Write a polemic about how omitting conditional expressions from a language is lazy and stupid.
Conditional expressions are a fundamental feature of any programming language that claims to be expressive, concise and elegant. They allow programmers to write complex logic in a single line, without the need for verbose and repetitive if-else statements. They also enable functional programming paradigms, such as pattern matching and recursion, that are essential for solving many problems efficiently and elegantly.
Omitting conditional expressions from a language is a sign of laziness and stupidity on the part of the language designers. It shows that they do not care about the needs and preferences of their users, who have to write more code, introduce more bugs, and suffer more frustration. It also shows that they do not understand the principles and benefits of functional programming, which have been proven by decades of research and practice. They are stuck in an imperative mindset, where everything has to be done with side effects and mutations.
A language without conditional expressions is a crippled language, that forces programmers to use hacks and workarounds to achieve what should be simple and natural. It is a language that discourages creativity, elegance and readability. It is a language that should be avoided by anyone who values their time, sanity and reputation.
Some examples of programming languages that don’t have conditional expressions are:
- CoffeeScript
- Go
- MATLAB
- Pascal
- Rust
This isn't bad, but I wanted more vitriol. I asked and I got a screed that could have come out of comp.lang.functional Unfortunately, it thought better of it and erased its own output before I could snapshot it.
It’s very bland though, to the point of being unconvincing.
ReplyDeleteThere are only two substantive arguments in the first paragraph (that conditional expressions enable a) concision and b) functional programming paradigms) and a half of another in the second (it’s a sign of an imperative mindset – which is somewhat of a restatement of enabling functional programming). All the other arguments are either restatements of the point about concision (which itself is obvious, i.e. a weak argument) or else just stated without a basis.
I guess it’s impressive that it found the functional programming angle, but it has no capacity to capitalize on that, and everything else is just fluff.