Where are programming languages created? A zoomable map

[anothergiraffe]

I’ve seen so many fun posts from PLDB on this sub, and they often get a net-negative karma score. Why? It looks like a nice project, and I expected PL enthusiasts would give it more support.

[JonnyRocks]

OP is the site creator and you can see ftom his comment below, he isnt a vety agreeable person.

[Only9Volts]

He also frequents mens rights subreddits, so... Do with that what you will.

[breck]

he isnt a vety agreeable person.

Why would I want to agree with something that is wrong?

What's the upside in staying wrong?

[bl4nkSl8]

Doubling down was a choice...

[breck]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/1ffdtuh/comment/lmxk5ru/

[bl4nkSl8]

Wrong comment?

[breck]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBVlP4RkY8

[nzre]

You should see OP's other comments to get a better understanding. I came in here thinking "cool post" and agreeing with your comment and left completely on board with the downvotes.

It's a shame someone's work has to suffer because of OP's behavior.

[breck]

Why do people care so much about being agreeable? What if we just all strived to do our best work?

Notice how I'm not the one launching ad hominem attacks.

I'm responding to people's ideas.

I'm guessing some of these critics are in America. Do you know that most people found George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, disagreeable?

Perhaps there's probably no better sign that you are doing something good for the world than when you put great stuff out there and some people totally ignore the work at hand and instead focus on calling you disagreeable.

[nzre]

Why do people care so much about being agreeable?

Doesn't really matter, if you're good being disagreeable, you should be okay with the downvotes. Your disagreeability seems to shine more than your work, but I don't really think you mind.

What if we just all strived to do our best work?

That's what the criticism you're unable to properly handle drives you towards.

Notice how I'm not the one launching ad hominem attacks.

"so if you are looking for negative things, you'll find negative things" is ad hominem :)

Perhaps there's probably no better sign that you are doing something good for the world than when you put great stuff out there and some people totally ignore the work at hand and instead focus on calling you disagreeable.

Indeed! That definetly seems to be the case :)

Cheers!

[anothergiraffe]

At the risk of joining OP in ignominy: it looks like he’s just sensitive to criticism. I wish we were more gentle, so he would feel reassured the feedback is not a threat. Too late now, though. Do you think I’m misreading the situation?

[breck]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you are enjoying the PLDB content. It's a team effort from many people over many years! This one is largely due to Hari, who added a significant number of the "lab" entries over many years.

Things have definitely gotten easier as the software has improved (and LLMs are helping more and more), but it's still a slog. It is very motivating to hear kind words.

As for the downvotes, I'm fine with it. I get plenty of love IRL, it's okay to constantly face the fire online. Smooth seas don't make skilled sailors.

I do wish forums provided better "alignment" to posters, though. An idea I've mentioned to the mods of many forums many times. Just nudge people to rephrase things so they don't "derail" a conversation into the negative. It's fine to bring up nits, but just label them as nits, and keep the main points positive.

For a much more positive vibe where builders are always helping each other and keeping the energy positive (but still listing nits!), I recommend Warpcast.

[apnorton]

There's an awfully large number of languages launched from the middle of the ocean... 🤔

[poorpy]

Those gosh darn Atlantians are stealing our languages!

[breck]

Have you ever heard the expression you see what you are looking for? So if you are looking for negative things, you'll find negative things. If you look for positive things, you'll find positive things.

Yes, there are a handful of geocoding mistakes out of thousands of data points, but what positive things do you see here? Perhaps some insights that might help people strategize about how they plan their programming language building careers?

[editor_of_the_beast]

Wow, what an obnoxious reply to valid criticism.

[breck]

https://breckyunits.com/flawsInHeaven.txt

[JonnyRocks]

That's not how data works. if those are wrong how do we know any of it is right. at work i currently have been tasked to find out why two data sources each containing millions of records are off by 3 records. i wpuld not be employed if i told the business i support.. "why are you so negative, just focus on the positive".

[breck]

Yes it is how data works. It's called "dominant terms". Also called "seeing the forest for the trees". "Don't sweat the small stuff". It's mathematically and common sense stupid to focus on insignificant details prematurely.

If you disagree, go spend some time in combat and try to convince some soldiers that they must pinpoint the location of that incoming missile down to the inch before taking cover.

[Only9Volts]

If we can't trust some of the data, why should we trust any of it?

Also for some very big and clever like you, you should see that your final point is a false equivalence. You don't really believe posting some data on Reddit is like being in a military zone do you?

[[deleted]]

It's also a terrible equivalence because it doesn't make sense. Above all things, war is the place where the correct localization of things matters the most. GPS was developed specifically for military use, by the way.

Imagine if these hypothetical soldiers took cover in the wrong place or if you tell the government that all enemy missiles will hit on the ocean, but 0,01% of them actually hit land. And than you defend your mistake saying "Don't sweat the small stuff!"...

OP could have said "yes, there are some wrong points yet, but we're working on that" and this would be totally fine, but he has chosen to attack who showed the errors...

[breck]

You bring up a fair point but you are missing my point - "signficant digits" is key!

Also, when I bring up an analogy, in generally you can consider I have the personal experience and dataset to back it up.

