Friday, October 16, 2009

Propaganda Immunization

There seem to be a lot of posts on the Internet about programming languages, but most of them seem to assume some incorrect facts. Here are some true ones to keep in mind while reading:
  1. Typing (on the keyboard) is bad. (Some people seem to think that programming is a job and performance can be measured in LOC)
  2. Coding style should be a choice of the programmer, not of the language designer.
  3. Premature optimization is the root of all evil, so comparing languages by performance (a squaring operation) is just plain evil.
  4. Everything your program sees is a lie; it is always running in a virtual machine.
  5. A picture is worth a thousand words, but can be summarized in less than 10.
Sorry for no searches today; I'm running out. (Maybe I'll post some original content!)

1 comment:

  1. All very true; in particular the first and the last one to me have a lot of impact on how a language should be designed.

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