On Wed, Jul 20, 2005 at 08:48:46PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote: > On Wed, 20 Jul 2005, W. Borgert wrote: > > >"Foo is a Perl-based program that..." > > > >"libBar is written in C..." > > > >"libBang is written in only 42 lines of source code..." > > > >"Baz has been written by me..." > > > >Do such descriptions justify bug reports of severity=minor? > Well, I would guess wishlist is the right way to go and the language > should go into debtags information as suggested by others. The language > a program is written in is completely irrelevant for user applications > and might more confuse user than beeing helpful. For librarie-dev > packages it might be helpful because it is relevent developer information. > > Thanks for pointing this out It seems to me that WB and Andreas make a valid point. Why should the user care what language a program is written in, so long as the program works right? Functionality is the important thing. I see another side to it, however. At least seven reasons occur to me why a user might care what language a program is written in. 1. Compiled programs (C, C++, Fortran 77, Ada, ...) usually run leaner and faster than do interpreted ones (Perl, Python, Ruby, ...). 2. Programs written in obscure languages may prove unmaintainable if the original developer disappears. Besides threatening obsolescence, this can be a security issue. 3. Programs written in widely used languages (C, C++, Perl, Python, ...) may work better simply because the programmer had adequate access during development to high-quality modules and library bindings. 4. With a language come a mindset, an aesthetic and a development culture. Although one cannot speak in absolutes, generally speaking, which program would you expect to be more focused and reliable: a program written in C++ or an alternative written in Perl? (On the other hand, which of the two programs would you expect to be available sooner?) 5. Some languages are inherently more debuggable (or less bug-prone) than others. C++ is more debuggable than C, which itself is more debuggable than Fortran 77. Python is more debuggable than Perl. Programs written in the more debuggable languages may rationally be expected to suffer fewer bugs. 6. Some languages enjoy not only free compilers or interpreters, but also well written, complete free documentation. It may not seem like much, but a limited ideological motive may exist to promote programs written in such languages. 7. Some users may want to be able to read parts of the source of the programs they use---even if they have no intention of contributing to development. This is Debian, after all. Programs written in obscure languages may be vaguely deprecated for this reason. If it matters, the languages I personally use most on a daily basis are Perl, Fortran 77, Octave and Bash (also occasionally C, C++ or Python)---some of which do not rank very well by my own criteria. However, I do tend to avoid publishing things written in Perl, because I use Perl often and know Perl's nature. As a user, I tend to prefer software compiled from C/C++. Hence the language in which a program is implemented is somewhat relevant, at least to me. -- Thaddeus H. Black 508 Nellie's Cave Road Blacksburg, Virginia 24060, USA +1 540 961 0920, t@b-tk.org, thb@debian.org
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