• neidu2@feddit.nl
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    4 months ago

    “Gods, that’s stupid. Why is it being done this way? Have they never heard of naming conventions? Is the language really that awfully designed?”

    Learns PHP to find out more.

    “Yup…”

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      HEY! Is PHP ugly? Yes. Does it use stupid naming conventions? Also yes! But it’s an awesome language when you want to get shit done. There’s no other languages out there where you can just write some code in VIM directly on the server through SSH and immediately see your results without any further setup. No frameworks required, no packages, no imports, no buzzwords and hubub, just pure unadulterated utility.

      • neidu2@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        Incorrect. Perl does the same just as well, and it’s a language that actually makes sense while also being uglier.

        • sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          In my experience Perl is a write-only language. Coming in behind someone else and fixing or writing their code is often slower than just rewriting it

          • neidu2@feddit.nl
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            4 months ago

            Perl is partially readable, provided that it’s your own code. The one thing perl coders hate the most, is other people’s code.

            Source: Am a perl coder

      • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        Nonsense, there are tons of systems like that now. I’ve been playing with Deno & Fresh, it’s great. Trivial to install, a pretty great language, Fresh doesn’t force everything to be client side - you can easily write old school completely server side rendered sites if you want but you get to use TSX which is waaaaay superior to the old text based templating systems we used to use (Handlebars, Jinja, etc.).

        It also has built in hot reloading by default so even faster than PHP. Literally hit save and you see the results.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          What’s this install nonsense? I just looked up Deno and it’s part of an NPM stack. With PHP you just

          1. Open an Apache server

          2. Write code

          3. ???

          4. Profit!

          • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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            4 months ago

            I just looked up Deno and it’s part of an NPM stack.

            It’s not. It supports NPM modules for backwards compatibility, but the whole point is that it doesn’t inherit the NPM tooling mess. You can go from a new Linux install to a running Fresh project in 3 commands.

              • FizzyOrange@programming.dev
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                4 months ago

                There’s two things:

                Deno: this is a replacement for Node and NPM and prettier and some other tools. So one aspect is that it’s a more modern Node, using standard web APIs instead of Node specific stuff. And the other aspect is it is more streamlined modern tooling - no node_modules, no complicated build steps, built in Typescript support, etc. In fact you can use a single file as a script, similar to Python… but unlike Python you can use third party dependencies, which makes it fantastic for stuff like CI scripts, etc. where you might have suffered with Bash or Python before.

                Fresh: this is just a web framework targeting Deno. Honestly I haven’t used it much but I really like what I’ve seen so far. I always found React to be confusing and overkill for most sites, which should really be rendered server side, but also I really like the way you can compose components with JSX/TSX in a real language with full type checking. Fresh gives you both!

                • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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                  4 months ago

                  but unlike Python you can use third party dependencies,

                  In what sense does python not have third party dependencies?

      • key@lemmy.keychat.org
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        4 months ago

        no other languages out there where you can just write some code in VIM directly on the server through SSH and immediately see your results without any further setup

        laughs in coldfusion

      • Nighed@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        PHP is native in Linux then?

        How is that different to something like powershell?

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          You can’t run a website off powershell. PHP can render HTML to the browser, so it’s perfect for website development. 99% of the web was PHP back in the wild West days.

    • atomkarinca
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      4 months ago

      R. because it’s really easy to work on spreadsheets. i know there’s pandas for python but at that time RStudio made it look really attractive. i will do anything not to work on excel.

      • __ghost__@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        When I took biostatistics in college I asked to use python instead of R to do my assignments and they said no

        My only real complaint at the time was using <- to define variables but I felt really strongly about it and that I wanted to use fancy snake language

    • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      PHP is a scourge. I wish less server software were written in it. You’ll stumble upon some opensource project with a cool UI, run into a problem and find out the docker container has apache, postgres, and PHP in it. Debugging PHP is such a pain and setting up a developer environment is such a hassle because they haven’t discovered docker for dev envs yet.

      Terrible experience all around.

      Anti Commercial-AI license

      • xuv@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 months ago

        I almost did this for a different reason, people choose python because it has some pretty good web automation/scraping libraries to work with.

      • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        This was over 10 years ago, maybe 20. I wanted to pick up a new language and I seemed pretty driven, at the time, to hack a certain site. I think I gave up on it and as usual I enjoyed writing the code more than using the app.

        It didn’t use webscraping or anything too sophisticated. I just applied a few dictionaries I found online and ran everything through a series of anonymous proxies. Very brute force.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Ha! I tried the same thing with some random sites like 20 years ago. I managed to get into a few of them and emailed the registered owner that they needed better security.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    I was playing this really simple mobile phone game, where you basically go on these mining trips, then you tap the screen as quickly as possible. So, I thought to myself, I wonder if there’s a way to simulate screen taps, to tap at superhuman speeds.

