Zhou Enlai, born on this day in 1898, was a communist revolutionary, statesman, and military officer who served as the 1st Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976. "All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means."
Zhou was educated in a missionary college in Tianjin before studying at a Japanese university. In Tianjin, he met his future wife, Deng Yingchao while participating in a radical political group known as the "Awakening Society". In 1920, Zhou moved to France, where he helped form the overseas branch of the Communist Party of China. He also lived in Britain and Germany before returning to China in 1924.
While working in the Political Department of the Whampoa Military Academy, Zhou was also made the secretary of the Communist Party of Guangdong-Guangxi, and served as the CPC representative with the rank of major-general.
After the Chinese Civil War broke out in 1927, Zhou served in the communist forces, helping establish and oversee a network of underground cells of communist resistance. Zhou played a leading role in the Long March of 1934-35, an arduous military retreat of communist forces over 8,000 miles.
Following the Zunyi Conference in 1935, Mao Zedong became Zhou's assistant. After the conclusion of the Long March, Mao officially took over Zhou Enlai's leading position in the CPC, while Zhou took a secondary position as vice-chairman. Both would hold their leadership positions until their deaths in 1976.
Zhou was a prominent participant in the 1955 AsianβAfrican Conference, held in Indonesia. The conference produced a declaration in strongly in favor of peace, the abolition of nuclear arms, general arms reduction, and the principle of universal representation at the United Nations. Zhou was critical of American imperial aggression and stated "the population of Asia will never forget that the first atom bomb was exploded on Asian soil."
Zhou passed away from bladder cancer on January 8th, 1976, just nine months before Mao Zedong's death in September that year.
"Today the first unification of the Chinese people has emerged. The people themselves have become the masters of Chinese soil, and the rule of the reactionaries in China has been irrevocably overthrown."
Zhou Enlai, from "Chinese People Will not Tolerate Aggression" (October 1950)
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what lang do you use? My theory is, people who like AI and dont like coding use the shittiest of languages
I use Python
I am not a programmer, I just play one on TV. Programming is, and never was, my main thing. Just a thing I ended up having to learn to do main thing. I've had a few classes in school, and my first language was C++, most were in Python, and I've also had to learn Java for a class.
The time in my life I was probably the most into coding when I was doing it in Java for that class
but I didn't think the language had anything to do with it. I think that's when I was the most hopeful about it. That's before having to do it in the real world to solve other peoples "real problems". Though, even solving "my problems" just isn't fun anymore.
Have you considered functional programming languages? Haskell if you like the modernity of Python, or alternatively Perl or even Fortran if you want it to be more "like math" (albeit with a bit of book reading to get your head around them, but one of them has a wizard on the cover at least)
I've done Fortran before. How would functional programs like Haskell feel different from Python? I don't come from a CompSci background, so I'm not certain of the different language paradigms other than procedural vs object oriented (and even then I may be misinformed). I've liked objected oriented languages because it feels like making little modules or blocks you can put together. At least ideally.... in practice it sometimes works. It does tickle that part of my brain that likes drawing diagrams and schematics.
If programming could tickle the same parts of my brain that drawing, planning, and math does then maybe I'd like it more. But I've been doing it for years now and I still can't find that satisfaction when doing it. Not sure if a different language will help or if it's just the reality of typing on the screen?
I'm open to ideas though! Any recommendations for understanding functional programming. Should I look into Haskell?
python would be my #2 worst mainstream language in my list lol, so maybe that's partially its. Java is an order of magnitude better designed, so it might help with your feelings on it.
The better designed languages have most of the annoying stuff about programming fixed by design IMO. So all thats left is the fun coding part.
What's your criticism of Python. Genuinely curious as I haven't explored many languages. The only other language I've used besides the ones I've mentioned is Fortran lol!
As someone like me who isn't interesting programing or languages for their own sake it, isn't a complete beginner, but just sees it as an annoying tool I have to use to get the job done (for data processing, for simulation, for making tools but not doing web design), why not Python? It is usually sold as the program for someone in my boat. What does it do, or not do, better or worse?
Thanks!
much to my dismay
I haven't been forced to use python since maybe like python 3.1, so some might be out of date, but here's my thoughts off the top of my head
So my favorite and my recommended language for everyone is C#. Here's why:
Java is pretty similar in those respects, but c# IMO is just a bit better designed, and also better supported.
