I think this thread is meant to flatter programmers and make linguists and sociologists extremely angry.
As someone with a background in linguistics, my jimmies are indeed rustled.
IDK, comparing Javascript to English while Java to German seems to either overblow the value of javascript or diminish the value of English.
How so? Except the first sentence which is obviously not serious, I would agree with all linguistic statements or at least not disagree with any.
For one, Latin has more fancy rules than French. I guess the subjunctive is probably something English speakers might consider fancy, but Latin has that too. Latin has more times that are conjugations of the core verb (rather than needing auxiliary verbs), has grammatical cases (like German, but two more if you include vocative) and, idk, also just feels fancier in general.
I’ll admit it’s been years since I actually read any Latin and that I only have a surface level understanding of all languages mentioned except for French, but this post reads like it’s about the stereotypes of the countries rather than being about the languages themselves.
Latin has more rules, but they’re more utilitarian than fancy. Latin rules are there to make sure you understand exactly what is being said. French rules are there to make everything elegant and confusing, like high fashion.
First, I wouldn’t count the vocative but let’s not get into this debate. Counting cases, Russian wins until you include other balto slavic languages or even Uralic ones.
Fancy is a very subjective term. Auxiliary verbs are fancy in their own way. From an orthographical viewpoint, French is quite fancy with all the silent letters, the way vocals are pronounced and stuff. French had like one spelling “reform” and it was like let’s make it more obvious we decent from Latin. Grammar wise it’s just like the other romance languages from what I know. They once got rid of the silent <s> and put a “gravestone” on the letter before (^) that has no other meaning than here was a silent s. Wouldn’t you call that fancy? Who would call it fancy?
MwaMoi!Meh, as a native Dutch speaker auxiliary verbs feel really utilitarian to me, and not particularly fancy - like you said, that’s highly subjective.
As for cases, I didn’t say Latin or German had the most, but just that I think they’re fancy and that Latin has them while French doesn’t.
So you speak a V2 language like me? I’m German btw. Let me give you an outside perspective on auxiliary verbs in continental western Germanic languages:
The verb comes in second position (hence V2). Using an auxiliary verb moves the content verb to the very end of the sentence. It totally messes with the syntax.
But that’s besides my point. My point wasn’t that French auxiliary verbs are fancy but that fancy can me many things, in French it’s the spelling and pronunciation. Cases aren’t fancy, at least not the German or Latin ones. The slavic cases are a different story, in my objective opinion.
Haha I decline your proposal not to get into that debate: the vocative is a grammatical case. Maybe not every noun can be put in the vocative, but it’s definitely one of the cases. Even the locative is a case, even though only a couple of nouns use it.
To be clear, in general the vocative is a case eg in Czech and other balto slavic languages (except eg standard Russian while colloquial Russian is developing a new unrelated one).
In Latin tho, it’s more a relict. Other cases have relicts, too, still I wouldn’t say Latin has the locative.
I would argue that being a relict is a spectrum. Technically, it is a case with many syncretism to nominative, since it is obligatory for those nouns. In the context of LAtiN hAs sOo0 ManY cAsES, it’s not.
The Ohio State University seems to think these are both cases: https://classics.osu.edu/Undergraduate-Studies/Latin-Program/Grammar/Cases/latin-case .
and there are vestiges of a seventh, the Locative.
I called it relicts but it’s basically what I said. Maybe vestiges is the better word in English, in German we say “Relikte”.
I think the first sentence is probably enough to make anyone not afflicted with a eurocentric brain want to palm some face.
I think excusing it as a “not serious” statement is dangerous, as a lot of people even on Lemmy won’t second guess it.
The belief that the west is the origin of all science and culture is surprisingly pervasive, especially in the tech industry.
“The root of all modern languages” is a heck of a thing to say about Latin, and I’m pretty sure several billion people haven’t quite gotten that memo. Calling a chunk of Europe and a thin slice of Africa “the entire Universe” is also a spicy take. Come for the programmer humor, recoil in disgust for the rampant ethnocentrism, I guess.
