> I’m an idealist, and I believe that a perfect programming language with perfect tooling (or, at least, Pareto-optimal language and tooling) can exist. This is in contrast to people who just see languages as tools to get the job done. For them, a language is probably as good as the libraries available for their tasks.
I used to think that way. But it only took me half a decade of professional development (and reading/discussing in circles like HN) to see that it's a fallacy. A programming language cannot be perfect because it's made for humans, who are not perfect (and runs on computers, which arguably are not perfect).
Accepting the fact that there's no singular, perfect way to express a given idea has been freeing, actually. I used to constantly chase the dragon, getting hung up on refactoring and refactoring and refactoring, trying to attain that perfect description. I still get caught up in it sometimes. A little bit of that spirit makes for better code. But you have to be able to pull yourself away.
I used to think that way. But it only took me half a decade of professional development (and reading/discussing in circles like HN) to see that it's a fallacy. A programming language cannot be perfect because it's made for humans, who are not perfect (and runs on computers, which arguably are not perfect).
Accepting the fact that there's no singular, perfect way to express a given idea has been freeing, actually. I used to constantly chase the dragon, getting hung up on refactoring and refactoring and refactoring, trying to attain that perfect description. I still get caught up in it sometimes. A little bit of that spirit makes for better code. But you have to be able to pull yourself away.