Nobody understands templates?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On 3/4/2014 9:00 PM, bearophile wrote:
> Nick Sabalausky:
>
>> But, I admit, I have wondered if a language could aid the
>> creation/usage of entity systems with some special language features.
>
> I have seen that a good way to learn lazyness and purity is to try to
> write some Haskell code. Then you can use the same ideas in other
> languages, like D. Similarly I've studied regular expressions in dynamic
> languages, and now I am able to use them in Java, C#, D, etc.
>
> So I've seen that it's good to learn a feature/style in a language that
> uses it a lot, or even in a language designed around such feature.
> Because languages shape your mind, and specialized languages train your
> mind to use few specific features. Later in real-world situations often
> you can't use such specialized/esoteric/rare language, and you have to
> use a common language as Java. And sometimes if people use a feature a
> lot in other languages, eventually it gets ported even to the common
> languages (like lambdas in Java).
>
> So even if you can't or you don't want to use a new language to use
> entity systems, training your mind a bit thinking in a new language
> designed for it could help use it in a common language, or could even
> suggest you few features to add to a more general purpose language as D.
>
> Wouter van Oortmerssen shows very well that designing many small
> specialized languages helps you sharpen your mind and later you apply
> those ideas to more general situations:
> http://strlen.com/language-design-overview
>

Yea, all good points. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from 
Joel Spolsky:

"I have never met anyone who can do Scheme, Haskell, and C pointers who 
can't pick up Java in two days, and create better Java code than people 
with five years of experience in Java, but try explaining that to the 
average HR drone."
   - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html