On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Guido Stepken <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi Elliot! > > When I rethink, why new programming languages came up from zero to a > significant market share, like PERL, PHP, Python, Ruby, JAVA, C# (.net) > Visual Basic, Visual C++ and others died out, like Delphi, > TurboBasic/Pascal/C I could name different reasons: > > - Free license vs. expensive > - Wrong payment model (per developer, per runtime, both) > - Good, free support on websites vs. "Bronze/silver/gold" paystupid-support > - Attractiveness of one "killer app" that made programmers change to > another language > - Portability of code onto other platforms > - Mightyness of libraries > - Missing standards, protocols, support of hardware > - Good vs. bad marketing, deciders not convinced that product will > survive/missing timeline, visions, lack of money in background > - Subcritical mass of programmers using product, lack of professionals > > That was in former times. > > Today, new criterias play a far more relevant role, hat haven't really > existed just 3 years ago: > > - Has it (the OS,the programming language and GUI framework) an > appstore/plugin concept to let free, creative brains being able to > participate, earn money with? > - Barrier - free payment model included (mobile payment, card, bank > account)? > - Free use with sponsoring by ads possible (programmers payed from > multiple resources, not user alone) > - Cryptographic prevention of missuse included? > - Free and matured SDK available? > - Connections to social software like facebook/twitter/Google+/Groupon > included (API access, programming language and all protocols supported) > - GUI designed for desktop as well usable for touch and self adapting to > different screen/touch sizes? > - Touch gestures possible and lib avail? > - Microsofts Kinect hardware/video recognition of faces, hand/face mimic > gestures possible and supported in libs? > - Voice recognition supported? > - Mobile ready? (touch, GPS, compass, barometer, gyro, hardware OpenGL) > - Rockstable? > - Fast, running in low power devices? Joule per clock cycle ratio??? > - Critical mass of users already reached, increasing? > - Critical number of apps there to raise interest? > ... > > So, the Pharo developers might now decide, what to invest their brainpower > into! :-) > > Just my 2ct. > OK, that looks like a great list. But don't you agree that criticism (in the sense of something that leads to quality software engineering) underlies several of these, such as Rockstable, Fast, running on low-power devices, etc? To me, being critical doesn't mean being uncreative or conservative; it means thinking about what you're doing, and doing a good job. > Guido Stepken > Am 27.01.2012 19:46 schrieb "Eliot Miranda" <[email protected]>: > > >> >> On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 5:33 AM, Marcus Denker <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> >>> On Jan 27, 2012, at 6:13 AM, dimitris chloupis wrote: >>> >>> > This article is really encapsulates the attitude and what is wrong >>> with programming in general. The attitude of superiority and intelligence >>> that seems to plague coders and being the biggest obstacle to progress. >>> >>> Yes! The "Everyone is dumb but me" phenomenon... >>> >>> What those "intelligent" people don't get is that complexity is >>> inherently exponential. So even if you are >>> 10 times more intelligent than me (very well possible), it is >>> *completely* irrelevant considering that complexity >>> grows non-linearly. >>> >>> If you combine this with the notion of Evolution: that it is impossible >>> to creat "the perfect" out of nothing, yet >>> entropy grows when you incrementally improve things... than this has >>> some very serious consequences. >>> >>> > For me the main problem with is the whole aura of "elitism" , what >>> better example than Lisp, where beginners are attacked and be excluded. >>> >>> We had the same effect in Squeak at the end. No progress, every >>> improvement was actively fighted against, if needed with the nice argument >>> that >>> one can do it even better, and only "the best" is worth for Squeak. >>> >>> Another thing that "intelligent" people don't get is that critizising is >>> trivial: You can *always* do better, there is no perfection. It's an >>> endless process. >>> This implies that one has to accept and embrace imperfection if one >>> wants to have a future. Else you end up never finishing anything, the death >>> of any >>> incremental progress. >>> >> >> But criticism is essential. How does one identify a mistake if not by >> criticising? There's a huge difference between constructive criticism >> (analysis, testing, comparison, evaluation, measurement) and negativity >> (denial, fear, slander). How can one engineer without measurement, without >> thought? Being agile doesn't imply being random. Evolution measures, and >> most harshly; the weaker don't survive. >> >> >>> Pharo was started with the explicit goal to do as many mistakes as >>> possible, as fast as possible. >>> >>> Marcus >>> >>> -- >>> Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> best, >> Eliot >> >> -- best, Eliot
