Ask HN: Should we coordinate to switch to more productive languages?

by EvanWard97 on 6/10/2020, 7:06:02 PM with 8 comments
It seems that some programming languages are simply better (i.e. overall safer, faster to read/write/compile/run, more expressive and efficient to develop in) than others. Overall worse languages often stick around though due to what often seems to essentially be community momentum--what could also be thought of as coordination failure.

Many individuals think "X lang clearly seems better, but Y is where the community momentum already is, so I am going with Y", and there isn't a clear way for developers and employers to commit to developing in language X instead of Y if "N quantity Y lang developers publicly commit to changing their next project that would otherwise be in Y lang to be in X lang."

While a public promise with public git repos may be enough, we may be able to even utilize smart contracts in the near future to help foster community-wide switches.

Also, while I'm not familiar enough with the languages to confidently say the dev community would be better if we could make the switch, I had: Python → Julia C → D C++ → D or Rust in mind, but whether or not you'd agree about these, I'm confident there are at least other switches worth making.

Would you pledge to switch to programming languages if enough of the industry agreed to do the same? If so, for which languages might you? Is this worth thinking about more?

  • by memexy on 6/10/2020, 7:15:30 PM

    > Would you pledge to switch to programming languages if enough of the industry agreed to do the same? If so, for which languages might you? Is this worth thinking about more?

    What research have you done on this matter other than this post? Is there a written record of you thinking about the trade offs in a longer format?

    > Is this worth thinking about more?

    No one can tell you what's worth thinking about. You'll have to decide that for yourself by doing the actual research and then presenting your results for discussion. Other than your questions I didn't see any actual research or summaries of research that would be useful for a discussion.

  • by thesuperbigfrog on 6/10/2020, 7:27:00 PM

    If my company's software is built with 10 million lines of C++, and the software works, how would you convince the stakeholders that a rewrite is worthwhile?

    Convincing people to switch because "it's better" is not very compelling if I have working code that is making money.

    If you like another programming language, use it. I will continue using what works for my needs, especially when I already have working code.

  • by holler on 6/10/2020, 7:19:18 PM

    No. Use the language that fits best for the project/team. Why is Julia better than Python? These are entirely subjective questions.