[Info-vax] Safer programming languages (and walking :-) ), was: Re: 8-bit characters

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 11/15/2021 1:51 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2021-11-14, Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 11/14/2021 5:05 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
>>> On 2021-11-14, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>>> One really doesn't need a language or compiler to get in the way of what needs
>>>> to be done.
>>>
>>> There is a move towards more safe languages for systems programming.
>>>
>>> The current fashion, Rust, has horrible syntax, and I have no confidence
>>> that code written in it today will still compile on the Rust compilers
>>> of 5 to 10 years from now, but its use is being driven by the desire
>>> for using safer languages.
>>>
>>> When Rust falls out of fashion, it would be nice if whatever follows
>>> Rust would address both of those problems.
>>
>> Rust seems to be getting some traction.
>>
> 
> Unfortunately so. I like the concepts and desire to move to safer
> languages but I find the Rust syntax itself ugly. People seem to
> have forgotten that you write the code once (hopefully!) but then
> read it many times.

What do you think about Go?

It does not have the same interest from OS people like Rust, but
it have a lot of interest from the container people. So maybe ...

>> With Mozilla, Microsoft and Linux kernel adding Rust code and
>> with Google and Amazon also backing it, then it may be difficult
>> to fall out of fashion.
> 
> I wonder how many of them were major fans of Ruby and Ruby on Rails
> before that environment and language were suddenly no longer fashionable ?

The popularity of RoR/Ruby has declined a bit the last decade, but it is
still an order of magnitude more popular than both Ada and Rust.

But probably not a relevant comparison. The expected lifetime of a web
application is significant shorter than of an OS kernel module.

Arne