Comment by pdimitar
5 days ago
> that would be the reason why syntax does matter, wouldn't it? nobody wants leaky abstractions!
Well I thought we were describing our current reality, not our _desired_ one? Yes nobody wants leaky abstractions and yes they are everywhere.
Syntax matters insofar as to discourage bad habits, is what I'd refine from my previous statements. Most programmers go for the default so defaults and syntax that steers you the right way to think and write matter a lot.
That being said, people write FP Rust (myself included) and have plethora of JS libraries where immutability and FP patterns are the default. Which is a sad state of affairs but much better than nothing -- as it's introducing programmers to immutability and FP and they otherwise would never know.
> as evidenced by the fact that it has been implemented on top of a variety of runtimes with decent control over cross-runtime code reuse.
That was my top 1 reason to try it btw; I was intrigued by the fact that people are interested in making it work universally in at least two very different runtimes. To me that signals good language design and good architecture. Which I already knew; Clojure and Racket are amazing on their own.
> you're stating this as if it's a fact, but what is your evidence? afaik jvm has a very extensive actor model library (Akka) and clojure does include a solid STM implementation (https://clojure.org/reference/refs).
As already said multiple times in the thread -- my info is stale (as claimed by multiple posters).
That being said, has Akka started making full use of JVM's new green threads? Has Java itself started introducing immutability and STM / share-nothing as first-class citizens? If not, then by the "programmers reach for the defaults first" rule above I'd think Java is not yet ready. OK Clojure has these amazing libraries, kudos. Has anybody rolled up their sleeves and said "Alright, BEAM VM's reign is over, I am making the same or better runtime as them in Java / Clojure!"? If not, I'll not yet revisit.
I just don't want to deal with the endless pit of determinism bugs that global mutability nets us. The gift that keeps giving.
If Akka / Golang's runtime / Rust's various actor-emulating libraries catch up to the OTP, I'll very likely drop Erlang/Elixir because it's a struggle to have a good stable employment (or even contracting lately) with them.
Even if the BEAM VM is slower and has a few annoying sharp edges, its strengths nullify its weaknesses due to the nature of my work (HA web / API servers and also API gateways and orchestrators).
> That being said, has Akka started making full use of JVM's new green threads? Has Java itself started introducing immutability and STM / share-nothing as first-class citizens? If not, then by the "programmers reach for the defaults first" rule above I'd think Java is not yet ready.
> OK Clojure has these amazing libraries, kudos. Has anybody rolled up their sleeves and said "Alright, BEAM VM's reign is over, I am making the same or better runtime as them in Java / Clojure!"?
will akka use green threads? i'm sure it will when the developers behind it deem them useful.
will jvm add immutability, stm and share-nothing primitives that (i assume you allege) are missing? sure, i guess, when it becomes frequent enough ask.
you make it seem as if the world of software development is in some constant battle for supremacy, but it just isn't.
there is no "BEAM VM's reign". and if there was - it's unlikely that anybody would care to topple it. people just want to get their job done and they use whatever tools are available, familiar and convenient for them.
> I just don't want to deal with the endless pit of determinism bugs that global mutability nets us
and a lot of people agree with you. and there's a lot of tools that address that. and i can assure you, when working with clojure, even on the blasphemous mutable jvm runtime, that class of bugs is non-existent.
Well, I don't think you and I disagree on the premises, with the exception of you believing that I make some outrageous general claims -- which I did not.
> you make it seem as if the world of software development is in some constant battle for supremacy
I could have misinterpreted other people in the past -- very possible. But I also stopped caring about "battles for supremacy" a long time ago and at this point in life and career I simply use my experience and brain to go where my work is more productive, deterministic and fulfilling. To me immutability, share-nothing actors, strong vertical scalability (where a lot of PLs and runtimes do well, not only my favorites) and DX (like live prod REPLs and generally trivial observability) are those axii along which I thrive.
You and a few others seem to have emotional reactions to this which, I assure you, are very unnecessary. I ain't threatening neither your livelihood nor preferences.
> That being said, has Akka started making full use of JVM's new green threads? Has Java itself started introducing immutability and STM / share-nothing as first-class citizens?
Amazing how it doesn't even cross your mind that there are trade-offs to those choices. Green threads are awesome, but guess what, they come at a cost. Same for share-nothing semantics.
> Has anybody rolled up their sleeves and said "Alright, BEAM VM's reign is over, I am making the same or better runtime as them in Java / Clojure!"?
You are again presupposing the BEAM has an absolute superiority over the JVM. "Better runtime" makes no sense on its own. Better is always relative to something. Better for whom? For what?
I'd bet that you work on a traditional CRUD enterprise software, and that IO(the database) is the real bottleneck of your app. In that case, sure, the BEAM is a solid choice(so is Python, Ruby and PHP nowadays). But let's please not pretend that is all there is to software engineering.
Any good reason for your rude tone? If we are going to invoke the what crossed somebody's mind trope, I'd lead with that when talking to you -- did it cross your mind to speak calmly and not assume something "did not cross" somebody's mind?
RE: your other similarly rude comment, I have not "appealed to authority" anywhere. I said that I have used multiple PLs / runtimes and made an informed choice... for me. I don't intend to add "...for me" after each sentence. It's redundant and obviously implied when it comes to tech because obviously people have made well-working prod systems with combinations of bash and Perl ages ago. So obviously people can make nearly everything work.
If you don't intend to discuss out of position of curiosity but want to jump on people then I am not interested.
Your first comment assumed I was "speed-running to a conclusion and squinting too hard", and this was "similar to the weird childish name-calling". I think that is in the same area(or worse) than saying "Amazing how X didn't even cross your mind". And sorry, but invoking that you have experience with X, Y, Z and thus your opinion is informed after criticizing some technology IS an appeal to authority.
> If you don't intend to discuss out of position of curiosity
I'm not the one making sweeping statements on the superiority of one piece of technology. Reading your other response, I think you are the one who have little to no curiosity in understanding how you might be wrong.
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