code is a pidgin language between computers and people. computers are very logical and consistent, but people are incredibly messy and chaotic and diverse

there’s such a wide variety of programming languages and styles (imperative, object-oriented, statically-typed, functional, etc.) because those styles are meant to serve different cultures of problem-solving, which value different things (speed, various definitions of “elegance”, various definitions of “safety”, etc.)

I grew up on reddit, though, where every user has to find a reason why they’re smarter and better than all of the other users. so I grew up hearing sentiments like:

• “functional programming is objectively superior. it’s so easy to understand and use and if it’s ever hard for you that means you’re stupid and don’t understand its deep elegance and precision mathematical design. [derails the conversation to show off their knowledge of Monads™]”
• “Rust is literally the best possible language because it’s just as easy as Python except everything is so safe and fast and if you ever have trouble with it that just means you’re stupid and shouldn’t write code. Rust is always completely effortless to write and read because of how superior it is”

and I learned to be very defensive about what works for me, because the cultural assumption was that one of these languages must be the superior choice and only a chosen few geniuses can understand which it is and use it properly - and I didn’t want to be one of those ignorant plebs using an inferior language for idiots instead. so that’s why I am the way I am towards Rust and anything related to functional programming

@kasdeya honestly that kind of attitude towards anything is unhealthy, and somewhat inherently anti-community

it's just in-group / out-group dynamics over and over again, used uncritically to soothe insecure egos and amass social credibility, and we're fucking sick of it being everywhere

@tempest I really am too. until I found Fedi I thought that the entire internet was like that, and I even thought that it was normal. but I’m glad that I have some perspective now and I’m not steeped in that toxic culture anymore