alt Hacker News> the real value-add is in the runtime, not the syntax. Java has a solid runtime but it's not yet as good as Erlang's, maybe even not up to the standards of Golang
won't lie, this is hilarious. you got me from nodding along to being the spitting out food meme guy in a span of couple seconds.
JVM runtime is undeniably the most well researched and optimized runtime in history of runtimes, specifically in realm of concurrency and parallelism, it literally carries like half the world on it's back.
not to throw any shade on erlang vm - i've been a fan for well more than a decade, but other than making some interesting, but limited in practice, tradeoffs with regard to concurrency architecture, it doesn't really offer much more.
go's runtime is just a different beast altogether designed with different goals in mind and with no baggage of backward compatibility with legacy.
one particular detail i'm very grateful to Clojure for, is exactly the ability to use JVM runtime without having to touch any Java.
> Programming language syntax scarcely matters
on the contrary, it matters quite a lot.
you might be drinking some of that AI koolaid, conflating our suddenly hypertrophied abilities to produce code regardless of our familiarity with the syntax or the APIs with ability to produce and deliver good quality products, but this delusion is getting reality check as we speak.
a realization is propagating through the industry that being able to produce more code than you're able to review, comprehend and internalize is actually not a great thing.
and that's where syntax matters - it has to be high signal/noise, it has to expose you to right abstractions and it has to be pliable to allow the codebase reflect the problem in a way that minimizes cognitive load both during production and during consumption.
LLMs are language models and syntax is a crucial part of any language.
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Well, you are kind of using my comment to vent your frustrations about AI while it has barely anything to do with it -- but you tried to link the two, unsuccessfully. Which is not fair as you have no clue of my stance on AI and are extrapolating a bit too much.
Syntax does not matter simply because it's an extremely leaky abstraction of the runtime below, is my point.
Of course syntax must be high signal/noise ratio, I believe every reasonable programmer will agree. But many are making entire careers in PLs where that's not the case. Hence, in practice it does not seem to matter much, for the better or the worse.
RE: runtime, try and pay attention to the parameters given in my comments. I specifically acknowledged that the JVM is a great and mature runtime but it's lagging behind on STM / actor capabilities. Tearing down a straw man is not impressive and it comes across as you trying to gain visibility by deliberately misrepresenting your discussion opponent's arguments.
LLM bashing aside (although I tend to agree), I agree with midnight_eclair. The claim that Erlang or Go are outright superior to the JVM doesn't really stand up. They're better at some things, and worse than others.
Regarding language syntax, it definitely matters. In the same way the vocabulary we use shapes our thoughts, the expression of a programming language shapes the implementation. Of course, as Clojurists know all too well, it's entirely possible to write Java in any language!