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That depends. As long as I've been in the game there have been relatively expensive options. Back in the day I kept hearing about SmallTalk and I saw the price

by dwc 10y ago

That depends. As long as I've been in the game there have been relatively expensive options. Back in the day I kept hearing about SmallTalk and I saw the price tag in an ad in Dr.Dobbs. Sticker shock! But "serious" pricing is still alive today. Check http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html http://www.lispworks.com/buy/prices-1c.html for instance. For some languages, lower prices won't significantly increases sales volume. And 1.5K is not a barrier if it's your bread and butter language. It's in the same ballpark as a developer machine.

jestar_jokin 10y ago
The problem is, to gain traction these days, you target the developers, give them enough resources to work on something in their spare time, and hope they have enough influence to make their company switch from language A to language B. Charging the developer, before they even have a chance to try the language out, when there are other free options available, means they'll never even give the language a chance.
- dwc 10y ago
  I agree with you, but I also still agree with me: Making Delphi or Common Lisp the next hotness is pretty much a lost cause, and has been for a long time. The people using those things tend to be heavily invested in them, and still making money. If you're not making enough money to spend US1.5K on your primary tool then you're not really making money. Most of the people who balk at $1,500 will probably still pick the free option rather than pay $19.99. Even though there are good free options (in the case of common lisp there are multiple good free options), there's still no gaining of traction. So these companies charging money have defined their target market as people already using the language professionally, and they've found a price point that lets them stay in business and provide quality tooling (specialized IDEs, debuggers, GUI frameworks, et al). If they lowered their prices to $19.99, rather than attract loads of new mindshare they'd simply go out of business.

by dwc 10y ago

jestar_jokin 10y ago

The problem is, to gain traction these days, you target the developers, give them enough resources to work on something in their spare time, and hope they have enough influence to make their company switch from language A to language B. Charging the developer, before they even have a chance to try the language out, when there are other free options available, means they'll never even give the language a chance.

dwc 10y ago
I agree with you, but I also still agree with me: Making Delphi or Common Lisp the next hotness is pretty much a lost cause, and has been for a long time. The people using those things tend to be heavily invested in them, and still making money. If you're not making enough money to spend US1.5K on your primary tool then you're not really making money. Most of the people who balk at $1,500 will probably still pick the free option rather than pay $19.99. Even though there are good free options (in the case of common lisp there are multiple good free options), there's still no gaining of traction. So these companies charging money have defined their target market as people already using the language professionally, and they've found a price point that lets them stay in business and provide quality tooling (specialized IDEs, debuggers, GUI frameworks, et al). If they lowered their prices to $19.99, rather than attract loads of new mindshare they'd simply go out of business.