[Python-ideas] Modern language design survey for "assign and compare" statements

[Carl Smith]

Chris makes a lot of good points regarding *which* languages to look at, but
it seems like that line of enquiry is unlikely to suggest anything more
than it
has so far, especially if we're limiting it to languages everyone has heard
of.
They either use a keyword, an operator, don't support the feature or they're
wacky.

If anything, the survey says we need to think outside the box.


-- Carl Smith
carl.input at gmail.com

On 21 May 2018 at 20:11, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 2:43 AM, Mike Miller <python-ideas at mgmiller.net>
> wrote:
> > To clarify there were three main criteria, and one minor.  Newer,
> > popular/becoming industry standard, and designed to address shortcomings
> in
> > previous generations.  Finally, the limit of my energy when already
> working
> > on a project.
>
> Note how not one of your criteria says that the language has to have
> made the right choice - only that it's made a DIFFERENT choice to
> languages in a previous generation. So you're heavily selecting in
> favour of languages that say "hey look, we know better than everyone
> else does", without actually proving that it's better. There's no
> shortage of language designers who say "oh look how terrible C is",
> and when a language designer has a lot of clout behind him (like "apps
> for this new mobile phone should be written using this language"), it
> can get extremely popular among people who don't actually have much
> choice of language - and certainly don't have the option to use C.
>
> Much more useful would be to look at languages that (a) work in a
> field where programmers have ample freedom to choose between
> languages, and (b) have been around long enough to actually
> demonstrate that people want to use them. Look through the Stack
> Overflow Developer Survey's report on languages:
>
> https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/
> #most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted
>
> A "Wanted" language is one that many developers say "I don't currently
> use, but I would like to". (It may also be a language that has
> murdered semicolons. I believe the bounty on JavaScript's head is
> quite high now.) Go through that list and you'll get an idea of what
> people wish they could use; then toss out anything that hasn't been
> around for at least 10 years, because there's a tendency for new
> technologies to be over-represented in a "Wanted" listing (partly
> because fewer programmers already know them, and partly because people
> want to try the latest toys). That may give you a better list of
> languages to compare against.
>
> ChrisA
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