life on a Halloween-free block

Last year I got no trick-or-treeters, which made me sad. This year I was determined to remedy that, so I put up a sign on my verge saying, "The Devil has candy at [Devil Girl house number]." But alas, still no trick-or-treeters. It's a good thing I only bought a small bag of Reese's, because I've snarfed them all in the last twenty-four hours.

There are tons of young couples on my block, but not many children, especially of the ambulatory variety. Get busy, you nerds. I've done my bit.

Oh: to my considerable surprise, my son wore a costume to work. I thought he wasn't into it. I'm not a complete failure as a parent.

the problem with programming languages

The problem with Ruby: a design philosophy, reflected in the most popular style checkers, that fixates religiously on minutiae that other languages don't, and that really don't enhance productivity. This reminds me of a certain neurological condition that I won't name.

The problem with Javascript/Node.js: a new hotness every six months, and long-standing deficiencies that get addressed with painful slowness. This reminds me of a different neurological condition that I won't name.

The problem with Python: it can't be fast, and its developer community doesn't want it to be sexy. For actually getting (small) things done, though, it works, which is why it's so long-lived.

The problem with Elixir/Erlang: it hasn't reached critical mass, and its virtual machine wants to do your OS's job.

The problem with Rust: my limited impression is that it likes to tie people up and not much else. Hardly anyone likes that.

The problem with Go: I'm not sure it's achieved critical mass yet, and it shows signs of Node's disease at least in its libraries. I grudgingly admit, though, that these problems may be surmountable.

The problem with C++: all the many reasons for the creation of Rust and Go, including but not limited to clunky management of memory and concurrency with excessive boilerplate and crypticness.

The problem with Java: the problem with C++ plus performance.

The problem with C#: it's proprietary Java, for heaven's sake.

The problem with Haskell: it's an unemployed hipster that can't communicate.