Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re: lintian.debian.org off ?)

From	Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.devel
Subject	Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re: lintian.debian.org off ?)
Date	2024-09-25 16:50 +0200
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On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 12:00:47PM +0200, Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas wrote:
> hi Jonathan,
> 
> On Sun Sep 22, 2024 at 5:05 PM CEST, Jonathan Dowland wrote:
> > On Wed Sep 4, 2024 at 8:33 PM BST, Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas wrote:
> > > incidentally, lots of Debian native code is in perl, and like it or
> > > not, we should allow for, or even encourage [0] (partial) rewrites if
> > > we want to attract new contributors, especially below the average DD
> > > age
[snip]
> > What criteria are important for such a recommendation?
> 
> I'm not sure that we could converge on a recommendation, nor that it would be of
> any use if we were to -- except perhaps in a team-local scope. fwiw, some ideas:
> 
> - popularity, accounting for fitness for purpose (e.g. no php and js, as
>   mentioned elsewhere in this thread)
> - readability
> - maintainability
> 
> as an example, I've rewritten adequate(1) from perl to go. the perl version was
> absolutely fine, I just couldn't see myself writing perl for fun in my free
> time. and I feel more optimistic about finding co/new maintainers given that
> it's in go

In my personal experience, languages that either have built-in strong type
checking or have easy ways (and IMHO mypy invoked via Tox is easy) to run
a type checker lead to much more maintainable code over time, at the obvious
price of a bit more verbosity.

> > (Please, not Python :P)
> 
> not a big fan either, but python scores pretty high in terms of the first two
> criteria above

...so lately I have found that I never write new stuff in C and Perl,
preferring Rust and Python respectively.
(and yes, I know Raku has strong typing, and I do use it for some local
projects, but unfortunately I don't think it will ever gain the popularity
it deserves)

G'luck,
Peter

-- 
Peter Pentchev  roam@ringlet.net roam@debian.org peter@morpheusly.com
PGP key:        https://www.ringlet.net/roam/roam.key.asc
Key fingerprint 2EE7 A7A5 17FC 124C F115  C354 651E EFB0 2527 DF13

Thread

Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-08-07 19:40 +0200
  Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org> - 2024-08-08 20:50 +0200
    Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 09:00 +0200
      Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 10:00 +0200
        Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 14:20 +0200
          Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 15:30 +0200
    Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-08-15 10:30 +0200
  Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 09:00 +0200
    Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-08-09 13:40 +0200
      Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-08-09 14:20 +0200
      Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> - 2024-08-10 07:40 +0200
        Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2024-08-11 18:40 +0200
      Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> - 2024-09-02 04:00 +0200
        Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nilesh Patra <nilesh@riseup.net> - 2024-09-02 07:30 +0200
        Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-09-02 17:10 +0200
          Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> - 2024-09-02 19:30 +0200
            Re: lintian.debian.org off ? "Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas" <sez@debian.org> - 2024-09-02 21:20 +0200
          Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> - 2024-09-03 18:50 +0200
            Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-09-03 19:00 +0200
            Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-09-03 20:10 +0200
              Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-09-03 21:20 +0200
              Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Nicolas Peugnet <nicolas@club1.fr> - 2024-09-03 23:10 +0200
              Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> - 2024-09-03 23:20 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Lucas Nussbaum <lucas@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 08:30 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 08:40 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 22:50 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 09:10 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Holger Levsen <holger@layer-acht.org> - 2024-09-04 09:40 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 23:00 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> - 2024-09-20 17:00 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2024-09-20 17:10 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Pierre-Elliott Bécue <peb@debian.org> - 2024-09-20 17:50 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> - 2024-09-20 23:50 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Andreas Tille <tille@debian.org> - 2024-09-21 12:30 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Louis-Philippe Véronneau <pollo@debian.org> - 2024-09-20 18:00 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> - 2024-10-24 22:30 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? "Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas" <sez@debian.org> - 2024-09-04 21:40 +0200
                sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) "Jonathan Dowland" <jmtd@debian.org> - 2024-09-22 17:10 +0200
                Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org> - 2024-09-22 18:00 +0200
                Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> - 2024-09-22 19:30 +0200
                Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) thomas@goirand.fr - 2024-09-22 20:00 +0200
                Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) "Serafeim (Serafi) Zanikolas" <sez@debian.org> - 2024-09-25 12:10 +0200
                Re: sensible languages for younger contributors (was Re:  lintian.debian.org off ?) Peter Pentchev <roam@ringlet.net> - 2024-09-25 16:50 +0200
                Re: lintian.debian.org off ? Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org> - 2024-09-21 15:00 +0200

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