Programming languages, much like the jackass in the middle, are tools. Different tools are for different things. The right tool for the job can make your day. The wrong tool can make you question your entire career.

[–] monkeyman512@lemmy.world 35 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Funny how tools are useful. But a person who is a tool is not.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A tool of a person is a fool who is being used by someone else. They might not be useful to you, but to who ever makes the koolaid they're drinking, they're a very good tool.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I think that's the basic idea, but in practice it's used for people who are just generally dumb as well.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Eh, people misuse terms all the time. It shouldn't change what it's meant to mean.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I guess, but neither kind of dashboard catches dash from your horses these days. And forget about all bears being "brown ones". Language evolves.

[–] MotoAsh@piefed.social 1 points 6 months ago

Evolving is distinctly different than misunderstanding.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well, when was the last time you looked at a hammer and thought "y'know, you're pretty smart!"

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 months ago

Haha, true. But then again, I've definitely thought that about like, a self-loading rifle or a can opener that way.

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Tools are always useful. If its a good thing to (ab)use said tool depends on the tool and if its human or not :p
... And the job for the tool ofc

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 20 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Exactly. And what is the best tool? The best tool for the job

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And what is the best tool?

AI! (This message brought to you by The Microsoft Marketing Dept.)

[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago

No silly! It's clearly a goat, possibly a whole farm of them

[–] BatmanAoD@programming.dev 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

That's just not terribly meaningful, though. Was JavaScript the "best tool" for client-side logic from the death of Flash until the advent of TypeScript? No, it was the only tool.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You're halfway there.

Yes, it was the best tool, in context

In that context, what was better?

[–] kernelle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 months ago

Exactly, the hivemind is strong in this thread

[–] fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 7 months ago

If it was the only tool it was both the best and the worst by definition.

[–] firelizzard@programming.dev 1 points 6 months ago

Flash was awful. I was contracted to un-fuck a custom video player and that experience convinced me that Flash was a dumpster fire that needed to die. Fortunately it did.

[–] bitcrafter@programming.dev 5 points 7 months ago

And what is the best tool for the job? The best tool for the job.

[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

You mean js

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago (3 children)

So, lisp?

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago

Yes use a lisp family language for everything and you will be enlightened

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Tbf racket has a stupid easy gui library.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah, that's the second option.

[–] staircase@programming.dev 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sometimes I just want to use a particular tool, and care less what I'm making with it.

I rarely get this pleasure at work.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I seem to remember hearing this story: Back in the 2000s, Google did all their back-end stuff in C++ to make sure it was performant, and when they acquired Youtube they found it was made in Python, slow to run, fast to develop.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Did they change it after the acquisition? Or is python why it's still so freaking slow?

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Lol @ YouTube being slow

Look at the amount of data that goes through their servers every millisecond. It's ridiculous. All things considered, YouTube is lightning fast.

Maybe the UI isn't as snappy as it could be, but the blame there lies solely on throwing more and more javascript at it to add "features" that end users don't really want.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Aaand artificially slowing down video loading by several seconds, last but not least.

[–] CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

is it tho? Or youtub is just profitable enough to neglect the compute overhead cost?

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 0 points 7 months ago

YouTube is surprisingly not very profitable

[–] sping@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Things is you don't crunch numbers in Python code, you do that in libraries called from Python.

It's a few statements of orchestration and any heavy lifting is encapsulated compiled code.

You don't do tight loops on Python, or if you do you're using it wrong.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

This was mostly tongue in cheek, probably not very clear 😅

But yeah, fully agree with you.

[–] fuck_u_spez_in_particular@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Right... And the best tool for every job is of course Rust.