Go is another good alternative to Python. It's basically the result of the original Unix and C devs getting back together in their later careers/early retirement years and designing a language that looks a lot like C and works very well for a lot of the same things C is commonly used for. But it avoids a ton of the traditional problems of C (especially memory safety) and the modern problems of Python and Javascript. It has a massive standard library that works in a self-consistent way, static binaries to avoid Python's versioning frustrations, reliable and efficient garbage collection, a huge number of OS/architectures are supported, it's strongly typed, all new compiler versions must compile programs developed for older compiler versions without any refactoring, and compile times are ridiculously fast. And it looks and works so much like C that anyone with reasonable proficiency in C ought to be able to pick it up in a weekend. It's very much a language that prevents headaches before they happen.
Go's big weaknesses right now are that it's not quite as resource efficient as something like Rust, and it lacks a mature UI library. The former doesn't matter too much day-to-day unless you're developing a AAA game engine, and the latter is getting better through Gio UI and Fyne.
I would say that Go's biggest weakness is that, by design, it constantly vendors its dependencies.
These are definitely interesting things to think about.
I hadn't really thought that it was due to a language, but mostly the nature of what it's like to do programming vs what I wish I were doing instead. On one hand, you are making these cool projects. But on the other your still just typing at the computer fixing tedious errors and learning syntax.
I always found analyzing data to be boring, for example, even if it is data I cared about. Simulations are more fun, though. They are like making a playground were you can execute your own rules, or understand a system. It's like building and running an experiment and turning science into something that feels almost like a game.
But dear god data analysis bores me to tears. I've never liked doing it.
I've done simulations in Java, Python, and Fortran. My only fuss about Python when doing simulations was definitely the performance. Good lord lol. NumPy is great, but that's because it uses C as you said.
I don't know if a language can help, but I am definitely open to the idea. I am not ashamed to say I am an amateur coder. Though I've done it for years, I don't think of it has my main skill nor do I put much time thinking about coding or how to improve. Not any more than I have to. I don't want to. It's not what I'm interested in. Again it's just a tool for me. Maybe it's just a difference in interests, or perhaps it is because bad practices and languages over the years have made coding feel like a chore?
I used to be more into coding when I was learning it. Over the years I've just gotten burned out on it. I find no joy in it. If anything it feels like emotional friction that I avoid - except for work unfortunately.
I know what you mean about dev environments. It's definitely annoying. I've been satisfied with Anaconda. It gets the job done. It is annoying as you said.
I've only recently, within the past years, starting using type hints in Python. It's hard to tell if it has made a difference since it doesn't seem to actually enforce anything. But doing so had at least made me more conscious of variable types when designing functions and potential errors.
I think I don't know enough about programming to understand how a compiled language will feel vs an interpreted language. Does that come into play when you have a system with various classes, etc., and your IDE is able to know what the various methods, attributes, or maybe even inherited classes are? I know what you mean by how you have to have the documentation on hand because of that.
But it works for me as I already have those on hand because I actually like making documentation and UML(-ish) diagrams
Again, I like all the parts of coding except doing the actual coding lol.
I may go back to my C++ notes and try to jog my brain in how it felt, but that was about 15 years ago. Maybe I'll read about C#, but I'd want to check how much of an investment it will be. I have less programming patience than I used to unfortunately :(
But thanks for the response! I appreciate your thoughts and I'll chew on them for a bit.
no prob always happy to dish about programming. C# pretty easy to get into, just install VS2026 and it will pretty much come with everything you need to just hit F5 and debug/run
Interpreted languages always feels so floaty to me; always having to re-learn what i've written and figure out what data is where. Compiled languages keep all the info for you in the type system, so you can focus on the actual logic. Nowadays I only work in C# backend and typescript frontend, so I don't have to mess around with that too much anymore.
C# made me enjoy programming again, although I am a programmer, I enjoy the process and i don't consider it just an end to a means. It really is great, though. I need to branch out to Rust or something next to see what everyone loves about that.
rust would be my #1 worst language btw
Ouch. Good to know. I just hear everyone talking about it all the time.
Yeah i dunno why. It fixes problems that I've never personally had when i'm coding and its soooo fucking strict to write. You can never really 'prototype' stuff out because the compiler will complain if you are even a slight bit lazy. I tried to print out a string once for debugging and it was a nightmare that took me like 30 min to figure out
I do wonder how much of it is me using a language that has created bad practices over the years and getting burned out vs. me just not liking programming (we all don't have to like programming lol)
Like if little me learned that doing STEM actually means coding all day, little me would be sad.
Honestly, not everyone finds it fun and interesting. For most, it is just a means to an end, and I think that's okay, too.
Hell, I was starting to get burnt out, too, but recently I've been making some game mods for fun and that has kind of revitalized my interest. It's made me realize that it's possible it's just my job, and all that surrounds it, that has made me hate it lol.