Yeah, but that makes it sound like they're all equal, and there hasn't been any progression, which is untrue. You're either insane or a historical reenactor if you write something new in COBOL.

I think Rust is genuinely a huge leap forwards compared to C/C++. Maybe one day it will be shitty and obsolete, and at the very least it will become a boring standard option, but for now...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Rust is already obsolete, compared to Stingpie's excellent assembly language, paired with object oriented programming!

This is the SEALPOOP specification:

an assembler must create a binary program which satisfies the programmer's specifications.
a compiler must translate the programmer's code into SEALPOOP's parallel instruction set source, which should be fed into the SEALPOOP PISS assembler.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well that's going to get cancelled. Think of the non binary folk out there!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Don't worry, they have DreamBerd

Booleans can be true, false or maybe. Technical info: Booleans are stored as one-and-a-half bits.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I now want a community led historical reenactment of loose tie wearing software devs in the 60s where they are just chain smoking and banging out COBOL or Fortran punch cards

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

[email protected]

I don't think much happens in person, but the community for it definitely exists.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

C++ when it was new was exactly like this. Rust still hasn't had 30 years of legacy, all these Rust prophets will shit on it's name in 15 years when they have to maintain huge codebases with it

Besides, C++ is very likely to adopt memory safety

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that's my guess too.

As to whether C++ can update enough to steal it's thunder, I feel less qualified to answer. It'd be pretty impressive if they managed to preserve backwards compatibility and do that at the same time, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Now it seems the way is unique_ptr and shared_ptr. And std::any to replace void*. At least is what it seems to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

i think it's more like a "significant" step in language design that could make a "huge" leap in software quality

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, until Electron is rewritten in Rust, so people with Stockholm syndrome can still write painful JavaScript desktop apps...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Tauri gets us quite a long way there

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

YOU CAN HAVE MY COBOL ON COGS WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you're also not familiar, in it's plain http glory: http://www.coboloncogs.org/

~~That is indeed very cool, and falls squarely into the second case.~~

Edit: Or maybe the first? (A joke about how insane it would be counts)

It seems non-serious, given the lack of downloads and snail mail as a contact method. If they actually made this, though, reenactment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

makes it sound like they're all equal, and there hasn't been any progression

Programming peaked with Lisp (and SQL for database stuff).

Every “progression” made since Lisp has been other languages adding features to (partially but not quite completely) do stuff that could already be done in Lisp, but with less well implemented (though probably with probably less parentheses).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Spoken like a true Lisp fan. I dunno, I really like static typing, and too many brackets gets tiresome.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You can use typed Lisp, there are plenty of them, from Typed Racket to Shen in their complexity. Or to make your own type system in 50-100 lines when you actually need

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There have been "improvements" but fundamentally in my perspective, these "improvements" could be revealed to be a mistake down the line.

Assembly has produced some insane pieces of software that couldn't be produced like that with anything else.

Maybe types in programming languages are bad because they are kinda misleading as the computer doesn't even give a shit about what is data and what is code.

Maybe big projects are just a bad idea in software development and any kind of dependency management is the wrong way.

I like modern languages, types and libraries are nice to have, but I am not the student of the future but of the past.

[–] verstra 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's a valid argument, but a very weak one. If we are not completely sure something is an improvement in all aspects are we just to dismiss it altogether?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, you could dismiss combustion engines for the same reason, or like, carpentry. You wouldn't be wrong, they have caused problems down the line at various points (modern climate change, medieval deforestation), but you bet I'd still call them an advance on mule power, or on no carpentry.

This is pretty much an nullification of the idea of technological progress existing at all, which is a kinda hot take.

@[email protected], so you can reply in the right place.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I see your perspective and I think you kinda miss my perspective which I am to blame for.

I don't say there weren't improvements. I am saying that given the uncertainty of "goodness". Maybe we shouldn't idolize it. You can appreciate the attempt of creating memory safe code through a programing language without thinking the bare metal code should be written in that language. You can like a typeless easy to write language like Js without thinking desktop app should be written in it. You can like the idea behind functional programming while believing that any application is in the end about side effects and therefore a purely functional application impossible.

You can approach the whole topic as an area of study and possible technological advances instead of a dogma.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Oh, well I can agree with that.

You can like the idea behind functional programming while believing that any application is in the end about side effects and therefore a purely functional application impossible.

It's a bit of a tangent, but if you're doing something completely deterministic and non-interactive, like computing a digit of pi, it's great in practice as well. I use Haskell semi-regularly for that kind of thing.

You could argue printing the output is a side effect, but is a side effect followed by termination really "side"?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I agree.

I think it is a side effect if it runs on a modern Os. But honestly who cares...