programming languages history

[Martin_fr]

Edited above msg. Replaced offending terms.

[MarkMLl]

'Their betters' in the former case: a handful of corporations that have been funneling billions of shekels into that language... (remainder of quote excised after a mod edited the original).

No. TO CLARIFY since it appears I wasn't entirely clear: I contrasted Perl and Python on the one hand with "their betters" on the other, by which I meant fully-compiled systems programming languages which include C, Pascal and others (I've come across classic FORTRAN libraries with Python wrappers).

I share your disdain for Python, but it is part of a bigger problem which is the tendency of a significant fraction of developers- often characterised as being younger which I suspect is a simplification- to throw existing code together without regard for bloat or efficiency. As examples I cite Inkscape and FreeCAD, both of which rely heavily on Python for plugins if not for the core program, and where plugins are likely to embed a "cut down" web browser running Javascript to provide a GUI.

Please don't rant, it will not make you popular. You've already sounded off to a sufficient extent that a thread ended up being locked, and if you continue to do so you're likely to find yourself banned by a hair-trigger moderator (who I suspect is currently getting some well-earned sleep :-)

MarkMLl

[friend]

I share your disdain for Python, but it is part of a bigger problem which is the tendency of a significant fraction of developers

Right, didn't follow the point, but, what I said is what that language relies upon. That is why it's been at the top. What you pointed out as the bigger problem is not the bigger problem, it's one consequence, has been a consequence of Java's popularity before, for instance. Programming language's popularity is not mainly a technical matter. It's mainly a shekel matter.

a hair-trigger moderator

It seems that I have been handicapped, can't even modify stuff I write. Please set me free, friends. 

[MarkMLl]

Right, didn't follow the point, but, what I said is what that language relies upon. That is why it's been at the top. What you pointed out as the bigger problem is not the bigger problem, it's one consequence, has been a consequence of Java's popularity before, for instance. Programming language's popularity is not mainly a technical matter. It's mainly a shekel matter.

Maybe. OTOH Java was nowhere near as good at encapsulating preexisting libraries... certainly in its original form (i.e. as specified by Sun, before MS tried their "embrace, extend, extinguish" tactic by adding a native-call facility).

I'm not of the "When I were a lad, we used to write an entire accounting program in a hundred lines of assembler" persuasion, but when you allow for the inefficiency pointed out by Liam (an occasional visitor to this forum) who I've quoted in https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,52849.msg390379.html#msg390379 and when you allow that the average webpage now includes more code and data than the original release of Doom (or was it Quake? whatever, fitted on a single floppy) one really does have to conclude that something's badly wrong.

It seems that I have been handicapped, can't even modify stuff I write. Please set me free, friends. 

Sorry, not my doing and under the circumstances having your posts checked by a mod before going public is the least you can expect.

You might not have noticed, but a few days ago somebody joined the forum and /immediately/- his first message- posted an abusive pro-Python rant. It was also his last message, at least in that incarnation :-)

The point I want to make is that the majority of us are using FPC and Lazarus either as a business tool, or to do something non-business which we still take seriously, or as one of the core developers after investing a lot of effort into it. While we are usually open to the "is your way really the best way?" or "such-and-such a language might have something from which we can learn" style of discussion, criticism of some other community's holy cow will rapidly show up on Google and attract trolls... a metatype we can quite simply do without.

MarkMLl