D vs Go on reddit

spir denis.spir at gmail.com
Thu Feb 10 06:05:47 PST 2011


On 02/09/2011 11:43 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Although I do like the inverse approach that D ended up taking: Don't bother
> with simplicity/orthogonality at first, just get important features in.
> *Then*  refactor the internals to shuffle the complexity into the std lib and
> simplify the core language. (And, of course, use lowerings whenever
> appropriate.)

I love that. I often program that way, at least up to a certain size/complexity.
I wouldn't even dare designing anything as big and complex as a PL using that 
approach. It's a question of amount of information and level of abstraction one 
is able to master, I guess. (I know from experience that my capacity of 
abstraction is not very powerful, esp compared to top-programmers).
Also, I would tend to conclude from (what I know of) D's past & present 
development history that it a good approach: leads to an eternal beta state (or 
even alpha)?

> Funny though, right after I posted "You'd think that things like JS...", the
> obvious devil's-advocate counter-argument occurred to me: "You'd think that
> things like C++ and Algol would have taught people that complex languages
> are a stupid way to go." Oh well.

Yes, orthogonality, simplicity,  lead to clarity. Which means people (with some 
rational skill) can far more easily grasp the system. But practical usability 
often requires breaking the nice, seducing, theoretical schemes. I guess. Or 
requires adding level of complexity to restore consistency after introducing 
practical features, notions, dictinctions. Veeery difficult.
But a language designed from the start on with only praticality in mind, with 
consistency not considered a design criterion, maybe does not even have a 
chance to become a beautiful, lovable and fun tool. C++. Except for toy cases,

denis
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