    I found an app for that, this app had its own scripting language. Admittedly, there weren’t many concepts to learn in this language, but wait, there’s more.

    Then I thought, maybe I can also automate the menus, between the mining trips.
    But this language didn’t have support for multiple files, nor functions, you couldn’t even use labels in your goto statements, meaning my code started to get quite complicated.

    So, I actually sort of implemented support for goto labels / shitty functions within my program.

    Basically, at the start of the file, I had an if-else block, which read the value of a variable and based on that, it would select between different goto statements.
    So, if I wanted to “call a function”, I would set the variable to the function/label name and then goto 0.

    If I remember correctly, I did still need to manually update the line numbers in that lookup table at the start, but at least, I didn’t have to do it everywhere in the code anymore.

    And yes, I did manage to completely automate grinding that game, using this shitty scripting language.
    It was an offline game, and not a good one, I didn’t actually care about making progress in it. But scripting it was significantly more fun than playing it myself.

  • 1hitsong@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Because I wanted to listen to music while doing the dishes.

    The Jellyfin Roku client didn’t support audio playback, so I wrote it myself… while learning Roku’s proprietary language 🙄

    • Flatfire@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      It occurs to me I’ve literally never tried to play my music library through Roku. I usually just cast to a speaker with my phone. Is it part of the main branch?

    • mke@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That is such a sweet reason! Whimsical decisions like this can be some of the best. Life demands a bit of whimsy every now and then.

      Edit: I don’t know if you’re still interested in this, but have you considered WSL? Assuming you’re on Windows, that is. I haven’t looked into it, but I don’t see any obvious reason why it wouldn’t work.

      • andioop@programming.devOP
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        4 months ago

        Hey, thanks for the suggestion! I was considering firing up a VM just for Hare, but thanks for bringing this option to my attention.

    • best_username_ever@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      God. I didn’t knew that Drew was such a language nazi. If you want to write a Go clone, it must be useful for everyone. Even Emacs is available on Windows officially.

      • mke@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        What a harebrained comment.

        …Sorry, it felt like such a waste not to say it! The puns!

        But, language Nazi? Don’t you think that’s a bit much? And it must be useful for everyone? Why? I also think it hinders growth, but it’s their project. It’s well within their right to choose whether they put in the effort to support a platform or not, regardless of the reasoning and how much effort it’d actually take.

        They don’t even seem to be against the idea, they just don’t care enough to be the ones to do it:

        According to DeVault, while there’s currently no plan to support non-free platforms like macOS or Windows, a third-party implementation or fork could try to make that work. The Register

        Even Emacs is available on windows, you say? I think some context is needed, here. See what GNU has to say about the availability of Emacs on proprietary systems:

        However, GNU Emacs includes support for some other systems that volunteers choose to support.

        Emphasis mine.

        To improve the use of proprietary systems is a misguided goal. Our aim, rather, is to eliminate them. We include support for some proprietary systems in GNU Emacs in the hope that running Emacs on them will give users a taste of freedom and thus lead them to free themselves.

        Taken from the official download and install page.

          • mke@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Sure, and that matters because…? What negative effects is this choice having on hare that go against hare’s objectives?

            You seem to be treating hare as something it doesn’t want, nor care to be.

            I like to describe Hare as a simple, conservative, modern update to C, with a FOSS ethos. It doesn’t try to break computer science ground, or promise to solve a million dollar problem.

            Guess you could say they’re probably not friends of million-hares. Ha, ha.

            And upstream Hare will not support non-libre operating systems. That’s a lot of conviction, but Hare isn’t trying to take over the world. It will coexist with the diversity of languages out there, and thrive in its own niche. In short, the Hare project develops for a libre future and for the deliberate programmer, not the corporate, the ephemeral and the reckless.

            From Torres, one of the core contributors.

            Their wants and metrics for success aren’t the same as yours.

  • neomachino@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    Not really a dumb reason, but back in the day I was stuck in the WordPress developer loop and tired of it. I was pretty familiar with a handful of languages, but wasn’t doing much more than setting up themes and building out pages with builders.

    One day I heard the CTO talking about a tool he would love to have but couldn’t find anything that worked how he needed it to. The CTO was a big buzzword guy and recently shared an article with my manager at the time about how C++ was “the best language”. So naturally I chimed in and told him I could build that tool easy peasy and I would use C++ obviously because it’s the best language.

    It was such a simple tool, basically just matching phrases and categories and spitting out a list of options. It took me months to make, but I learned a lot and it kind of worked for the most part and everyone was happy. I eventually got a de-facto department in the company where I would just build internal tools and handle some legacy codebases that they were previously outsourcing.

    I later on got my current job because of that leap.

    TLDR: I learned C++ because I was bored and lied that I already knew it.

