Comments on: Languages Don’t Matter (Part Deux)

By: Devon H. O'Dell

Devon H. O'Dell — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 04:23:38 +0000

In your initial post, you reference my comment to another similar post on why language choice doesn’t matter and discard my points as irrelevant. My overarching point in that comment was exactly the point that you seem to be trying to make here: it’s smart to pick a tool that is fit for the purpose at hand (whether that tool is a language, algorithm, whatever).

So, now I’m confused because you seem to be saying that having a large toolset (of languages) is important, so that you can make intelligent decisions about what language to use. At that point, you have to admit that you are making an argument that languages *do* matter in very much the same way that hammer size matters. Try hammering drywall nails with a sledgehammer. It feels now like the issue is that arguing about language choice is pointless (and it largely is).

At the end of the day, you do what you can with what you know, and I think that most of these arguments are tangential to the real point: never stop learning new things. It lets you do more because you know more.

By: Kaveh Shahbazian

Kaveh Shahbazian — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 06:26:36 +0000

No! Really it was a mistake and that other discussion that I had was about Dapper (IMHO a great tool) and I was awake for ~36 hours! I really meant it when I said that I made a mistake; and I humbly apologize again if I seemed as a troll.

By: Brandon Savage

Brandon Savage — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 18:47:47 +0000

Comments are all moderated to prevent spam. That means if I don’t visit the blog for a day, I don’t approve comments. Your comment was approved as soon as it was seen.

By: Kaveh Shahbazian

Kaveh Shahbazian — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 06:36:17 +0000

Deleting comments that oppose your points is not a great way to promote your blog! :)

By: Kaveh Shahbazian

Kaveh Shahbazian — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:56:33 +0000

I am writing code for almost 23 years (from when I was 14 or 15) and I write good code (based on judgments of my co-workers) and I solve real problems (almost one major one per every 3 week); but above all that I ENJOY CODING! And the day that enjoyments stops then F%CK the customer and all companies and I’ll go work in a library or maybe I open a coffee-shop or join some charity group or something with more meaning or more money – and definitely that would be a far easier money than keeping pile of different logic implemented in different technologies and bear this complicated swarm of logic in your head, day and night to every spot in your life. The only thing that really matters is: I love coding! I love to press a button and watch the characters appear magically on my screen from nowhere and bit by bit become more like the language I love (well almost ;) FYI it’s C# in may case – then comes Go and then F#). Without that “love” there IS NO SOFTWARE (that some crap minded company can enjoy the money that comes out of it).

Another thing: programming languages are not tools; they are the material that we work on them with our tools: our minds. The carpenter loves to touch the wood and shape the wood with it’s tools as we love to shape the code with our minds.

By: JonoB

JonoB — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:14:07 +0000

“fighting about which language is better or debasing other languages for sport is a foolish endeavor that won’t accomplish anything.”

Sure it does. It strokes the (tiny) ego of the person debasing another language.

Excellent article.