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The fact that you compare SQL to C tells me that we clearly have a different understanding of programming languages, yes. There are people that say "i code HTML

by buster 17y ago

The fact that you compare SQL to C tells me that we clearly have a different understanding of programming languages, yes. There are people that say "i code HTML". Yes, call it coding and programming if you like. I won't. Clearly SQL is powerful and great but you don't write software in it, which is my point of differentiation. Yes yes, and there are probably a lot of programs writen in Ada and Fortran that have millions of lines of code and are reliable. But, you can argue with me or not, it still is a niche. C appeared in 1972. Lisp (as one of the oldest i can think of) appeared in 1958. Can we agree to say that there are far more programs written in C then in Lisp? I don't argue which language is "the best" (because clearly, it's more subjective then objective to state on that). But somehow, there is probably a reason, that C, as a newer language than Lisp, has by far more "followers" then Lisp. If Lisp (as the grandfather of functional programming, but you can replace lisp with haskell, erlang or whatever you like) is so easy, creates better, more reliable code, etc. etc. Why did C take off and Lisp didn't? In fact why do younger languages like Ruby have the bigger growth? Clearly people look for new languages, the people that nowadays learn ruby or c#. Why don't they learn Haskell? For example: Look at http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... The really brand new language Go made it to #13. Lisp/Scheme after decades is #18. It's becoming more popular it seems, but i bet it won't be in the top10 for the next years. Now, my simple and plain question is: Why is it like it is? I actually don't want to argue what the best language is, there is no sense in that. And i can't code functional. See me as an observer from the outside. I'd like to learn erlang some time, for sure.

justin_vanw 17y ago
I agree. It's like saying that a Porsche is 'better' than a Ford, but you own a Ford because the Porsche costs more money than you make in a year. I think functional language proponents want to compare languages using one set of metrics, even though they actually pick a language to write software in on an entirely different set of metrics. I mean they must either do that, or be entirely all talk, since very little software is being written in functional languages.

by buster 17y ago

justin_vanw 17y ago

I agree. It's like saying that a Porsche is 'better' than a Ford, but you own a Ford because the Porsche costs more money than you make in a year. I think functional language proponents want to compare languages using one set of metrics, even though they actually pick a language to write software in on an entirely different set of metrics. I mean they must either do that, or be entirely all talk, since very little software is being written in functional languages.