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Comment on The C programming language is like debating a philosopher and Python is like debating someone who ate an edible

PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

C is the old carpenter, who can drive in nails with three strikes of the hammer and never forgets his tools.

C# is his friend who just uses power tools instead. He is fine too. He goes home early whenever he can.

Python is the new guy at work who thinks he’s super smart. He actually can do the job really well, but for some reason nobody likes him all that much.

Javascript is the boss’s son who got the job since he agreed to stay off pills but he does not. He is useful to be friendly with, maybe, but avoid him any day that you can. Typescript is his weird fiancée. She is significantly less stupid but much more rarely useful, and also best avoided.

Go and Rust are tight-knit friends who get shit done. They are extremely capable but also not friendly, they tend not to talk much.

Clojure does mushrooms on weekends, and seems to believe he has key insights the rest of the crew is too dim to understand, but he also makes frequent simple mistakes on the job and forgets things. Also avoid.

Java only has the job because he’s known the boss since they were kids. He was never that good, but now he is old, and frequently drunk. Avoid at all costs.

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otter@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
COBOL handles the books because no one else can understand the system and it’s too much work to change after 40 years

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squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
C is the old carpenter with leaky memory with heavy undiagnosed autism, who constantly cracks demented jokes like “Missing } at end of file”.

He’s so mentally not there in fact, that if you don’t specifically tell him to return to you after finishing the job, he will neither figure out what he’s supposed to do, nor will he tell you what went wrong, but instead he will happily jump somewhere else, halucinate commands from the structure of the walls and start doing whatever the voices tell him to do.

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- PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  In my analogy, the tool is the programming language, and the worker is the programmer in that language. Mostly.
  
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  - squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    In your analogy, only C and C# mention using specific tools, unless you count mushrooms as tools ;)
    
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    PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I mean yeah lol. That’s why I said “mostly.” But my point was, more or less, that modern power tools can do stuff that you simply can’t do with C, but C is still a venerable tool to me. I like it. The old pros can make fantastic custom cabinets, they do framing almost as fast as someone with a nail gun, it’s just that it’s not practical for most people to try to get skilled enough to be able to make solid stuff (and of course you can never make a skyscraper with just hand tools.)
    
    Once you start finding yourself using malloc() all that much, you’re probably using the wrong tool, and it’s also just objectively less secure than other safer languages. But clean C code has a kind of beauty to me that is hard to replicate in the more powerful languages.
    
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Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Rust is that one rare type of guy who refuses to round measurements so you end up with “the drawer is 28.34646 inches tall.”

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pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Nah java’s the super chatty guy who goes on and on and on and never aguts the hell up, making doing anything with him extra tedious

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balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Python is from 1991. The only older language you listed was c.

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- squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Python is a millenial. He’s 34, is married and has two kids. But the old guys still think he’s 15.
  
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boletus@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Yeah and the new guy takes 3 days to finish the job that the old carpenter can do in 2hrs. And when he wants it done faster he quickly asks the old guy to do it for him. That’s why nobody else in the site likes him.

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Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Great story, but why antropomorphize? Would tools not be a better analogy?

C is like having a box of nails, manual tools and some mortar. The Notre Dame was built like that.

C# is like having a box of screws and some power tools. Some tools are still manual. This is how your grandma’s house was built.

Java is similarily a mix of old and new, but you also have stuff like cement. That’s how new schools were built.

Python is like having a modern hardware store at your disposal. Big, clunky, and you need a stroll down the isles before you find what could work. Should I use this power tool I know or a new one more specific for the usecase? What are those little plastic screw sleeve thingies? This is how modern homes are built.

Javascript is like US power tools. When trying to switch to them you’ll question your sanity, but you can still get stuff done just as well. However, only power tools: Want to drive a nail into something? Gonna need a semiautomatic nailgun. Want to hit something hard? Can’t use a hammer, there’s a power tool for that. Oh, and your nails and screws are shapeshifting. This is how the Opera House was built.

Type script is like javascript, but you retain your organized nailbox. For some reason, not many things were built with it.

Go and rust are like metric, traditional tools with some screws. However, they’re labeled in chinese. In essence, it’s the same as your run-of-the-mill tools. It just takes some time to get to know them. This is how a hospital gets built in a week.

I’ve never done Clojure, so wouldn’t know.

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- squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  This is a very apt description.
  
  Lua is like using duct tape for everything. It worked to save the Appollo mission so it should work anywhere.
  
  Visual Basic is like using the tools you found in a cardboard box when you cleared out the house when your uncle died. You’ll get random, super specialized things, but if one of these old tools breaks, you just have to continue with the remains.
  
  Cobol is like using the toolshop at the Renaissance fair, only that the tools are original, not reproductions.
  
  Brainfuck is the like your kid’s toy tool box. Yes, there’s something that kinda looks like a plastic hammer, but good luck using it for anything other than role playing.
  
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