I don’t disagree but I would still give the benefit of a doubt that “the whole universe” is such an exaggeration that it makes the overstatement obvious. But it would also be read as a praise. Overall, I wouldn’t take it all to seriously. Made me laugh but I also see the eurocentrism and it’s good to be aware of it.
I mean, French is vulgar Latin at best. And even if it wasn’t obviously spoken by all sorts of French people, elites or not, it’s also the official language of a bunch of other countries, from Monaco to Niger. “Elites and certain circles” is a very weird read, which I’m guessing is based on US stereotypes on the French? I don’t even think the British would commit to associating the French with elitism.
Russian speakers being “mostly autoritarian left” is also… kind of a lot to assume? I’m not even getting into that one further. I don’t know if the Esperanto one checks out, either. “Esperanto speaker” is the type of group, and this is true, whose wikipedia page doesn’t include statistics but instead just a list of names. Which is hilarious, but maybe not a great Python analogue. It may still be the best pairing there, because to my knowledge English speakers aren’t any worse at speaking English than the speakers of any other language. They are more monolingual, though.
It just all sounds extremely anglocentric to me, which is what it is, I suppose, but it really messes with the joke if you’re joking about languages specifically. One could do better with this concept, I think.
About Esperanto, since it’s not a national language (intentionally so) it’s hard to do a census of speakers.
Also, to what level is considered “speaking Esperanto”? Taking the Duolingo course? Having it as a “mother tongue” where both parents speak it in a household in order to communicate? These are both probably countable, and produce wildly different numbers.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think that’s the reason. I also think those numbers may be different but they may both be indistinguishable from zero when plotted against natural languages. You’re right about it being hard to define what counts as a “Esperanto speaker”. I can’t decide if that makes the Python comparison better or worse, though.
Yeah, I do not think Python is a very good comparison.
I was thinking more like Clojure:
- Enthusiastic and friendly geeks trying to push their language on the world trying to make it a better place. They are both definitely not a little cultish!
- Language intended to be simple to learn with a limited and regular vocabulary, but can handle complicated work with ease.
- They both say that learning their language will make your mind better able to do other languages.
- A bridge between languages. Vanilla Clojure runs on the JVM and can invoke Java commands. But it has also been built on other platforms like JavaScript (ClojureScript), .NET (CLR), Python (Basilisp), BASH (Babashka), and others I think.
- The parts of both languages can be broken up, mixed, and matched, and used for other parts. In Esperanto, the fundamental elements can be broken down and made into other words. In Clojure, you’ve got functions and lists - and higher order functions that work on functions and lists, and lists of functions, and functions of lists.
- Did I mention: Friendly & welcoming geeks that lo-o-o-ove newbies! Seriously, both Clojure nerds and Esperanto nerds are unnaturally nice and would like to welcome you to the club. They’ve got tons of free resources for you to learn it.
Honestly, I think both are right. Both are simple languages that expand your way of thinking, and are probably both worth learning, if you’re into that sort of thing.
I think the elitism regards of French isn’t about French native speakers but about second language learners. French was the lingua franca in Europe for quite a while and using French loan words makes you sound more fancy and eloquent in many languages (compare “adult” with “grownup” which is a Latin loan word but I can’t think of a real example so I hope no one will notice).
The Russian bit I totally agree. Esperanto vs python is quite a leap, I agree. Showing a list (that’s probably not conclusive but still) is telling when compared to the go to beginners programming language. Still there are parallels in the design and intention. No comparison is ever perfect.
All in all it’s not perfect but as a joke, it works for me. Sure, it’s not unbiased but if not taken too seriously, I can laugh about it, and I can over analyze it for fun so win win for me.
Yeah, but that’s my point. The author clearly isn’t thinking about the hundreds of millions of native French speakers around the world, they’re an American thinking the word “mutton” sounds fancier than “sheep”… in English.