  • 💡𝚂𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝙰𝗉𝗉𝗌📱@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    I, as a teacher, have had to learn several languages, but that’s not the dumb reason bit. The dumb reason bit was WHY I had to teach Python, which once I learnt it (so I cold teach it) I could see right away was NOT a suitable language for teaching to Year 7 (who up to now have only used Scratch). I was teaching the U.K. curriculum, and I found out that teaching C# was also allowed - still not ideal, but better than Python for learners -but pretty much all schools were teaching Python. When I dug into it I found I was far from alone in not wanting to use Python… and I also found out the reason schools were teaching Python. It was because from an ADMINISTRATIVE point of view it was much easier for the schools to have us teaching Python. In other words, the office-workers who didn’t have to teach it, only had to admin it, were forcing everyone to teach Python because they wanted the lower overhead that came with installing/maintaining that vs. C#. ARGH! All the teachers who wanted to teach C# were running into exactly the same road-block.

    • kureta@lemmy.ml
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      I’m really surprised to hear that teaching C# to 7th graders is easer than teaching them python. Python was invented to teach. It looks like pseudo code. I have almost zero experience in teaching so I trust your experience. But can you elaborate a little? What makes teaching C# easier?

      • ebits21@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Surely an unpopular opinion lol.

        Python is a great first language.

            • apolo399@lemmy.world
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              I hate having to cater to the lowest common denominator, I had to struggle with un-engaging classes all throughout elementary and middle school. I’ve seriously thought about becoming a teacher so I’d like to ask, in your experience, what happens to the children that are able to process more advanced information? Can something be done to keep them engaged and nurture their development too?

              Edited an unfortunate typo

              • Oh definitely! Different students have different learning styles - some learn by memorising rules (ROTE), some learn by understanding the rules (Constructivist), some are visual learners, some are better at learning in group activities, etc. - and we have to cater to them ALL, to keep them all engaged (here’s WHY we have this rule, here’s a video about it, here’s a group activity about it, here’s a worksheet to practise it). But I was referring to the TOOLS that we use with class. We can’t use a tool that the advanced students have no trouble with but the less adept students struggle with - we have to use a tool that the whole class can use, and that’s what I meant about catering to the lowest common denominator.

                Also some (not all) schools have special classes for gifted and talented (G&T) students. And in fact one class I’ve had in my time is a class which was comprised of half the students had various learning difficulties (such as being dyslexic), though they weren’t told that (these days it’s all about trying to keep them in the mainstream as much as possible. So in this class the dyslexic student had a regular student sitting next to him for immediate help with reading anything, which left me free to only need to help him with actual educational issues).

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        it looks like pseudo code

        Does it though? I imagine most pseudocode looks like the language the writer is most familiar with. My pseudocode definitely doesn’t look like python.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      I’ve always seriously questioned why python has become the defacto beginner language. Sure, a simple print hello world is short, but I feel like static languages are easier to see what’s going on.

    • 0xDREADBEEF@programming.dev
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      Honestly, I taught myself JS in like 2009 as my first programming language. My high school taught Java, but I didn’t get OOP. I understand functional programming though, so after JS I taught myself Elixir, then OCaml and Haskell. I really wish I was just taught Clojure or another lisp-like in school though. Python is… okay… I need expressions in my language, though, and Python is not that.

  • Solemarc@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I started learning Lua for a WoW add-on. Not even making my own add-on, just tweaking someone else’s.

    • Oka@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      I learned Minecraft’s data pack language for the same reason. 20w14infinite needed a Portal gun, I found a working one, but tweaked it to my liking

  • BehindTheBarrier@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    It’s hyperbole, but I learned my first language because I wanted to be a god.

    I saw these magic windows that popped up, that had buttons, and I was jealous of these godly creators holding the power to make them do as they wanted. So, I learned it myself. I peeked at another program I was using, it was using python and PyQt so that’s what I set out with to become my own god of the desktop.

    My first program was a GUI wrapper around the YouTube-dl CLI, and I still use it frequently.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Hey, that’s similar to me! Except I’d call it a wizard rather than a god. I wanted to learn the cryptic combinations of words that willed things into existence in the digital world. 23 years later I’m a senior professional, doing the same thing, and still learning too.

  • Donnywholovedbowling@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I wanted to make a scripted version of pinochle because my friends and I play it a bunch on tabletop sim and there was nothing available, so I learned LUA

    • Oka@sopuli.xyz
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      4 months ago

      I learned pinochle as a kid, but can’t remember how to play now.

      I learned Lua as a programming student but can’t remember how to use it now.

  • Ogeon@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    I was a teacher’s assistant in beginner’s programming at university for a bit. I expected them to learn C, which I knew enough of, but I got assigned to a group that learned Python instead. I had never used Python at the time. I ended up having to speed learn it while trying to teach it, to not be completely useless.