Tozen

We are getting closer to Pre-crime Units, with each passing day. Except that instead of precogs (mutant humans), we will replace them with the almighty infallible AI.

"Sorry, Joe, but our AI says you will commit a crime sometime in the near future. So we have decided to charge, convict, and sentence you to 10 years."

This is what Niklaus Wirth was getting at, in his "push back" on conventional class-based OOP. In Pascal, they are called "units", as oppose to "modules". In his Modula/Oberon, they are called modules.

Many of the newer languages have modules or packages, but interface well with C, thus give the benefits of what the article was referring to. To include that various newer ones don't use class-based OOP, just as C doesn't.

Not at all. Is around 12 years old, and seems still quite far from hitting 1.0. I'm a bit amazed by that.

But Golang's GC is tweakable. As a compiled language using a GC, it and others aren't that slow. Often fast enough, for many use cases.

> any further memory safety and you're about in Rust land...

That's not quite true. We have GC using languages (some allow it to be turned off), and for many or in many use cases, that would be enough. Other languages like Lobster, Vlang, Vale, etc... are developing/putting out easier to use alternatives.

Interesting language. I think a major stumbling block was Red not running on 64-bit OSes. Not quite sure why that wasn't made a priority.

Maybe there is an argument there for non-programmers in technical fields, that use programming at their jobs, but it isn't their primary job. Like a data scientist or architect, trying to use something convenient and easy. The problem is, that usually it catches up with them (and with bigger programs), in terms of poor quality code and bad habits. The argument then becomes if they should have learned better practices and habits in the first place. Sometimes what seems like a shortcut, is not really so.

We can expect no less than for MS to use GitHub for self serving purposes.

As far as it can be ascertained, Vale has been in development for at least 3 years (2020).

This "critical review", appears more like continuous old spam often used by detractors or to troll. It has no perceived value other than that, because it's a "review" (hit piece) of an alpha version of the language. It's 2023, and V is also in beta (0.4). Furthermore:

1) The creator of it used a disposable GitHub account, launched the review/attack for the drama, then disappeared.

2) The only thing they ever published on their blog, was the hit job on V. No other reviews ever made.

3) Anything, which had any kind of substance, is already fixed[1].

4) A search of mawfig.github, shows how it is spammed on HN, and usually used for smearing.

[1]: https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/14803

[1]: https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/14787

[1]: https://github.com/vlang/v/issues/14786

Bottled water (often using plastic bottles) is full of microplastics and other crap[1]. And that's before we even mention the massive plastic pollution problem.

[1]: https://cleanwater.org/2020/07/29/bottled-water-human-health...

What was allowed to happen at Flint is an absolute disgrace and continual embarrassment for America. An entire community poisoned. The people of Flint are still affected[1], and are still waiting for accountability and justice.

[1]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/water-crisis-plagues-flint-residen...

> There still may be minor syntax changes before the 1.0 release, but they will be handled automatically via `vfmt`, as has been done in the past.

Let's add some context here, because a lot of times people that don't use the language, can interject drama. That's not what my post was about.

The gap between version 0.3 to 0.4 appears small and haven't experienced any issues so far (0.4 just came out). "vfmt" should handle those without issue. V became beta with 0.3, so if talking 0.2 and below, it was still in alpha.

If talking 0.1 or 0.2 to 0.3 or 0.4 (alpha to beta), that becomes a depends type of thing. For simple(r) programs, likely no issues. For more complex and very large programs, the difference can mean its better to rewrite. One of the reasons can be to take advantage of newer features. This can also be a non-issue for various people that didn't start using V until version 0.3 or later, so don't have anything written in 0.1 or 0.2 nor use libraries from that far back.

It should also be noted, that 3 years ago, would mean 2020. The alpha of the language came out in 2019 (4 plus years from today), so there is going to be a natural "time gap", that is not covered.

Additionally, I rather wait for the language to be a little more stable, as to be clear what the more definitive feature set and syntax is, before using in production. Be that as it may, enjoy using the language, and have various programs using V that run without issue.

Enjoy using it. Use for non-critical and various IT related type tasks. Will do more with it when it hits 1.0. Maybe at 0.5, but have to evaluate at that time. Want it to be a little more stable, so don't have to rewrite programs due to changes from earlier versions.

According to their roadmap, they will do 0.5 and then go for 1.0. Which at their pace, seems like it will be this time next year, if not earlier. They are coming along quite quickly and nicely. Seeing V people doing lots of nice things and projects with it.

Add Vlang in there too, which inherited the Oberon-2 method syntax and has Pascal/Wirthian influence.

TIOBE is arguably the most reliable one, though all of them are arguably flawed in various ways.

Not saying the other languages mentioned don't have jobs, they are after all "top 20" languages too. But, Pascal/Object Pascal/Delphi is around a lot more and has more opportunities than many might be thinking. Especially from a worldwide point of view, and not just for the U.S.A Pascal/Delphi is still taught and used in a lot of schools around the world. While Go, Rust, and Swift are not. There are still massive amounts of legacy projects and code, not to mention Embarcadero is still selling Delphi and doing well enough to stay in business.

I think the mistake that some make is the time frames that it takes to displace older and previously popular or dominant languages. Popular this year or a few years, does not usually and instantly erase that some other language was popular for 20 or 30 years.

People run around saying COBOL, or even languages like Ada or PHP are dead, yet various institutions and companies are begging for programmers that know them. Those claiming a language is "dead", can be quite suspect too, because they are competitors who "wish" it to be so. "Is dead", "wish it was dead", or promoting sites "claiming the competitor's language is dead" are clearly a bit different.

