Handle r/Programming feedback

[librasteve]

thicket
•
4d ago
-1 for lack of explanation.
-1 for assuming you know how I think.
-101 for weird-ass punctuation and ugly Perl-isms. That is definitely not how I think.

Maybe some folks will like it. Personally, this is definitely not the way to pitch it to me.

seems a bit harsh ... but we need to listen and improve

---

u/Whispeeeeeer avatar
Whispeeeeeer
•
4d ago
Who thinks like this?

my @nums = [1,2,3];

say @nums »+» 10;       # (11 12 13)            [Hyper]
...

well I do, but...

---

...

sub inner(Int:D $x=0, Num(Rat) $y?, Bool :f(:$flag) --> Str) {
    "$x, $y, flag is $flag";
}
Ok what the fuck. I hate complicated syntax. Why are we constantly re-inventing function fn_name(parameter_type parameter_name)?

hmmm ... they have a point here - this is a maximally feature compact contrived example

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my @primes = ^∞ .grep: *.is-prime;# Infinite list of primes:

This feels so dense to me.

I want feature density without the syntactical sugar. I'd prefer a more verbose language.

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A lot of my complaints are superficial. Seems like a neat addition to the world, if you're into niche language contributions. But I don't see the added benefit of using this language.

It allows programming in different styles, including procedural, functional, object-oriented, and reactive programming
A lot of languages can achieve this in some form or another. Those are paradigms not features. C lacks OOP, but Python, Java, C++, C#, etc. can all be procedural, functional, object-oriented, or reactive if you want. This isn't a selling point for Raku. Maybe Raku has some way of making procedural or functional programming easier, but I am too dense to read the syntax to understand how Raku makes it easier.

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normanrockwellesque
•
4d ago
Others are correctly pointing out that some of the syntax seems gnarly and overly terse at first glance. Most of the syntax things that people react to are either 1) really simple to learn once you pick up the language, or 2) not something that you encounter often anyway, they're just included in documentation to illustrate a variety of language features, and Raku is about as full-featured of a language as it gets.

While I do think that Raku documentation/guides lean heavily on some of the language's more unique features (e.g.: Unicode operators and constants, sigils & twigils, the Whatever Star), on the whole it seems like it's well thought-out and I really enjoy writing it. It's become my favorite language for writing personal scripts and automating things at work.

Some of my favorite features include:

Easy CLI creation just by specifying a signature to the MAIN subroutine
sub MAIN(Str $name, Int $num) {...}
# running the script with -h/--help flag will output docs for the script arguments
Gradual static typing, so you can start out with very flexible code and bolster with types where needed
Grammars and Raku's updated Regexes are incredibly powerful. It also provides really flexible string-interpolation features. It was easy in Raku to write a script for complicated restructuring of a Javascript codebase to swap one React module with another one that had a completely separate API.
Really simple reactive code:
react {
  whenever 'data-file.csv'.IO.watch { 
    # code to reprocess/recompile updated data 
  }
}

normanrockwellesque
•
3d ago
Oh also the multiple dispatch is pretty cool too; makes some things really simple and declarative:

multi sub factorial($n) { $n * factorial($n - 1) }
multi sub factorial(1)  { 1 }

^^ I think all of the above is right

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BadlyCamouflagedKiwi
•
4d ago
The double-chevron operator seems like a terrible idea. How are you supposed to type that? Most programming languages stick to symbols that are easily entered, for good reason.

I don't think I like many other things about it - I've never liked $ for variables, I'm unclear what the difference here is with @ and I've got no idea what :$^ is about. Nearly all of it seems overly cutesy, terse, or both, and I'm certain that any remotely complex codebase would be unreadable. But untypeable symbols takes the cake for me.

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SerdanKK
•
2d ago
That's a lot of weird syntax and complexity just to write map Circle.new radii

What value does Raku's complexity add?

[bazzaar]

I'll be honest. There are aspects of the new site that I like very much, but there are other aspects which don't grab my attention.

The landing page is for me, way too busy.

But I'll stick to the addressing the 2nd item in thickets list of gripes :

"Raku is an expressive, multi‑paradigm, Open Source language that works the way you think."

As a product selling tag-line, I think this could be improved on, and so I agree with thicket on this ...

If I might suggest a replacement such as ...

"Raku is a fabulously feature-rich and highly versatile programming language that is both intuitive and concise to code in."

Then other aspects to sell Raku need to be clearly spelt out, imho ...

"Raku has amazing features, that make the language suitable for all levels of expertise, and all disciplines whether academic or business-orientated"

"Raku with its wonderful debugging features makes for highly productive in the zone coding".

"Raku is a true rival to Python, and has the following significant advantages ....."

etc, etc.

For me this is what the landing page is all about, anyone that is grabbed by the view from 40,000ft, can then drill down and check out individual features and coding examples. Also we must pitch it at the novice level, because that's where the growth potential is.

HTH, bazzaar

[librasteve]

@bazzaar - many thanks ... honest is good, there are also aspects of the thicket feedback that I accept / agree with

I would like to cut the busy-ness a lot too (this is a reflection on the work I did a couple of months back now in the light of day - and actually its good to hear same feedback from others). The more I reflect on this, the more important this becomes ... right now, the site is more appealing to existing rakujin - and quite line noisy for folks coming from e.g. Python.

On the "strapline" there were already some discussions on that...
librasteve/raku-org-25-proto#14

I felt we came to an OK solution ... and that OK was better than the old site. But, I would be open to resurrecting this discussion more widely (maybe as a separate new issue here)

[jubilatious1]

I don't think I like many other things about it - I've never liked $ for variables, I'm unclear what the difference here is with @ and I've got no idea what :$^ is about.

my @circles = map { Circle.new: :radius($_) }, @radii; 

The above re-written Raku line works just as well, and might be easier on newbies. It also introduces $_ Raku's (and Perl's) topic variable.

[librasteve]

lol … thoughtstream and I went back and forth on this a few times - guess we got so we couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

your version is much better than ours!

I will change it as soon as I can get some time on the keys!

thanks!