Highly ironic comment from Steve Yegge (scroll down to "Lame Languages") | Hacker News Reader

Highly ironic comment from Steve Yegge (scroll down to "Lame Languages")

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16 pointsDarmani12 comments

That he gave Javascript another chance says more about him than his dismissal of it four years ago.

However: The Python community is the frostiest on the planet. They're complete kneebiting buttheads to the last man.

I try hard not to conflate the merits of a programming language with its "community" (although sometimes that's damned hard to do), and it's made me a happier programmer.

(That said, I don't think I'd characterize the Python community as frosty or buttheads, either today or in 2004.)

actually there are two things about python, which kind of backs yegge's opinion: 1. there is "the only true way" to indent your code; 2. type ctrl-d to exit; :D

> I try hard not to conflate the merits of a programming language with its "community"

Why? The merits of a programming language in today's world boil down to the quality and support of libraries and frameworks, which basically means "the community."

It's not reasonable for people to have changed their opinion after four years?

ECMAScript itself has changed since then, too.

Well, he does seem kind of dismissive. He paints Tcl, Lua, etc... with the broad brush stroke of "any other languages that aren't as good as Python."

Right. I think his dismissal of Lua was particularly uninformed, since he recently became enthralled by the prototype-based programming style Lua handles so well (http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/10/universal-design-pat...). I don't know how good the JVM implementation of it is, though.

He also has a history of very vocally presenting his opinions (sometimes with factual errors...), then quietly retracting them later without explaining why. Too bad, because the reasons why people change their minds about deeply-held beliefs are often the most revealing points about issues, IMHO.

Admittedly, it's "drunken rants" blog, so maybe so much scrutiny is a bit unfair.

Agree in principle, but it's not quite four years.

The quoted post was on September 5, 2004. On September 25, 2006, Yegge said "Rhino rocks." - http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/09/bloggers-block-4-rub... - So two years. The only new thing in that time was JavaScript 1.7 (which was a pretty good release, AFAIR).

Even so, being able to change your mind is a sign of intelligence. Being able to publicly change your mind is a sign of moral fortitude.

Being incapable of either is a sign of stupidity and moral whoredom.

Oh, I totally agree. I was just being pedantic over the numbers.

Posted by rhialto

Steve Yegge changed his name from "Rhialto"?

I think that is his character's name in Wyvern.

from what my google-fu is indicating rhialto is one of his "in game" names from a game he developed called wyvern? If you go here: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/boring-stevey-status... you can see people referring to him as rhialto and referring to wyvern.

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