Because a language is popular this year, does not necessarily offset all the years that an older language was popular and in use. Lastly, Object Pascal/Delphi did not just fall completely off the charts either or stopped being used at all. It stills maintains significant levels of competitive popularity around the world.

The funny thing about that, is here we are in 2023. Lots of its competitors and haters are likely still asking, "Why won't it die?"

TIOBE index has Delphi/Object Pascal ranked at #11. That's ahead of "top players" like Go, Rust, and Swift.

Seems like you haven't been using the Object Pascal dialects of Delphi or PascalABC, which let you declare variables everywhere. In the case of Delphi, Embarcadero has been making it as easy as possible to switch between their Delphi and C++Builder products lines.

For Free Pascal, the developers and many users voted against that, because it appears the opinion was it leads to sloppy code and unnecessary errors. The other point, is that Object Pascal has for a very long time allowed nested functions, so it wasn't arguably that much of an issue for those on that side. It seems more like C/C++ users wanted to force their habits on Pascal, which Embarcadero sold out to, for a few extra dollars. PascalABC, copied what Delphi was doing, who they use as a quasi-standard.

Wow, didn't know Mojo already got a Wikipedia page. It doesn't even have any published releases on its GitHub yet. Talk about moving in the fast lane and being well connected.

Good choices. Putting in a vote for Vlang, which just hit 0.4 this week.

What YouTube's/Google's greed and hubris will likely result in, are more programmers aggressively testing ad blockers that can defeat their new approach or users more aggressively looking for alternatives to YouTube.

And I'm totally amazed that execs at YouTube/Google haven't figured out that maybe a cheaper tier premium service for just no ads, might be a viable enough solution, versus thinking they are going to bully and intimate their customers. At least give it a try, and give users more options. Make a new basic tier for maybe $15 dollars a year, where there are no ads. There are just too many programmers in the world, to think "aggressive intimidation" is really going to work.

This view also introduces the question of how badly has Elon hurt his reputation and orchestrated mythology. Until Twitter, many thought the man a "genius" that could do no wrong. After Twitter, Elon has become "very human" with glaringly obvious flaws.

Great news about V and how it's progressing.

But, as for the title of this thread, not understanding the odd wording. It seems it should be "V 0.4", "Vlang 0.4", or maybe something like "The V Programming Language reaches 0.4".

> Python is easy to use and easy to start programming in. Much easier than the other alternatives you mention.

In the case of Go (used in the comparison), would have to disagree. Learning Go (along with similar offshoots like Go+ or Vlang) is arguably as easy as learning Python. Go was purposefully designed to be that way. The more significant distinction (in terms of learning) would be compiled versus interpreted, but there are many pluses and minuses that go either direction.

Python's advantage is the long ago targeting of and being embraced by many school systems. So is seen as a "go to" language to teach, along with many books written for that purpose. Newer programming languages have to play catch-up, if they are even focused on academic circles.

People and companies knowingly contaminating food products with poisons like lead, should be put in jail. Companies knowingly selling such products, should be at least heavily fined, possibly prosecuted as well. Bottom line, this is clearly poisoning (and killing people) to make a few extra bucks. There should be no leniency whatsoever for this clear evil.

There are youtube videos showing how to do the turmeric test with water. Definitely, everyone that uses it, should know this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXWPf0HQd5U

(Testing Turmeric Powder adulteration with Artificial Color)

Besides the attempted slap on V coming from "out of left field", in regards to what the above commenter was talking about, V doesn't leak memory like that. V, since becoming beta (last year), uses an optional GC and does flexible memory management[1]. Giving users choices, somewhat like D and Nim do.

It provides 4 choices: default optional GC (that can be turned off), autofree (either alone or with GC), arena allocation (-prealloc), or manual memory management (-gc none). This flexibility has already been proven, like with their Vinix OS project[2].

Lastly, for developing languages going through alpha and beta phases, think that people should acknowledge how the process works and update their information. Rust or Nim, for example, aren't the same language they were 5 years ago or when still in beta.

[1]: https://github.com/vlang/v/blob/master/doc/docs.md#memory-ma... (4 ways to manage memory in V)

[2]: https://github.com/vlang/vinix

> To be at the top of the pack, nim would have to really stand out somehow. Nim hasn't, so its a little bit niche somewhat mid-popularity language.

I'm not sure about this argument. If Mozilla had created and pushed Nim instead, would it be as popular as what they did for Rust? I'm sure the marketing department would have found some angles to push for Nim. Maybe it would have been memory management options or that its somewhat like a compiled version of Python. I'm sure corporate minds would have figured something out. So if we could see alternate dimensions, where Nim was under Mozilla, it might be nearly as popular.

As it is, some would argue that Rust is somewhat niche, reserved for cases where memory safety without a GC is both necessary and critical. Rust ranks 20th on the TIOBE index. While nothing to sneeze at, nobody knows if it will go higher on the charts or fall back down.

Have to agree with that point. Significant numbers of people would not give it chance, based on that reason alone.

There is possibly another argument to be made, that Nim is not close enough to Python. Look at how people have gravitated towards Mojo and it being a superset. Therefore, Nim could be argued as kind of trapped in a no man's land, where not of the C family and not close enough to Python to be an easy enough switch over nor strong enough to gain mass appeal with its own identity.

While I agree that corporate support plays a huge role with market share and acceptance, I disagree that Go would have been laughed out of the room. Very likely that a language made by Griesemer, Pike, and Thompson would have got lots of attention. Arguably enough to catch on anyway. These men are already famous, in programming circles. Case in point, look at Jai, with just the star power of Jonathan Blow and how well known that it is. In fact, would not bet against just Ken Thompson (by himself), creating a new language and whether or not it would catch on.