Ok Guy OfficialApr 17, 2023
recursive 🏳️‍🌈

As a programming languages nerd, a conversation last weekend with @renice really reinforced an opinion I've had for a while now:

I really despise it when we speak of language design or choice of language for a project/organization in terms of "most engineers aren't smart enough to ..." What we should be emphasizing is ergonomics and accessibility: "it's easier for humans who are fatigued and imperfect to write reliable code when ..."

Apr 17, 2023 at 5:12pmWeb
Show threadrecursive 🏳️‍🌈Apr 17, 2023
And let me be clear: I think that many languages which are perceived as too difficult or too esoteric should be more widely used in industry than they are today. There are many wonderful ideas out there that can benefit a lot of everyday software development. Sometimes the things which seem too out-there actually offer a lot of usability improvements in a particular niche that more popular languages do not.
Show threadvx. kit redgrave ✅🍬Apr 17, 2023
@recursive this is part of why i've been so enamored with pharo lately. it's a huge mental shift from how we do things today, but so much easier to jump into and change things live
Show threadThomas DepierreApr 17, 2023

@recursive I think something we really should talk about more in our discourse is the tooling surrounding said language. It is not the language itself that is "too esoteric" usually. It is all the cognitive overhead and problems of getting the "basics of software engineering" to work.

I really need to work on this "Process Engineering" blogpost...

Show threadStudio 8502 Apr 17, 2023
@recursive @renice So much this. My experience is that people think of programmers as machines that turn pizza and coffee into programs. We're human beings. We fuck up, we get tired, we take shortcuts we later regret, those are just facts. Our tools should reflect that, and where possible, compensate for it.