Why Crystal, 10 Years Later: Performance and Joy
Posted by sdogruyol@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 22 comments
Hi everyone,
I wrote the original "Why Crystal?" blog post back in 2015 when Crystal was just v0.9.1.
Ten years and many versions later, I am revisiting that post to analyze the road to v1.20.
If you are interested in how a language matures from a syntax experiment to a high performance standard, this one is for you.
daltorak@reddit
No offense intended of course.... but I read the title thinking, why the hell would anyone use the words "performance" and "joy" when talking about Crystal Reports?
Dependent-Net6461@reddit
What kind of dark sourceries are you doing with CR? Been using CR 9 (9!!!) For veeery long time on an old software and i think it still is a very good product. Now the newer software uses stimulsoft which is good too (in some aspect is better than CR in some a lil worse) but i sometimes regret how more schematic (and clearer) CR is
captain_obvious_here@reddit
Instant PTSD. I swear my whole body switched to a protective stance when I read these two words.
piesou@reddit
Crystal Reports?! I thought we were using Crystal Meth.
Windyvale@reddit
I thought Pokémon crystal.
ummaycoc@reddit
Coalesce data like I do.
shadowndacorner@reddit
Performance and joy
_pupil_@reddit
First one then the other.
Either the happy way (so much meth CR seems ok), or the sad way (so much CR that meth is the only way through it).
Solonotix@reddit
I wasn't alone! I do miss the simpler days, when I got to just be a report writer, lol. My current workload, by comparison, is absolute hell.
sacheie@reddit
I saw the title and thought it's about meth
Stevoman@reddit
Lol seriously same. I saw the thread title and was like only 10 years? Oh that we could have hoped the reign of terror were that brief.
txdv@reddit
If you want to call C code you need to create some kind of shims.
zig allows you to just import header files, I would like to see that for Crystal as well.
chintakoro@reddit
Every time Crystal gets mentioned, there's a sick, perverted section of this reddit that just wants to finger the logo. Well here you are, you sick fucks: https://crystal-lang.org/
reddit_ro2@reddit
Excellent design on that homepage.
janyk@reddit
Excellent? It won't even let me scroll down the page
baby_rhino_@reddit
Works fine for me. I'm using Firefox on Android.
PJBthefirst@reddit
As soon as I saw that it uses YAML for dependencies I left the site
matthieum@reddit
Awesome.
Well, I learned next to nothing, unsurprisingly.
Extra-Organization-6@reddit
crystal has always had the right idea, ruby syntax with compiled performance. the problem was never the language, it was the ecosystem. ten years in and the shard ecosystem is still tiny compared to what you get with go or rust. for personal projects and internal tools its genuinely great though.
Labradoodles@reddit
The claim that it’s a cornerstone of high perf systems falls flat without examples.
Especially for a relatively unknown language that doesn’t seem to have lsp support. Interesting to see what kind of systems it powers though and how its core makes it easy to do high performance stuff
Complete_Instance_18@reddit
Hey, this is awesome to see. I remember dab
lppedd@reddit
We need proper IDE support. And by proper I mean LSP based, which IIRC was very problematic for some reason.
Up until that point there is no way I can bring it up in technical meetings.