tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7840321658785378959.post-57655274098496204692008-03-14T12:45:00.005+01:002008-03-14T13:20:17.468+01:002008-03-14T13:20:17.468+01:00<div style="text-align: justify;">This time it started with <a href="http://damienkatz.net/2008/03/what_sucks_abou.html">Damien Katz's comments abouts the Erlang syntax</a> and <a href="http://yarivsblog.com/articles/2008/03/09/in-response-to-what-sucks-about-erlang/">Yariv Sadan's answer</a>. And, like every time, a long discussion started in their blog comments and on the Erlang mailing list. Oh no! Please not another time.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm now developing software since more than 20 years. And I've learned a lot of languages and their environments. Some of them more, some of them less. Basic, Pascal, Modula-2, C, C++, Scheme, Prolog, ReXX, Java (SE, EE), Perl, Python, Smalltalk, Ruby, C#, and now Erlang. All of them have their strengths, their weaknesses, their own characteristics, their paradigms. All of them have only two things in common: they are individual and there are always people complaining about them. <span style="font-weight: bold;">*sigh*</span> I ask myself how often I've read those <span style="font-style:italic;">discussions</span> about Python or Smalltalk or Lisp/Scheme.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Every time the languages are compared to other languages. <span style="font-style: italic;">"Hey, I', coming from C and I want curly braces."</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">"Oh, Lisp is by far cooler."</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">"Oh, I'm missing the clean syntax of Smalltalk."</span> Why? Why do you ask allways the same? It doesn't change anything. The languages are grown under specific circumstances with a specific background of their developers and a specific goal. And most of them are not invented to satisfy users of all other existing languages.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Since I'm developing Erlang - and before each time I've started to explore a new language - I'm productive after some first days of testing, exploring, reading, sometimes damning, and then working.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">So please, just stop complaining and simply use a system or leave it.</div>muenoreply@blogger.com6