@fakefred i'd also consider performance as a condition there - i have nothing against running any language but when your framework is resource hungry as hell (this is 100% an electron and somewhat a php and java subtoot) it makes me want to not

@fakefred nothing excuses electron

@fakefred I don't care if something is written in C, C++, Go, Rust... Basically, if it's a compiled binary, it's whatever. If running it needs a toolchain... You sometimes cannot avoid Python and Java runtimes, but PHP can go to hell for sure.

@fakefred
yes, because some languages' ecosystems are a huge problem
like, if it's written in go on rust, it's fine
but if it's, say, java, and it's not a full bundling kind of thing like minecraft does, it'll be very hard to convince me to overlook that

@fakefred If I see that it's using Electron or similar, I won't bother, as it's hostile towards users on low-end/affordable hardware.

@fakefred yes, because some languages make it a lot harder to install the software than others.

@fakefred We would have voted "conditionally", but (a) we rarely install anything that we have to build ourselves and (b) there are computer programming languages written by fascists and we don't trust people who use them

- 🐍

@fakefred If I need to screw around with python I'm going to avoid it.

@fakefred probably yes but I'm not an extremist, just needs to work on my weird setup.
Also source has to be available outside of few games.

@fakefred if I have to install java one more fucking time I swear to god someone is getting yeeted off of this flat earth of ours

@fakefred
My algorithm is roughly as follows:
1. If it's Electron, it can go to hell.
2. If it's PHP, I'll think twice whether I want PHP on that server.
3. If it's packaged by distro, it's ok.
4. If it doesn't provide an installation method other than Docker / Snap / curl | sh, etc., it can go to hell as well.
5. If none of the above, then it depends how sane the buildsystem is.

@fakefred I try to avoid python in general. its ecosystem is too unstable to deal with.

@fakefred

No. I have no idea what language most of the programs I use are written in.

But if it's not in the standard repositories or whatever the equivalent is on Windows and can't be installed with 3 or 4 clicks most people aren't going to run it.

@fakefred the only one I'll avoid is java

@fakefred voted "conditionally" but not for the build tools, rather the runtime. I've had some pretty nasty experiences with php-based installs (fastcgi nonsense, configuration, etc), so I won't bother with that anymore. Also try to avoid avoid py and Ruby for that reason (:

@fakefred I guess it really comes down to how efficient it is at its task, and whether it's possible for me to get it built on my system easily enough.

I don't think either are really issues with the programming language particularly, although some are worse with both than others. I voted "no."

@fakefred `pacman -Si ghc-libs`
Installed Size : 214.33 MiB

That said, Python is 80MB... i suppose i have plenty of space, but still.. I don't see how these sizes are necessary. And also, my littler cuty laptop doesn't have it.

@fakefred
no because if it's a buggy mess then it's trash

@fakefred If I have the option, I usually avoid stuff written in memory-unsafe or “undefined behavior” languages because the added potential for security holes makes me uncomfortable. That said, often the only tool that does what I want is written in C, so 🤷🏻‍♀️

@fakefred if I had to install a toolset to build it I would probably move on or see if someone had created a docker image for it already.

@fakefred usually if I have to install additional runtimes or language vms to run it, I won't bother.

or if it's electron (though that oftentimes falls into the previous camp)

@fakefred if it's a binary, and I don't care its not open source, and its not facing internet, I might not care

But if it's an only app in that language, on a server, that needs to be secure, and everything is in php, then that's a tough sell.

@fakefred Here's how I currently see it:
Google - Go
Mozilla - Rust
Apple - Swift
Microsoft - C#

It just seems like all of these corporations are trying to get us dependent on them down to the programming language level.

Open-source or not, they'll get their free labor until they don't need you anymore and then close source it or offer some "Enterprise" edition. Or worse, do like Oracle did and make you create an account before downloading anything on their sites (I need a FOSS J2ME please).

@fakefred Happens to me with servers: one of the reasons I postponed self-hosting my Mastodon is because I don't really want Yet Another Tech Stack on my VPS.

@fakefred Not a fan of the Ruby build tools. They seem to break on me in weird ways, and as someone who doesn't do Ruby development, I'm not that invested in tracking down why.

Luckily, it seems most applications that I want to use that were written in Ruby have a Python clone. So I just go dig that up instead.

@fakefred
I'll consider several alternatives usually and definitely take the technology/language it uses into account. It's not black and white, but a PHP application needs to be the only option or very significantly better than the alternative to he considered, f.e. Also prefer compiled languages over scripting.

@fakefred usually, it's something like "I don't wanna install java just to run this"

@fakefred I’m usually in the “conditionally” category. Really depends on the complexity of the environment setup.

@fakefred Yes, in two cases:
- if it is Nix based
- it is using an insecure programming language like old java.

@fakefred @MicMun Yep, I usually try to avoid anything that‘s based on JavaScript/Electron or similar bloatware.

@fakefred "install on my server" and "install on my laptop" are two very different questions and deserve separate consideration

@fakefred I'm selective based on the language and who maintains/develops it. Like C#, not interested, visual basic? nope, if the language is not really part of the open source ecosystem, then I'm not jumping through hoops to get a copy of programs written in said language.

@fakefred @hirojin yes, because I don't want to care for exotic/weird/difficult/heavy stacks and so far I've never seen an app so awesome that I thought "no matter what, must have this". even if there is a binary.

@fakefred I put down a "Conditionally", but the conditions for me:

only if installing the language's build tools / runtime is not overly onerous - e.g. it's fine if they're packaged by my distro and I can do a simple build command in a source tree, but not fine if i need to build the build system first, or if I need to do a bunch of extra setup before building the package (looking at you for that one, Go!)

@fakefred conditionally, because I hate Java and his resource management, especially garbage collection.

@fakefred no but if it's written in electron I will think twice, it's just heavy for a web app wrapper

@fakefred Really can't be bothered installing hundreds of megs of toolchain, a package manager that downloads who knows what from who knows where, and some shitty custom build system just because someone wanted to write an app in their favourite obscure programming language.

/me looks a golang, D, node.js, etc

@fakefred anything that needs java goes in it's own VM

@fakefred Yes. 100%