Hacker News Reader

Comment by z3t4 | Hacker News Reader

And real programmers write in machine code. Want to get shit done ? Most systems now a day has more then 20kb RAM! Where do you draw the line between systems programming and non system programming ? And why not write some quick and dirty code in say JavaScript and then do what needs optimization in C/assembly ? Assuming you are not restricted to a CPU that cost less then a dollar. And where does Rust come in ?

View on HN

What kind of engineer goes around saying "It could be faster, leaner, and more efficient? No! Build the biggest, flakiest, ugliest thing that gets the job done today!"

With smart watches we still have problems, mainly to hold enough power. Yes, Pebble can last a week, but that's because it is running less resource intensive hardware, and even then 1 week is still laughable when comparing to old watches that require battery change once per 2 years.

By being more conservative, you can achieve more with less resources.

Every single application or website is a system (see the push in recent years for web assembly).

The difference is that a "systems programming language" has the capability of being used low level if needed while a "shit scripting language" such as javascript does not. Basically what I am saying here is that Javascript is an underwear taint-stain for modern computer science. With any luck it will be rid of this world in 20 years and you javascript programmers can stop torturing yourselves with new "hot libraries" and "ECMA transpilers" every 2-4 years.

There isn't actually a trade-off between efficiency and ease of use across all languages. For example, JavaScript is both slow and memory hungry while also being inconvenient to use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com