Programming

Sundry Chitchat
1360

I am jonesing to learn a new programming language. The main criterion is that it needs to be different from Python, JS and Rust and have at least somewhat readable syntax. Being extremely strict about some random thing would be a plus. An active community of friendly obsessives on Reddit would be nice too.

What should it be?

The best programming language is…
  • …like all the best things, Danish (Elixir)
  • …normcore (Go)
  • …weird, but not too weird (Scala)
  • …actually too weird (OCaml/ReasonML)
  • …boring but practical, like a good pair of athletic socks (C# or Java or some boring shit)
  • …you probably haven’t heard of it, it’s pretty underground (please specify)

0 voters

1362

Learn a functional language - totally different ballgame.

1 Like
1363

lol scala is awful to learn on. do lisp or ML for funsies. it will help with the rest of languages.

1364

XSLT if you want super old school hipster cred.

1365

I’ve already been through my XSLT phase!

image

1 Like
1366

1367

I want to dabble in fewer languages and be better in what I do “know”, but other things keep pulling me in. I would think a new library/framework/database/devops stuff would be a more valuable use of time. According to my friend who has been an extremely good programmer for forever, git is great if you know what you’re doing, but hardly any programmers do. Just getting better at something like that would be beneficial.

My other friend who has been a top-top programmer for forever would say Haskell. He’s the guy I know who was saying Python in the 1990s. (But then again he was also programming in Delphi.)

1368

I’m not nearly smart enough to understand Haskell or git.

1 Like
1371

bobman should learn perl as an ironic lifestyle statement like the way some people ride velocipedes and wear bowler hats.

2 Likes
1373

I agree and also think matching human reason too much is one of the downfalls of OOP.

When a new item comes along that busts my internal taxonomy, I just realign it. In a mature, complex OOP program - that level of deep refactor is often impossible.

Composition and high tolerance for initial redundancy ftw.

1375

I spent a good 10 minutes thinking about getting into Smalltalk before realizing how foolish it would be.

1376

Try kernel mode c. Work with hardware. Maybe an rtos. Use the esp32 microcontroller and do asm on the low power coprocessor.
You’ll get a new perspective.

2 Likes
1377

hey nerds,

I need a little advice. I bought this MSI gaming laptop in december. It is blue screening on me constantly since yesterday with SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION bluescreen. I have also seen IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. They are being triggered by ntoskrnl.exe and hal.dll, which, from my limited windows knowledge and research are pretty low level drivers used to manage kernel stuff (gross oversimplification I know).

I analyzed the dump files (i can provide them if anyone is interested) and have concluded this is likely a hardware issue. I have reinstalled windows and the problem persists - that usually suggests some hardware problem anyway. But, I’ve (kind of) narrowed it down to corrupted memory.

Taking this machine apart is not an option for me. So, not doing that. But as I see it I have two main options and possibly a third:

  1. Take it to a repair center, get a formal diagnosis, possibly a fix. The thing is, there’s a factory seal at the bottom of my laptop and I’m fairly confident if it’s broken I void my warranty.

  2. Ship it to msi and wait possibly months for a fix/diagnosis.

Now, I’m really at my breaking point with covid. I have ran out of things to do like 2 months ago, read all the books I ever wanted to, finished my ps4 backlog. There’s like NOTHING left. I can’t do without this thing for months.

So, there’s a third option:

Buy another laptop (not MSI ldo) and game on that while I wait for this to be fixed. Resell one of them when the repair is done.

Thoughts? Something easy I can maybe try as a hail mary?

1379

Oh that’s absolutely filthy, I love it

1 Like
1380

I don’t recall seeing the blue screen of death for ages. Man, you can’t imagine the hell we lived through in the early 90s.

1 Like
1381

It depends why you want to learn it - like if you want something actually useful, well-supported and widely used, C# is boring but a pleasure to write in imo. Java is a disgusting mess, they are like the Jekyll and Hyde of widely used C-style languages.

Also Jesus Christ, can people put some trigger warnings on their posts if they’re going to mention XSLT.

1382

I was going to reply learn Java just to piss off ChrisV. But then I got distracted or something.

1383

Here’s some toy code to sort a list of Integer using Java 8’s streams API - the custom comparator is superfluous but I’m demonstrating a point.

  List<Integer> l = List.of(5,2,1,4,3);
  List<Integer> sortedList = l.stream()
    .sorted(Comparator.comparingInt(x -> x))
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

But wait, I actually want the list sorted in reverse order. Not a problem - I can just use the handy .reversed() method on my Comparator.

  List<Integer> l = List.of(5,2,1,4,3);
  List<Integer> sortedList = l.stream()
    .sorted(Comparator.comparingInt(x -> x).reversed())
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

Wait a minute. Why is there red underlining?

image
image1043×159 13.9 KB

If your idea of fun is reading 5000-word apologia on the MacGyver-esque way generics were nailed onto Java, the implications for compiler type inference, and why consequently one has to spend one’s time learning how to speak nicely to the compiler so it doesn’t burst into tears, learn Java.

1 Like
1384

Even w/o the complier wonkiness I see a shit ton of annoyingly verbose typed code that probably isn’t necessary unless you’re writing a gargantuan app or shared lib.

1385

Wait, I thought this was an anti-Java take??

1 Like