RPG easier/harder to use than other languages?

On Thu, Jun 29, 2017 at 1:10 PM, <dlclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It doesn't make sense to hold that against JavaScript.

I don't -- but it is unreasonable to post JavaScript code that
utilizes jQuery and then say that in order to write the same code in RPG
it would take a whole lot more code.

Why is that unreasonable? First of all, it is literally true. It would
absolutely require a whole lot more code to replicate the
functionality in RPG, because jQuery is an established part of the JS
ecosystem, and there is currently nothing like it in RPG. But read
on....

The real point is that just because jQuery is available doesn't
make the language, itself, easier -- it only makes it so that the
JavaScript programmer doesn't have to know everything about how to code
DHTML.

OK. This brings up something interesting. If we remove the specifics
here, we get "the real point is that just because some library is
available doesn't make the language *itself* easier". So you seem to
be saying that we can (and should?) compare languages "on their own",
apart from their ecosystems.

That strikes me as highly academic, but that's fine. I like academic
discussions.

I already presented the scenario where we pretend that jQuery doesn't
already exist. Surely that would be a fair comparison, even using your
rules. So, a thought experiment: If you take a skilled JavaScript
programmer and have them implement jQuery from scratch, and a skilled
RPG programmer and have them implement jQuery from scratch, which one
will need to write more code? Which one will be done quicker? I am
pretty confident the JavaScript version will require less code and
less effort. Why do I feel this way? Because I think JavaScript's
dynamic nature is a decisive advantage for this kind of problem.

John Y.