Which yeah, okay, that’s their cultural upbringing causing that, but then maybe don’t make a joke entirely predicated on making sharp observations about how languages work and aimed specifically at nerds. I can only ever go “it’s funny because it’s true” or be extremely judgmental of your incorrect assumptions about how languages work here.
your incorrect assumptions
Why make it about me? I was more or less playing devil’s advocate, saying if not taken seriously it’s funny.
I would be more likely to agree with you if you put “OP’s assumption”. Your phrasing makes me want to double down on my original position.
That’s just a general recommendation for discussions in general, online and offline. I learned a thing or two about my biases and perspectives here. Btw I’m German and that part resonated with me from my little experience with JAVA and my experience in learning about my native language and teaching it to others.
Oh, sorry, you misunderstood, I didn’t mean you specifically, I mean you as in “why would you ever do this”, as in “why would anybody ever do this”.
Languages, as we’ve established, are complicated.
It’s kinda funny, I’m Flemish and a lot of French loan words (ambriage, merci, nondedju = nom de dieu to name a few) are mainly used in dialect, and therefore don’t make you sounds sophisticated or worldly at all.
From what I know it’s similar in Swiss German (with words like merci and velo (bike)). I don’t know about Fleming but Swiss embraces their dialects so it isn’t stigmatized either
In Soviet Russia memory manages you!
PHP is Russian. Used to be huge, caused lots of problems, now slowly dwindling away. Its supporters keep saying how it’s still better than the competition.
the root of all modern languages
the whole universe used to speak it
uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
P.S: the closest thing to that is Egyptian, but not the language, the Alphabet (the Symbols, not a literal alphabet). Tons of alphabets are descended from Egyptian, including, but not limited to: Greek (and by Proxy Latin, Cyrillic, Georgian, Armenian, Armenian and Armenian (I just noticed this, I’m leaving it in because it’s funny)), Arabic (and by proxy- I won’t list all that), Hebrew, and Aramaic (and by proxy all Indian languages but one, as well as Tibetan, Phags-pa mongol (and by proxy exactly 5 letters of Hangul), Thai, Lao, Sundanese, and Javanese). There’s a lot of dead languages that used scripts derived from Egyptian too but I didn’t mention them because I’d be here all day listing stuff like Sogdian or Norse Runes.
BASIC: Am I a joke to you?
Ahem… Assembly is tired of being forgotten
Assembly is like phonetic script.
section .data msg1 db "Those copper ingots were of terrible quality.",0 msg2 db "My servant was also treated very badly!",0
No, jokes are fun.
Phoenician wants a word.
The whole (Mediterranean) universe.
I suspect there’s more people who speak Python fluently than Esperanto. So that comparison sits very wrong with me. The rest was funny :)
Esperanto’s equivalent would probably be Haskell.
Python is probably more like Spanish. Very easy basics, but then people from different regions of where it’s has spread out barely understand each other
Nobody mentioned number of speakers though
No, but the adoption rate is likely related to how useful the language is?
It fits, English and JavaScript are both three languages in a trench coat.
Is this post sane-washing Russia? What’s left about Russia under Putin? Overall funny, though
It’s a post by the lemmy dev, so yeah that’s a given
It’s a cool meme but I have many many disagreements.
Rust is esperanto because its only actually used by a small group of nerds,
python is russian because everything made in it is unreliable.
Haskell is Esperanto. The difference being that Rust is actually catching on.
Rust is used more Ethan you think
Python is Spanish; a ton of people learned a bit in school and never picked it back up again. Places that speak it natively all have their own conventions because, even though the native languages were replaced by colonizers, a lot of the native languages patterns remained in place. Most places that speak it are super welcoming and stoked that you’re trying to learn.
Why is everyone down on Rust? Seriously. I don’t know it but I’ve considered learning it and it appeals to me and people literally scoff when I mention it. Saw it referred to as a meme language on Lemmy, which is built in Rust. What am I missing?
