You can make embarrassing mistakes in virtually any programming language that’s not too esoteric.

When I still used Python for prototyping (today, I usually use Go for that), it happened much too often that I did this:

if foo:
    bar()
   foobar() # syntax error

In Lisp, however, both errors are much harder to make (not even considering GNU Emacs’s superb auto-indentation - which is what most Lispers use these days, as far as I know):

(when foo)  ;; <- obvious!
    (bar))

(when foo
    (bar)
          (foobar)  ;; <- still valid
(quux))  ;; <- also still valid

Dynamic typing is the source of very amazing errors, see JavaScript.

Feel free, it’s still out there!

I still write more Perl than Python these days.

Still easier to refactor than Python. ;-)

For all of those, Lisp is the more logical choice. Plus, whitespace as syntax is the worst possible design decision.

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Wait until you see the Lisp community. But yes, Rust is currently in its “why are there even any other languages lol” phase. Just wait.

Friends don’t let friends use a dark mode.

I understand the reluctance but it feels to me like arguing “we should just stick with COBOL because it works.”

For those depending on COBOL code that does the job and has been doing it just well for a few decades, there are approximately zero good reasons to not stick with it.

Ha, I’ll steal that! “Karen compiler” - quite fitting, to be honest.

Maybe it’s not your profession but a hobby but the point stands.

To be honest, I’ve hardly ever asked myself how I could best please a potential employer with any of my hobbies. But I recognise that you’re probably taking a different approach.

It also expands your employment potential and general usefulness.

I have already mentioned that programming is not everyone’s profession. Not everyone chooses what they do in their unpaid free time primarily based on whether it makes them a more useful person. I think the very phrase ‘my usefulness’ is dangerous.

Are we only worth something as drones?

Why? I mean, I, personally, try to be as polyglot as possible, but not everyone working on the Linux kernel is even interested in doing anything that’s not C kernel code, nor is it their profession.

even though Rust is objectively better.

In some of its characteristics, Rust is certainly a good language. The borrow checker, however, still haunts my restless dreams today.

Developers who are not willing to learn something new and not adapt are the worst.

And this is why COBOL developers are desperately needed these days: because too many people think that “old” was the same thing as “needs a replacement”.

A mac would be a nightmare, in the worst case it “would just work”. Unacceptable.

That sounds exactly like the reason why Linux behaves like it does. ;-)

Sounds like you should get a Mac.

Be that as it may, I would like to be constructive for a change:

Why does every distro need yet another package manager? Yay/pacman I get because it seems to build it. Though I don’t understand why, other than AUR. APT is so nice and easy… I hope DNF is the same.

RPM - which DNF uses - is the standard package format for Linux ;-) The problem seems to me to be that every distribution does not attach any importance to something like common standards.

That’s not too hard, given that NetBSD is a niche in a niche. But a permanent Plan 9 server account which I do not have to keep running sounds intriguing… thank you!

What happens with the Plan 9 system after the boot camp has ended? From what I can see on that site, their Plan 9 shenanigans will end by mid-September. (SDF is NetBSD-centric AFAIK.)