Be sure to know enough of the language you are arguing against
- Act 1. Someone makes an outrageous claim about a programming language.[1]
- Act 2. Someone points that claim out to others.[2]
- Act 3. Someone compares a snippet of code in the original article to his version in his preferred language and asserts that language is superior.
- Act 4. Someone, in this case me, points out that the exact same solution is possible in the original language. [3][4]
[1] I don't claim he's serious. In fact, I think he just ends his post on a tongue-in-cheek, semi-hopeful note.
[2] Singling out the least interesting part of the blog post as the title of his submission, IMHO
[3] Which explains the title of this post: if you don't have at least that much understanding of a language that you know whether a certain solution is possible or not, than you probably shouldn't be commenting on it.
[4] Act 4 has many variations, but usually people produce a different solution in the original language that approaches the solution in the alternative language.
07-'09 Telecomratten
06-'09 Installing DB2 Express C on linux
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Act 5; you claim your victory in a blogpost? 
Act 6 ???
Act 7 PROFIT!

Act 6 ???
Act 7 PROFIT!
[Comment edited on maandag 22 juni 2009 19:40]
@Leftblank
Countering an argument does not make the 'defender' victorious: it just denies the 'attacker' victory. I merely noticed my own participation in a pattern that I've seen more often and took the opportunity to describe it (for fun and profit?
).
BTW, the lead actor of Act 3 pointed out that although the code is syntactically equivalent, there are semantic differences. For one, Clojure (or Lisps in general) is (or will be) a lazy language and secondly he asserts the concept of a list differs between the languages.
Countering an argument does not make the 'defender' victorious: it just denies the 'attacker' victory. I merely noticed my own participation in a pattern that I've seen more often and took the opportunity to describe it (for fun and profit?

BTW, the lead actor of Act 3 pointed out that although the code is syntactically equivalent, there are semantic differences. For one, Clojure (or Lisps in general) is (or will be) a lazy language and secondly he asserts the concept of a list differs between the languages.
[Comment edited on maandag 22 juni 2009 19:59]
This, my dear Watson, is the process of 'going off topic'. You started with a story about theoretical performance benefits of high-level languages, and you ended with bickering about whose penis is the best high-level language.
A programming equivalent to Godwin's law would be: "As a programming-related discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving participants' pet languages becomes 1."
A programming equivalent to Godwin's law would be: "As a programming-related discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving participants' pet languages becomes 1."
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