I think ppl just got pissed with the fanboys unironically asking to RIIR everything. The language itself is comfy AF, tho
I think rust has good ideas and may even become the default systems language in the mid-term. I find it irritating that there is a very vocal subset of rust proponents that tend to insist that every project in every language needs to be rewritten in rust immediately. I suspect that is also why other people are down on rust.
That makes sense! Thanks for your insight
Butthurt C devs don’t want it replacing their language.
as guy who likes c: think rust is a good and cool idea
I don’t think many ppl are down on rust… it’s won developer’s most favorite to use for like 5+ years now in a row on stackoverflow.
For me “The Critical Flaw” of rust is its compiler. And requirent of 12 GB of disk space to compile just the frontend of compiler. Even GCC will all frontends(C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Modula-2, JIT) requires less space.
But joke is probably about “rewrite in rust” culture.
Wow that’s enormous. I’ll have to learn more about that. Thanks for the info!
that’s because Rust is more modern and in modern days we don’t rly have hard disk limitation, also it’s probably because the compiler tells you the solution to most problems
and in modern days we don’t rly have hard disk limitation
well if you are a corporation, that’s true. Otherwise, not much
Maybe someone ought to rewrite rust in C.
Imo it’s bc it’s the new kid on the block. Yes it’s 10 years old but barely becoming common use in production and government mandates are only speeding that up. In actuality it’s a great language and has been hyped for a few years by people who actually use it. Python went through the same thing in the 2010s where devs really tried clowning on it, now it’s used everywhere.
Good to know, I’ve only been a dev since 2019 so I appreciate the long view
i think it’s mainly people being cranky and set in their ways. they got used to working around all the footguns/bad design decisions of the C/C++ specifications and really don’t want to feel like it was all for nothing. they’re comfortable with C/C++, and rust is new and uncomfortable. i think for some people, being a C/C++ developer is also a big part of their identity, and it might be uncomfortable to let that go.
i also think there’s a historical precedent for this kind of thing: when a new way of doing things emerges, many of the people who grew up doing it the old way get upset about it and refuse to accept that the new way might be an improvement.
Some rust proponents having this attitude is probably part of the problem.
Is Rust as close to the metal as C? Seems like there would still be a need for C. I could see Rust replacing Java as something that’s so ceremonial and verbose, but from my limited perspective as a sometimes java dev, having only the most glancing experience with C, it seems like C would be hard to replace because of what it is. Buy I honestly don’t know much about Rust either, I just think JS is so finicky and unpredictable whereas web assembly seems extremely fast and stable.
I mean, the simple proof is that Rust has been growing by leaps and bounds in the embedded world, which is the closest to bare metal you get. It’s also being used in the Linux kernel and Windows, and there are several projects building new kernels in pure Rust. So yeah, it’s safe to say that it’s as close to the metal as C.
Also, the comparison to Java is understandable if you’ve only been exposed to Rust by the memes, but it doesn’t hold up in practice. Rust has a lot more syntax than C (although that’s not saying much), but it’s one of the most expressive languages on the market today.
It’s slightly less close to the metal as C. Array bounds checks are always going to cost you something, for example. However, if you look at the speed of numeric computation in C, Rust, and Go, they’re all in the same order of magnitude performance compared to things like Python or JavaScript (not including things like PyPi, which is C with extra steps).
Wow thanks so much for breaking that down for me! The discussions I’ve been having here and the information devs are sharing is really kicking me off the fence about learning Rust
Eh, I’d still go for it. I find the Rust compiler tends to amplify my impostor syndrome–it tells you all the ways you are objectively being stupid. I know that’s not really selling it, but it’s doing that stuff for a reason. I’m especially hopeful that it becomes the standard way to do things with microcontrollers; that’s about the only place I write C/C++ at all.
Noted!