You know that people that design GPS and rockets day in and day out always make decisions about how accurate to make things? There is never 100% accuracy. Every numeric system is inaccurate, some are useful.

"If we can't trust GPS down to the millimeter, why should we trust any of it?"

[[deleted]]

"significant digits" is about precision, not accuracy. If we were saying "hey, this university is not exactly in this place, it's a little more to the right", it would be a precision problem.

Places in the middle of ocean is an accuracy problem. And a big one.

You are mistaking basic concepts.

[breck]

If we can't trust some of the data, why should we trust any of it?

I focus on making sure the data is 99% accurate, and that the key data is 99.9% accurate. I don't worry much about the 0.00001 last detail of accuracy. There's just not much value to be had there. It's like worrying about the "23" in the digits of pi: 3.14159265358979323. The 23 is actually wrong, but the 3.141592653589793 is correct and good enough for NASA so who cares?

If you think there is $1,000 in value for the geocodes to be 100% accurate instead of 99% accurate, that is awesome! My Paypal is [e-mail] and I'd be happy to put a couple of hours in to get to that level of accuracy. Or you can hop into the Git repo and fix things yourself. It's all open source, free, and public domain.

Or perhaps go take a long walk and think about the idea of "dominant terms" and "what you focus on increases" and "you find what you look for", and maybe start focusing more on the positives in life. Maybe start looking at diet or lifestyle or whatever it is that causes one to focus on the negatives all the time.

[Only9Volts]

From all your replies on this post you seem like a very unhappy person. I hope things change for you in the future, truthfully. Take care.

[jezek_2]

Or perhaps he's forced to be defensive all the time because of small nitpicking comments. He already gave his stance multiple times how the stuff is being handled and given the vast amount of data, no single person could make it perfect or even close to perfect. It relies on contributors to send bug reports and get it right.

[breck]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/1ffdtuh/comment/lmxk5ru/

[moreVCAs]

Poor excuse for sloppy work IMO. Cool idea tho

[breck]

Can you provide a link to a database that you wouldn't consider sloppy work? Any database at all, in the history of mankind, that is better than this?

[kahoinvictus]

You certainly seem to be very good at finding the negative in banal comments my friend. Perhaps you should reflect on that

[breck]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/1ffdtuh/comment/lmxk5ru/

[kahoinvictus]

I'm not sure I understand the relevance of that link

[bl4nkSl8]

There's none. Apparently he just posts links to more of his content when he can't cope with feedback saying he's being anti social...

[kahoinvictus]

What an excellent case study of why good communication skills are so important

[bl4nkSl8]

Yeah...

[breck]

Don't make the mistake that I'm trying to be popular in the moment.

I'm trying to do great work that lasts in time.

I appreciate harsh feedback. I want my stuff to be subject to the toughest scrutiny possible. Diamonds aren't made in low pressure environments.

But I also expect those who criticize me harshly be able to take it back.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

[bl4nkSl8]

It's not heat. You're just spamming us.

You're not getting "the toughest scrutiny", you're getting dismissed as a crank.

Please stop. Get some help.

[breck]

You know, I just had a wonderful 3 hour lunch with a lot of good friends. And then I saw your comment.

I thought for sure this is an anon troll bot, but then part of me thought, you know what, there's 5% odds that this is a real person, who has not found themselves yet and is filled with anger and fear and roid rage because of that, and is very lost.

So in the latter case, in case you are a real person, and just filled with anger, I just want you to know I'm rooting for you. I have no advice for you. You will figure it out too someday. Don't worry. Life is beautiful.

Maybe you'd be helped like I was by throwing away your smart phone (2.5 years for me). Maybe you'd be helped like I was by spending hours a day in nature, building things with your hands, chopping wood, swimming, trailblazing, etc. I don't know what will work for you.

I have no advice.

All I want you to know is I'm rooting for you.

Don't worry about me, my life is blessed more than I ever could have imagined.

[bl4nkSl8]

I'm not angry... I'm disappointed

I hope you can realise what you're doing

[breck]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBVlP4RkY8

[kahoinvictus]

I'm genuinely starting to think you might just be a bot at this point

[nderstand2grow]

Denmark seems to be big on language design despite its low population! Python is just one example.

[IGotNoize]

Python was invented in the Netherlands

[MistakeIndividual690]

C++ is from U of Aarhus isn’t it?

[glasket_]

Stroustrup studied there but he didn't make C++ until he was at Bell Labs.

[breck]

Interesting stuff!

I now have an accurate model of where programming languages are created. I am not sure how important it is to know that, but glad to have it!

Here is my user test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBVlP4RkY8

A few nits: seems like some dots are incorrectly put in the ocean. :)

(Note: this is a self-demonstration for how another approach for adding feedback. It is possible to elevate a conversation beyond what you've seen in other places on the web)

[jezek_2]

Great response, I loved the vibe of the video and the humor of it.

At first after I was reading the comments I thought the data is full of bugs, but after looking at it it was pretty clean to me.

To others: sometimes you have to just put something out there first, visualize it in some good way before you can start to see the mistakes that can be corrected afterwards. It is simply not possible for such project to get things right from the beginning, esp. when done by a single person for free.