> They're producing desirable results—things like better performance at runtime, better memory use, et cetera. So I return to my original point: if those things are desirable, then mention those things
My original, admittedly obscured "point" --- why? All these are obvious to anyone here and we store them under the compressed moniker/variable name "compiler" so every HN reader automagically decompresses this moniker upon encounter into the entire range of benefits. People talking about programming languages naturally see no obstacle in this, in fact usage of umbrella terms (esp. when the usual motivation for usage is "whatever benefits are implied by term X, I want them all anyway") makes for more fluid and rapid conversation in all manner of fields.
He could have said "I want better performance at runtime, better memory use". How insanely generic, every programmer wants this from any language. Then some clever guy comes and asks "better than?", OP answers "than interpreted languages", then flamewar ensues. Not productive either.
My original, admittedly obscured "point" --- why? All these are obvious to anyone here and we store them under the compressed moniker/variable name "compiler" so every HN reader automagically decompresses this moniker upon encounter into the entire range of benefits. People talking about programming languages naturally see no obstacle in this, in fact usage of umbrella terms (esp. when the usual motivation for usage is "whatever benefits are implied by term X, I want them all anyway") makes for more fluid and rapid conversation in all manner of fields.
He could have said "I want better performance at runtime, better memory use". How insanely generic, every programmer wants this from any language. Then some clever guy comes and asks "better than?", OP answers "than interpreted languages", then flamewar ensues. Not productive either.
Ah well. A curious discussion for sure. =)