Re^4: "There are some stunningly novel ideas in Perl" -- Paul Graham (c is not superior)

[Aristotle]

I think you're doing all those languages bitter injustice. Unless you want to argue that Windows is clearly the better operating system amongst its competitors - in which case, I have nothing to say, anyway.

I would argue that the proliferation of C is due mostly to its good performance (potential) on all but the very slowest of platforms, the sheer amount of coders its conceptual simplicity has afforded it, and that it is low level enough to allow its use for just about any task. Combined, these factors mean it can be used for pretty nearly any job - regardless of whether it should.

I believe the largest contributor to the developments as they happened was how far LISP and Smalltalk and others more were ahead of their time - not only conceptually, but also in terms of hardware demands. With the rapidly growing hardware resources and scale of software systems, the necessity of such advanced paradigmata to realistically cope with the complexity is being "discovered". Consequently "modern" languages are drifting towards concepts pioneered by Smalltalk and LISP decades ago. About time I say..

Makeshifts last the longest.

[hding]

And not only are better hardware resources helping, but in a great example of "do it right then make it fast" Lisp and Smalltalk systems get better and better at compiling to efficient code. Most Lisps now (and for a long time) go to native code, and some compilers are _very_ good, and the same holds for Smalltalk (which in addition can get a boost from JIT stuff).

[demerphq]

I think you're doing all those languages bitter injustice.

You aren't the only to overreact to my comments here. I see words like "injustice" and "trashing" and the like. I never said these were bad languages. Just that on the level of general utility there are better ones.

Unless you want to argue that Windows is clearly the better operating system amongst its competitors -

Actually Windows is a very interesting example of my point about the market being wiser than we give it credit for. It nicely illustrates that despite mindbogglingly huge resources and marketing the market doesn't fall sucker everytime. I take the continued growth of Linux sector to be a good indication that despite propaganda the market figures things out in the end.

Combined, these factors mean it can be used for pretty nearly any job - regardless of whether it should.

This is a crucial issue. It can't be overlooked.

Consequently "modern" languages are drifting towards concepts pioneered by Smalltalk and LISP decades ago. About time I say..

Its interesting isn't it. Kinda reminds me of something else, Knuth debated about whether to remove the extensive coverage of tape based sorting techniques from AoP. In the end he decided not to. He justified his decision on the grounds that some new tchnology may make itself apparent that will require similar strategies to use it efficiently.


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demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}

[dragonchild]

Actually Windows is a very interesting example of my point about the market being wiser than we give it credit for. ...

Actually, without Windows, there would be no WWW, and thus no explosion in the use of Perl. So, frankly, we all owe our livelihood (at least, I do) to Microsoft and Bill Gates.

Here's why: the Mac was decently successful, as were a lot of the other computer manufacturers in the 1980's. But, there was a need for an (relatively) cheap machine that would be compatible with most of the software out there. Otherwise, there would not have been widespread acceptance of this tool into medium-sized businesses and the home. (Large and huge businesses would do whatever they wanted to, anyways.)

The platform had to be cheap because there is a certain point beyond which there will never be consumer acceptance. For computers, that point was $1000 (or so). Beyond that, it wouldn't be accepted easily into the home or the small business. Under that, everyone loves it. Wintel brought the price of the machine down.

The machine had to be compatible with all the software because that brings down the cost of writing software. Those of you who support more than one platform know exactly what I'm saying. Even with Perl and its ease of transition between Unix and Windows, it's expensive to support both. Just imagine the difference between writing assembler for Intel and Motorola chips, at the same time.

Without home use, most companies would not have seen the need to have large and elaborate business sites. Also, the idea of buying everything off the WWW would not have happened this far. Thus, less Perl.

Kinda sucks for the dogma, doesn't it?

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.

[Aristotle]

Hardly. I don't see the necessity of history as it happened. Remember it didn't start out on the web anyway; I'm pretty certain there would have a been a lot of Perl, had a Unixoid system made it onto the desktop instead of Windows - even entirely without the web. There are far too many variables to reduce this all to a single equation.

Even if there hadn't been so far, consider the fates of LISP and Smalltalk - there was quite little of them so far. Regardless, awareness and - at least ideological - acceptance is growing. Likewise would probably have happened for Perl, had there been little of it to begin with.

Makeshifts last the longest.

[demerphq]

I figured I had been flamed enough already without going down this track. All I can say is that I agree with you completely.


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demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}

[Aristotle]

despite propaganda the market figures things out in the end (Ed: bold letters added).

Exactly. Despite the fact that Smalltalk and LISP have been gravely overlooked in the commercial scene, they're eventually being discovered as not all that worthless after all. The fact they haven't been in widespread use so far has nothing to do with their suitability for it.

You didn't say they were bad languages - but I'd consider the assertion that C is better than them a pretty strong one. It is not, unless you're writing a kernel or a hardware driver or such (how often do you have to do that).

Makeshifts last the longest.