Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cushman | Hacker News Reader

I understand how it gets here, but I wish people wouldn't upvote this kind of pointless pandering. I'm sure it has a place somewhere, but it's not HN.

Some new things fail because of obvious flaws. Some fail because of non-obvious flaws. A very few things succeed despite both kinds. Nothing succeeds because it's perfect-- and that includes every programming language we use today.

If there's one thing HN drills into our heads, it's that failure is the only path to success. Yes, your new programming language is very unlikely to take off. It might be for reasons that occurred to this one dude, it might not. Either way, failing to make a new programming language is one of the best ways to come to understand the decisions that went into the development of the ones that succeeded.

There are useful criticisms to be made. "Here are some things you probably haven't thought of. Here are some projects you probably aren't aware of." Many people have managed to write such essays quite lucidly, without discouraging people from experimenting with failure on their own.

"You won't succeed because you suck, and I hate you," which (s/snark//g) is all I read here, is completely unhelpful. Cleverly though it may be written out, and apropos as it may be on a programming humor blog somewhere, it's antithetical to everything HN is about.

And anyway, none of this stuff applies to MY language.

I'm not sure I understand where the pandering was, and for me the post certainly wasn't pointless, I learned some new things, and it provoked me to think deeper about the difficulty of language design.

I read it as a humorous warning to would-be language designers of the challenges and pitfalls of coming up with a new syntax, compiler, runtime, etc. A quick run-through of the items in the checklist should give you a hint these guys seem to know what they're talking about. Click the bio links above the article and those suspicions will be confirmed.

Sure there's a bit of snark here, but it serves a purpose, as does the humor. They obviously put some thought and time into this, they have some strong and worthwhile opinions about language design and the expertise to back it up.

Now, if it were Zed Shaw or Joe Damato up there, I'd totally agree with you. Kidding!!

> I'm not sure I understand where the pandering was, and for me the post certainly wasn't pointless

Yes it's not pointless the first time you see it. Where it becomes pointless is on Slashdot any time there is ever an article about a new program language and 2 or 3 people fill it out for the comments.

Thankfully, HN's content is not governed by the content of Slashdot's comments.

Amen to that. I don't know why I have to be downvoted just for pointing out that these things are not necessarily annoying per se, just when they become relentless memes by which a community validates itself.

I agree and thank you for writing this reply. As of late I notice that the one phrase that is guaranteed to set me off is the phrase "that won't work" or "that's not going to work".

My reaction is always: "okay...you took the time to tear it down but not the time to think through why things were done that way".

It's easy to see flaws, but much harder to suggest alternative (and improved) solutions.

I'm pretty sure you agree with the post. Hint: the author is being ironic.

I thought the post was meant to be ironic.

"I understand how it gets here, but I wish people wouldn't upvote this kind of pointless pandering. I'm sure it has a place somewhere, but it's not HN."

Should HN only reserve a place for the other kind of pointless pandering, the one the article mocks?

Anything that does not remotely target Google is allowed. /pun

So the Google search command at the bottom is disallowed? :P

People trying to improve things should be encouraged; even if they always fail; and if its related to programming it should be here.

People that mock those people should be taken as amateur comedians, and should be on reddit (not here).

The really clever part about this is that it's hard to tell whether it's mocking people trying to design new programming languages, or mocking people who criticise attempts to design new programming languages... or perhaps even both at the same time.

"People trying to improve things should be encouraged; even if they always fail"

No, people trying to improve things should be presented with (sane) "barriers to entry".

While there is no "right" way to improve things, there are tons of certified wrong, dead-end, been-here-done-that ways that should be avoided. Engineering is nothing if we don't learn from our collective mistakes, our history, and from proven theory. Else, you get the equivalent of those countless kooks who claim to have invented "cold fusion", "perpetual motion machines" but the "establishment doesn't believe them".

People trying to improve things is not by itself beneficial. Even if we restrict this to programming, we have fragmentation of effort, and you get like 200 frameworks for the same thing with marginal differentiation. If someone comes along with some radical idea, more power to them.

But we reserve the right to mock those coming up with YET ANOTHER tired cliche of a concept and/or implementation. They don't get free applause just for effort.

Is it too much to ask that an intellectual community like HN be a place free from both adulation and derision?

i read it as making fun of knee jerk anti-new-language types, as in, all their arguments are pat and repetitive.

maybe that's just my perceptual bias, but perhaps also the greater context of hacker news that you point to in your comment. i tend to believe that things are posted here in support of experimentation.

agreed, feels more like Reddit post

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