On twitter I participated in the short snarky exchange:

@stevedekorte – Threads sharing state by default is like variables being global by default.

@luqui – state is like globals :-)

@stevedekorte – @luqui only shared state – which is why FP ultimately fails – it trades comprehensibility for shared state optimizations

@luqui – @stevedekorte, wow, sneaking “FP ultimately fails” as if an obvious truth in a reply to a Haskell programmer

@stevedekorte – @luqui, a bit like sneaking in “[all] state is like globals” to an OO programmer? :-)

@stevedekorte – @psnively @luqui my only issue with FP is the decision to trade expressivity and reusability for less state while calling it progress

The conversation goes on (and on) between many twitterites, having a fun but serious argument about this and that benefit of this and that style. Dynamic/static types come up, OO vs. functional, usefulness, mathematical foundation, learning curves; none of the standard artillery is spared. What irritates me about this style of argument is all the sweeping adjectives (1) used with no definition, thus impossible to support with evidence, and (2) synonymized with better.

In this post, I will draw attention to this irritating vocabulary, so that the next time you use it you can realize how little you are saying.

(Disclaimer: this post is not intended to criticize stevedekorte specifically, even though I identify two of the terms he used below. It was a long, typical programming zealot argument, and all parties involved were being equally dumb :-)

Expressive

A person is expressive if he expresses himself — he has an idea and wants to write it down. So I would say a language is expressive if it allows or enables the programmer to be expressive. Languages that restrict expression are not expressive. So we have the following facts:

Dynamically typed languages are more expressive than corresponding statically typed ones, because statically typed languages forbid you from expressing some ideas.

Multiparadigmatic languages are more expressive than languages which are paradigmatically pure, because the former allow you to express yourself if you are not thinking within the framework.

A language which you are fluent in is more expressive than a language you do not know very well.

By these observations, we might guess that Perl is the most expressive language, Haskell is the least.

Do you notice yourself already equating expressive with good, and thus perhaps feeling offended? Everyone wants an expressive language, right? Here are some reasons some programmers might not want an expressive language:

Most of my ideas are made of bullshit. Have you ever had a great idea, gone to write it in your blog, and realized it was nonsense because you were unable to write it? So writing is less expressive than thinking. Is thinking better than writing?

Every programmer has a different way of structuring their thoughts. An expressive language will bring out the differences in thought structure between programmers, and introduce impedance mismatches between programmers on a shared project.

I’m not arguing that expressiveness is bad. I’m just arguing that it doesn’t mean good, it means expressive.

Reusable

A language “is reusable” (to abuse language a bit) if code written in that language can be easily reused.

This “obvious” statement is hiding something very important; namely, reused how? For what? We are in an unfortunate situation in programming: code is designed to be reused in a particular way, and if you want to reuse it in a different way you are pretty much out of luck. An OO widget library is designed for the addition of new types of widgets, but if you want to reuse a program written in the library on a new platform you are in for a lot of work. A functional drawing library is designed so that you can transform and export your drawings in an open-ended variety of ways, composing new ways out of old ones; but if you need to draw a circle you have to build it out of lines, even if there is a much better way to draw a circle on your target. (This is essentially the expression problem).

An abstraction will always expose some things and conceal others. Different languages enable abstraction in different ways, which makes exposing certain things easier and others harder. The zealot will reply, “but in my experience, real-world programs are naturally organized around <insert preferred paradigm>, and <insert uncomfortable paradigm> doesn’t support that style as easily.” I would suggest to this zealot to look deeper into the definition of “real-world” to discover its many facets of subjectivity. (What domain do you work in? Who architected the real-world software you have worked on, and what was their background? What kinds of programs do you consider not to exist in the real world, and what values are you using to minimize them?)

Easy to learn

A language is easier to learn than another language if it takes less time to become competent/fluent programming in that language.

I don’t think this one is as automatically synonymized with “good”. Haskell programmers are aware how much relative effort was required to learn Haskell, and are usually grateful that they put in the effort. But all other things being equal, a language easier to learn ought to be better than one harder to learn.

The deadly omission in the above definition is that people are doing the learning. A language is easier or harder to learn to a single person, and that is entangled with their background, their approach, and their ambitions. When arguing “X is easier to learn than Y”, I encourage you to add one of the following phrases to the end:

for programmers who already know Z.

for people with a mathematical background.

for people with a non-mathematical background.

for children.

for me.

Or something similar. The following phrases do not count.

for almost everyone.

for people with a typical background.

for people who want to do useful things.

I’ll close this section with this remark: Haskell is the easiest language to learn, because I already know it.

Conclusion

I know I am frequently irritated by many of these kinds of words, and I’ve only mentioned three here. But you see where I am going. Respect the values of your fellow engineers. If you are a polyglot and like a paradigm, it probably comes from a set of values you have — a set of things you consider important, and that differ from the values of others. Concentrate on that; communicate your values, and try to understand the values of others. If you have toyed with a paradigm and quickly lost interest because of some surface feature (I have — e.g. I will throw out a language without support for closures) or impression, consider the possibility that you like what you like because simply because it is familiar (other equivalent notions: easy, natural). Which is fine, some people like to tinker with their thinking patterns more than others, but remember that you have trained yourself to think in a particular way, so consider that your “objective” judgements about these ultimately human languages could be biased.

(For the record, that last phrase originally read: “all of your ‘objective’ judgements about one of these ultimately human languages are biased”, which is quite a bit stronger than what I had intended)