post is great, but talk about beating a dead horse....we must've had this conversation about a million times. In fact the number of times we've discussed how dumb language wars now outweighs the number of times we've had a language war :rolleyes:
I think what gets tedious though is when a post is on a topic that isn't about language wars and then someone mentions VB and can't resist the opportunity to slag it off. It just gets tiresome after a while. I can be a bit guilty of this because Perl is my pet hate. :)
Kevin
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I think what gets tedious though is when a post is on a topic that isn't about language wars and then someone mentions VB and can't resist the opportunity to slag it off. It just gets tiresome after a while. I can be a bit guilty of this because Perl is my pet hate. :)
Kevin
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Zhat wrote:
the knuckleheads CP'ers
The implication here is that all CPians are knuckleheads...
Sig history "You're an idiot." John Simmons, THE Outlaw programmer "I realised that all of my best anecdotes started with "So there we were, pissed". Pete O'Hanlon Unix is a Four Letter Word, and Vi is a Two Letter Abbreviation
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
C# vs VB flame wars are stupid - it is the same language. However, when different languages are involved, there is always an opportunity to learn something new from these flame wars :)
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You hate perl? You n00b! I bet you're just too dumb to program in perl. * Circular references wildly *
That's right. I prefer programming languages that account for the fact we're not clever enough. :)
Kevin
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
paroosing
perusing
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I think what gets tedious though is when a post is on a topic that isn't about language wars and then someone mentions VB and can't resist the opportunity to slag it off. It just gets tiresome after a while. I can be a bit guilty of this because Perl is my pet hate. :)
Kevin
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
Come onnnn... This is the lounge... We gotta argue bout SOMEthin. And there's nothin I like argueing about more than programming languages. Lord knows I can't argue with my wife about programming languages. "java just BLOWS". "ok, if you say so". See, that's why I come here.
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
This behavior has been going on since the dawn of humanity in all aspects of life.
Todd Smith
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I think you're right on the money here.
Jonathan C Dickinson wrote:
If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon
Careful. The development team for Windows 7 are the same ones that did the Office 2007 Ribbon :-D
Don't take any wooden nickels.
Dirk Higbee wrote:
The development team for Windows 7 are the same ones that did the Office 2007 Ribbon
Oh that's just fucking great. Office 2007 is effectively defeatured because you can no longer frigging find what you're looking for, and half the stupid panels don't work. Now you're telling me they're going to do this to the whole OS. Where's my towel. I need to throw it in.
Software Zen:
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
The majority of programmers are male. The majority of them that bother getting into arguments about languages are young, *shockingly* inexperienced for having such strong opinions and terminally geeky, need I say anything more? :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
We who choose to denigrate VB (and it's purveyors of crap code) don't feel a compelling need to defend our actions, because those actions are righteous and good, and our selflessness serves all of mankind.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I was just paroosing the CP forums and articles, and a couple of the developers (particularily VB ones) get shot down for their choice of language: I am a C# developer myself, but I can't seem to fathom the reasons why people keep squabbling over programming languages. Firstly, you get the typical guy who says: "your language suckzzoorrzzz." Honestly he is showing himself up to be the real idiot because he is demonstrating that he [most probably] has experience only in one programming language. This means that if he has to get a job some day in a real company with real legacy systems he is going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with his 1337 Foo# programming skillz. Then you get the guy who simply says "my language is better than yours/best there is," basing his argument on statistics and the amount of people who use the language etc. Just because a lot of people use (or understand) the language doesn't make it the bees knees. Take a web scripting language for example, I am sure thousands of people use any specific one (and do amazing things with it): but it sure isn't possible to write a IMAP server in one. Just because it's popular doesn't make it universally applicable. Then take a language like x86 assembler, definitely not that many developers, but they must get paid bucket loads and have sooo much more skill than the rest of us. The typical CP article message: "I need a version of this in [insert language here]." I really wonder how many copy'n'paste programmers are writing software that runs our lives today and it scares me. It seems as though the art and joy of programming has been lost to the ability to copy'n'paste (although a DirectShow interop library always helps ;) ). Apart from that, most of these guys are asking for the stuff in C#: there are a couple VB-to-C# converters out there, so they are also showing a lack of Google skills. Finally (although OT) you get the guys who say, "your GUI sucks." Honestly, I think the better programmers would be the ones who are useless at GUIs. If you want a fancy GUI find an article on a Office 2007-style ribbon and not on a complex network protocol. Infact, with the WPF trend, programmers need only make the bare essential GUIs and the designers are left to make them look pretty. I think developers who want to say any of the above should seriously consider learning a new language: and they should take the language used by the author for a start. I joined the Java IRC chat room a while back claiming that I wanted to write a Java
In practical terms, many language choices do suck. Ever try hiring an experienced python developer? Or try do debug a python program with a really complicated bug? How about dealing with a third party who wants to put an application on your embedded device, but it runs slow as mud because it's a VB app (not VB.NET mind you, VB.) Or the developer who insists on creating a library as a COM object instead of a standard DLL even though everyone only needs it as a DLL? My point is that allowing developers use any language and/or technology has serious business implications. This not only impacts hiring, but also affects maintainability. A second point is that primary language choice often tells you much about the capabilities of an engineer. So, for example, there may be VB developers who understand multi-threading and synchronization well, but I haven't met one yet.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