Rust can create native binaries but I wouldn’t call it close to the metal like C. It’s certainly possible to bootstrap from assembly to Rust but, unlike C, every operation doesn’t have a direct analog to an assembly operation. For example Rust needs to be able to dynamically allocate memory for all of its syntax to be intact.
For example Rust needs to be able to dynamically allocate memory for all of its syntax to be intact.
Hmm, you got an example of what you mean?
Rust can be used without allocations, as is for example commonly done with embedded.
That does mean, you can’t use dynamically sized types, likeString,VecandPathBuf, but I wouldn’t consider those part of the syntax, they’re rather in the std lib…So you’re right that this is a bit arbitrary because the line between the standard lib and the language is blurry, but someone writing Rust is going to expect Vec to work, it doesn’t even require an extra “use” to get it.
Perhaps a better core example would be operator overloading (or really any place using traits). When looking at “a + b” in Rust you have to be aware that, depending on the types involved, that could mean anything.
Anyway, I love Rust, it just doesn’t have the 1:1 relationship with the assembly output that C basically still has.
Cause it’s a C++ replacement when said audience never asked for one. It’s great but it’s still waaaayy too early, people need to slowly get comfortable with it.
Well latin isn’t the root of all modern languages
Yes, but “Proto Indo-European” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. /s
Exactly. Nobody knows how the tongue was involved in h2.
It isn’t even the root of the indo-european languages and the Indo-European languages are just one of many language families around the world.
Source I am from Austria. :)
Java, verbose? laughs in Pascal
Python being Esperanto? Yeah, no, because Python is actually being used
Can anyone actually tell what exactly complicated in Java? Verbose, maybe it was at some point but I find it very straightforward and easy.
Its standard library reads like someone’s Object Oriented Programming 101 final project, and they probably got a B- for it. Everything works and follows OO principles, but they didn’t stop to think about how it’s actually going to be used.
Let’s try to read a file line-by-line:
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("sample.txt")); String line = reader.readLine();We’re having to instantiate two objects (
FileReaderand thenBufferedReader) just to get an object that has areadLine()method. Why? Can’tBufferedReadertake a file name on its own and work it out? OrFileReaderjust providesreadLine()itself?Not only that, but being parsimonious with what we import would result in:
import java.io.BufferedReader; import java.io.FileReader;But we’re much more likely to be lazy and import everything with
import java.io.*;. Which is sloppy, but I understand.I can see what they were thinking when separating these concerns, but it resulted in more complexity than necessary.
There’s a concept of “Huffman Coding” in language design. The term itself comes from data compression, but it can be generalized to mean that things you do often in a programming language should be short and easy. The above is not good Huffman Coding.
Library built this way because it supposed to be flexible and provide ground for complex usecases. It can only be flexible if your API works with simple abstractions which you can then compose. It’s not driven by “I need this specific utility for this specific scenario”. That would be zoo you have in JS where you have 10 ways to iterate over array and 9 of them wrong for your scenario.
Java’s OO is great because they design library with SRP in mind making sure there is few but good ways to do things.
BufferedReader cannot accept file name because it makes arbitrary reader… well buffered. It’s not BufferedFileReader, even that would accept something like Path or File, not string, because File can be remote file, should Reader now know all possible local and remote protocols and path formats? What else it must do?
Having it designed the way it is, allows Java to have utilities for various scenarios. Your scenario covered by standard lib too. See Files.readAllLines which, surprise-surprise, built on top of BufferedReader.
BufferedReader cannot accept file name because it makes arbitrary reader… well buffered. It’s not BufferedFileReader, even that would accept something like Path or File, not string, because File can be remote file, should Reader now know all possible local and remote protocols and path formats? What else it must do?
You’re just describing the problem. Yes, I see where they’re going with this. It’s still a usability nightmare. I can’t think of another language that makes you jump through hoops like this on IO, and they get along fine without it.
I agree with you. It’s a neat design idea to make things a bit more maintainable perhaps, but it’s just annoying to program with.
