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submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So when I started programming in 2001, it was du jour in the communities I participated in to be highly critical of other languages. Other languages sucked, the people using them were losers or stupid, if they would just use a real language, such as the one we used, everything would just be better.

Right?

This sort of culturally-encoded language was really prevalent around condemning PHP and Java. Developers in these languages were actively referred to as less competent than developers in the other, more blessed languages.

And at the time, as a new developer, I internalised this pretty heavily. The language I was in was blessed, obviously, not because I was using it but because it was better designed than a language like PHP, less wordy and annoying than Java, more flexible than many other options.

It didn’t matter that it was (and remains) difficult to read, it was that we were better for using it.

I repeated this pattern for a really long time, and as I learned new languages and patterns I’d repeat the same behaviour in those new environments. I was almost certainly not that fun to be around, a microcosm of the broader unpleasantness in tech.

At least, until I got called on it.

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[–] Womble 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

So should we be entirely uncritical of whichever language people choose to use because it might be percieved as offputting to someone? Would someone writing in brainfuck or whitespace or FORTRAN66 for an actual project (i.e. not just for their own interest) not be subject to critisim for that choice?

Discussion of how languages have bad features and what they could do better is how progress gets made and languages improve over time. I personally find it annoying the level of recent dumping on python that seems to be popular, but they often have a point. Those points are useful in figuring out either how to make those languages better or how the next language to be created should be. Labeling that as problematic and "actively participating in the exclusion of women from STEM" seems to me to be a huge reach.

[–] BradleyUffner 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Criticizing a language is fine, but many people take the fact that someone else uses a language they don't like personally and call them idiots and fools for it.

That's the attitude this blog post is arguing against

Other languages sucked, the people using them were losers or stupid, if they would just use a real language, such as the one we used, everything would just be better.

[–] Womble 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If they had stuck to that I wouldnt have an issue with it, but they broaden it out to

I’m tired of calling people out again and again for dumping on PHP.

I’m tired of people dumping on Windows, that most popular operating system, because it’s not what we choose to use

I dont see critising PHP or Windows as a problem, both have serious faults. The argument put forth here conflates two things: That critising a language is bad (fine IMO), critising people for liking a language is bad (not fine). We should welcome the former while insisting the later isnt acceptable.