On 09/09/2015 20:57, Mario Figueiredo wrote:
On 09-09-2015 18:55, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Wed, 9 Sep 2015 11:09 am, Mario Figueiredo wrote:
You know, it is a pointless exercise to try and downplay programming
languages (any programming language) that has proven its worth by being
generally adopted by the programming community. Adoption is the sign of
a respected and well designed language.
Counter-examples: PHP and C.
Adoption of programming languages is driven by many things, technical
excellence and careful design are not even in the top 10. Most of them are
social in nature, particularly "what is everyone else using?". Network
effects dominate: you could design the perfect language, but if nobody else
uses it, nobody will use it.
You paint a dim picture of the computer science ecosystem. You almost
make it look like we are a bunch of fashionists. There is some truth to
what you are saying, but not to the level you are implying. "Technical
excellence not being on the top 10" is just a blanket statement that
does not address the constant search for better programming languages.
If the designers of languages spent more time considering business
benefits rather than better languages, then I believe we'd end up with
better languages. However that depends on your (plural) definition of
"better".
--
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.
Mark Lawrence
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
