Python
C and C++. The pointer syntax being slightly different than the pointer declaration syntax always confuses me to no end. I conceptually under pointers perfectly but their syntax is wack.
C is simple. Like really simple. Hardly anything exists in C lol. You have Integers, floats, chars, arrays, functions, pointers and structs. That’s it.
Therefore reading C isn’t too difficult.
Now doing anything in C? Lol have fun with that, nothing exists in C.
C++, you’re absolutely right lol the standard lib in c++ is so god damn big I don’t even know where to begin when using it. And there’s like a billion different ways to approach a problem there.
I like C. I don’t like working on C just because if you want a hashmap you must first build the universe lol. But c is fun.
I’ve been finding that same fun feeling in Rust though I haven’t used it long enough to know whether that’s just the “ohh new shiny” fun or “I really like this” fun.
Reading anything to do with pointers in C is confusing to me. Sorry to disappoint you.
A pointer is nothing but an integer that “points to” a memory location.
They can feel intimidating because it’s really easy to footgun with them, but they are not as complicated as they appear :)
Perl is a write-only language.
You can write clean Perl easily. But it’s maybe a bit easier to write illegible code in Perl than in most other languages. It’s all up to you though.
I am just regurgitating one of my favorite Perl jokes for a laugh. Though for me the joke contains some truth. Most of the Perl code I’ve ever seen is pretty impenetrable for non-Perl programmers. I quite literally have returned to my own Perl efforts after just a couple of weeks and had some trouble working out what the code is doing (in ways I do not experience with other languages).
When Python was trying to unseat Perl, that in my view was reason alone to prefer it: I didn’t know Python but I could read Python. Though at that point Perl had the benefit of loads of libraries and ubiquity, and Python hadn’t got there yet. But it was enough to have me cheering for Python’s success at the expense of Perl. I get that Perl has many virtues, but they’re nullified by the ugliness and relative inaccessibility of its code in my eyes.
I really hate the magic side-effect variables where you do a pattern match or something and then various obtusely named variables have meaningful values with relation to the last match. To me that’s just flat out bad coding, and it’s built into the language.
The above was my second-favorite Perl joke. My favorite being:
Perl is the vise-grips* of programming languages. It’s a tool that can do most jobs, and it’s the wrong tool for all of them.
*BrEng: mole-grips
Please clarify, OP, did you mean
- hard to read semantically
- hard to read syntactically
- hard to relate how one could come with such a crappy idea, even considering all constraints of their time
- takes a lot brain real estate (justified or not)
?
I think BF hits most of these.
Brainfuck
