I started programming in a time when the idea that the computer could keep track of your variable types for you automatically was a fever dream, so it’s wild for me to see some programmers now throwing shade at particular langages for “not implementing proper variable typing functionality”.
It feels like someone saying that low-fat milk producers are too cheap or lazy to put enough fat in their milk.
It was a dream when it wasn’t available. Once it existed, we saw the many flaws it had. That’s why statically strong typed languages still exist. And even new ones are being created.
When I got into programming I figured it would be mostly linear technological progression. Every once in a while something new gets invented that’s better than the last iteration, so we discard the last option (except for legacy stuff) and everyone moves to the better thing.
But since then everything that was cool back then became uncool and cool again at least once.
I like the SQL/No-SQL cycle. SQL is powerful, but it’s also slow and clunky and if you do it badly it gets really slow. So we invented No-SQL DBs. They are fast, lightweight, but also barebones and limited. So we add functionality here and there, and before we know it we have another variant of SQL with a different syntax. So we head back to use real SQL. But then we realize it’s slow and clunky and if you do it badly it gets really slow. So we invent a new No-SQL DB and the cycle continues.
It’s more that nosql makes sense of you have very specific performance characteristics and can accept very specific constraints.
Alternatively, you want to use a document db because you don’t understand that delaying implementing schema integrity or implementing it yourself in the application layer instead of having it baked into your database will be more complex and slow you down in the long run. RDBMS isn’t slower than a generic document DB.
I don’t even think it’s fashion. Some ideas sound good but are bad. Or, overlappingly, are convenient to use but actually turn into nightmarish spaghetti code. I don’t know how many people are still pushing MongoDB and BASE, for example.
Meanwhile SQL hasn’t changed, and C didn’t until someone figured out memory safety in Rust.
Sorry for not being clear; when I said “keep track automatically” I meant dynamic typing. Of course you’re right that “keeping track of your variables” could also be interpreted to refer to static typing.
Haskell keeps track of your types automatically. You can ask it “what is the type of this expression” and it will infer it for you. Haskell is of course fully static typed (types erased at compile time).
I started programming in a time when the idea that the computer could keep track of your variable types for you automatically was a fever dream, so it’s wild for me to see some programmers now throwing shade at particular langages for “not implementing proper variable typing functionality”.
It feels like someone saying that low-fat milk producers are too cheap or lazy to put enough fat in their milk.
Fashion really does go in cycles.
It was a dream when it wasn’t available. Once it existed, we saw the many flaws it had. That’s why statically strong typed languages still exist. And even new ones are being created.
This here.
When I got into programming I figured it would be mostly linear technological progression. Every once in a while something new gets invented that’s better than the last iteration, so we discard the last option (except for legacy stuff) and everyone moves to the better thing.
But since then everything that was cool back then became uncool and cool again at least once.
I like the SQL/No-SQL cycle. SQL is powerful, but it’s also slow and clunky and if you do it badly it gets really slow. So we invented No-SQL DBs. They are fast, lightweight, but also barebones and limited. So we add functionality here and there, and before we know it we have another variant of SQL with a different syntax. So we head back to use real SQL. But then we realize it’s slow and clunky and if you do it badly it gets really slow. So we invent a new No-SQL DB and the cycle continues.
It’s more that nosql makes sense of you have very specific performance characteristics and can accept very specific constraints.
Alternatively, you want to use a document db because you don’t understand that delaying implementing schema integrity or implementing it yourself in the application layer instead of having it baked into your database will be more complex and slow you down in the long run. RDBMS isn’t slower than a generic document DB.
I don’t even think it’s fashion. Some ideas sound good but are bad. Or, overlappingly, are convenient to use but actually turn into nightmarish spaghetti code. I don’t know how many people are still pushing MongoDB and BASE, for example.
Meanwhile SQL hasn’t changed, and C didn’t until someone figured out memory safety in Rust.
1950??? Statically typed programming languages are very old…
Sorry for not being clear; when I said “keep track automatically” I meant dynamic typing. Of course you’re right that “keeping track of your variables” could also be interpreted to refer to static typing.
Haskell keeps track of your types automatically. You can ask it “what is the type of this expression” and it will infer it for you. Haskell is of course fully static typed (types erased at compile time).
GOTO is all i’m saying.