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trønderen wrote: Yes we did ... but they were different languages, not just minor variations of C! You raise a good point, although my POV is a bit different. I learned 2 of the languages you mentioned for individual contracts, and never had a reason to learn any of the others. In the business consulting world I lived in, only a handful of mainstream languages had any market share. As a consultant, I focused on languages that I could use professionally.
trønderen wrote: As a way to exert power, to control as much as possible of the software development process, bringing it into the Python ecosystem. That is an excellent point!
I worked briefly in Object/1, which IIRC was billed as "Smalltalk with C syntax". I realized it was going no where and shifted roles to a C segment of the project. A few years later the customer had to completely rewrite the application from scratch, as support for that version of Object/1 was dropped.
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I guess I learned most of the off-mainstream languages - such as APL, Snobol, Prolog - as a student; I didn't have to worry about professional use. Actually, I never used any of those three professionally, ever. None of the languages I have been required to learn as a professional has been anywhere close to 'exciting', considered as language designs.
'As a student' does not necessarily mean 'taking a course at the University'. Snobol I picked up for one single reason: On the network (before Internet - a network named MECC) we had access to at high school, I accidentally bumped into a version of Eliza (the therapist) - a rather primitive variant, but it was written in just 200 lines of Snobol source code. I was so impressed that I had to get to know that language!
APL I learned in high school, too: I made friends with a guy whose father worked at IBM, having been on the 5100 design team (Wikipedia: IBM 5100[^]). He was so proud of his father's work that he insisted I learned to program that machine! I did, and was fascinated by APL.
Prolog was a balloon ready to burst in my study days. It did, but not until I had completed a Prolog course. Nothing ever became of Prolog or the entire 5th generation project.
I never programmed in Occam at all, but we studied it in one course at the university.
I guess students of today also dive into a lot of stuff that they will never be using professionally. Maybe today they study all sorts of AI methods? I don't know. But I enjoyed being a student in the years when language design was hot and exciting.
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trønderen wrote: I guess I learned most of the off-mainstream languages - such as APL, Snobol, Prolog - as a student Same here. I learned 6 or 7 languages during my studies, ones never looked at again. Personally, I believe CS students should be taught a range of languages they might never touch again, as it provides a breadth of understand that makes future learning easier.
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BryanFazekas wrote: Everything I see is a retread of earlier stuff in a different package (lipstick on a pig), or it's a monument to ego (see! I made a new language!).
Yup, pretty much.
We've passed the point where we've saturated the field of programming with novel features and languages, somewhere around 2010.
Last language I learned out of curiosity was D, and even then I knew it was just a rehash of C with a neat compiler and no viable ecosystem.
When looking at Rust, I quite literally see a C variant with thread safety that's specialized for system-level code.
I can pick it up in a day, maybe 2 if the toolchain is finicky, but why bother without a concrete project lined up?
I doubt it will teach me any great insight I've missed in the last 27 languages I picked up.
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Kate-X257 wrote: I doubt it will teach me any great insight I've missed in the last 27 languages I picked up. I know what you mean.
During the first 10 years of my career (started late 80's), on average I learned a new language, tool, library, or package every 3 months. This includes version changes where the differences required study and/or effort. A large part of that was being a consultant/contractor, so I learned whatever the new client needed.
Now? Companies and organizations pump out new versions in an attempt to stay relevant, and force churn by dropping support for "old" versions, after periods as short as 12 - 18 months.
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I have read that it can be a real pain (not that I have coded in Rust) to manage memory because it has memory ownership. That's purely anecdotal by the by.
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Visual Code has an extension; Rust Extension Pack by Swellaby
I've been trying to learn it also but, like you I just haven't been able to wrap my head around it. (I am old...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it)
The most expensive tool is a cheap tool. Gareth Branwyn
JaxCoder.com
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Thanks! I'll check that out.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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From what I have seen it is a mixture of C, Java, Javscript, Python, C++ etc. The main difficulty is the designers' use of obscure terminology rather than using the same words that most developers are used to. I can see no reason why I would ever need it.
I always found that trying to learn a new language after lunch put me to sleep.
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maybe you are a little rusty ?
(sorry, I'll get my coat)
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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It looks like text speak: no caps, pointless abbreviations, and words that don't mean what they mean in conventional terms. Might be ideal for programming with your thumbs only.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: ...looks like text speak: no caps, pointless abbreviations, and words that don't mean what they mean in conventional terms. Sounds like *nix.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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TNCaver wrote: Sounds like *nix ... or cmd or powershell or ...
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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Part of it probably is because you're older, but not because of any mental breakdown or slowdown but because what you've learned and worked with so far has burned their paradigms into your brain, and your brain is resisting Rust's paradigm.
Or I could just be blowing hot air; I've not looked closely enough at Rust syntax to know how different it is.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I don't think it's age related. Apart from some exceptional cases brain can be trained similarly to muscles regardless of how old we are. It rather can be something connected to some sort of fatigue or lack of motivation or combination of both factors even though that you can think that you're motivated in reality it can be not true.
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Our brains get full. Would be nice to have selective memory erasure to free up some of it for other uses.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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that's too obvious.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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Not enough anti-oxidants?
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It's not your age, and it's not you in any other way. It's Rust. I read through some of the documentation once and didn't care for it. I decided to give it a second chance. That was enough to convince me that it was bizarre and that I wasn't interested. Another language whose designers either think they're your parents or have PTSD from bad pointer experiences.
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why do you need to pick RUST?
diligent hands rule....
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None of this is about need. And I'm pretty sure Rust isn't an acronym?
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Seems to me like you're likely already rather intimate with hardware and how things work in computers.
From a quick look at the code-samples, it felt like stepping back into about 1993 and Turbo Pascal.
Pointers are trivial. Memory safety and leaks aren't exactly the hardest things to keep track of either.
Certainly not the view held universally, but reasonably common all the same.
It feels like the language introduces unnecessary complexity in pursuit of the mission to dumb-it-down.
EXACTLY the same mistake so many HTML/JS frameworks force upon their users.
println!("Nah thanks. Keep yer oxidised rubbish Mozilla");
Oh... and here's yer bang back too ( ! )
FFS - it's an exclamation mark ya willies.
Rant aside - thanks for the impetus to finally have a look at it. That was 20 minutes of my life I'll sadly never get back.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way!
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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honey the codewitch wrote: I read somewhere that our intelligence and mental flexibility peaks in our late 20s?
Arthur C. Clarke's First Law:: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clarke went on to define "elderly": In Mathematics and the physical sciences, anyone over 30. In biology, senile decay is at times postponed to the 40s.
Join the club...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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