I think a lot of it is “ceremony”, so it’s pretty common in java to:
- create a get method for every object variable
- create a set method for every object variable
Then add on top that you have the increased code of type annotations PLUS the increased code of having to check if a value is null all the time because all types are nullable.
None of that is hugely complicated compared to sone of the concepts in say Rust, but it does lead to a codebase with a lot more lines of code than you’d see in other similar languages.
Before someone says it, I know a lot of this stuff doesn’t need to be done. I’m just giving it as examples for why Java has the rep it does.
i still don’t understand. is it easier in python or JS to make getters and setters? with python my experience has been the opposite, with the decorator based solution in mind.
or if the problem is that they exist, as an option to be used, why is that a problem? they can be implemented in any other language, and it can be useful.then yeah, you should check for nulls. just like for None’s in python, or if you have the correct type at all, because if it’s entirely different but ends up having a function or variable with the same name then who knows what happens.
then in javascript besides null, you also have undefined and NaN!It’s not easier to do getters or setters but especially in python there’s a big culture of just not having getters or setters and accessing object variables directly. Which makes code bases smaller.
Same with the types (although most languages for instance doesn’t consider None a valid value for an int type) Javascript has sooo many dynamic options, but I don’t see people checking much.
I think it boils down to, java has a lot of ceremony, which is designed to improve stability. I think this makes code bases more complex, and gives it the reputation it has.
i still don’t understand. is it easier in python or JS to make getters and setters? with python my experience has been the opposite, with the decorator based solution in mind.
or if the problem is that they exist, as an option to be used, why is that a problem? they can be implemented in any other language, and it can be useful.then yeah, you should check for nulls. just like for None’s in python, or if you have the correct type at all, because if it’s entirely different but ends up having a function or variable with the same name then who knows what happens.
then in javascript besides null, you also have undefined and NaN!
Java itself is kind of blissful in how restricted and straightforward it is.
Java programs, however, tend to be very large and sprawling code-bases built on even bigger mountains of shared libraries. This is a product of the language’s simplicity, the design decisions present in the standard library, and how the Java community chooses to solve problems as a group (e.g. “dependency injection”). This presents a big learning challenge to people encountering Java projects on the job: there’s a huge amount of stuff to take in. Were Java a spoken language it would be as if everyone talked in a highly formal and elaborate prose all the time.
People tend to conflate these two learning tasks (language vs practice), lumping it all together as “Java is complicated.”
$0.02: Java is the only technology stack where I have encountered a logging plugin designed to filter out common libraries in stack traces. The call depth on J2EE architecture is so incredibly deep at times, this is almost essential to make sense of errors in any reasonable amount of time. JavaScript, Python, PHP, Go, Rust, ASP, C++, C#, every other language and framework I have used professionally has had a much shallower call stack by comparison. IMO, this is a direct consequence of the sheer volume of code present in professional Java solutions, and the complexity that Java engineers must learn to handle.
Some articles showing the knock-on effects of this phenomenon:
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11865307/how-to-expand-size-of-java-stack-trace-to-see-bottom-of-stack-triggering-a-sta
- https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/16g30jx/can_java_errors_stack_traces_be_longer/
- https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-Java-Spring-Framework-produce-gigantic-unreadable-stack-traces
- https://community.splunk.com/t5/Splunk-Dev/What-are-the-best-extraction-methods-for-Java-Stacktrace-Errors/m-p/380397
- https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65436457/springboot-stack-trace-logging-filter-only-from-my-packages
Char count for same functionality is still at least double in java vs python. It just feels like a chore to me. jetbrains helped, but still python is just so light
Char count is poor complexity metric. Perl is better than Python with your logic as it is more condensed.
Hearing about Esperanto the first time. Hate itwhen someone copies my idea and does it in 1887
But people like and appreciate German.
Yeah, I enjoyed learning German… Java on the other hand…
