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Presumably, those who oppose hobbyist languages believe that all the time and effort being spent on these projectw could be somehow harnessed and redirected tow
by loudmax 10y ago
Presumably, those who oppose hobbyist languages believe that all the time and effort being spent on these projectw could be somehow harnessed and redirected toward improving existing languages, to the benefit of a wider community. I think the attitude is not so much anti-intellectual as a lack of understanding of how software development really works. Similar to the fallacy that putting twice as many programmers on a project will cut development time in half.
- michaelmrose 10y agoDo people actually oppose people spending their own time on hobbyist languages? This is different than having a negative outlook on the prospects of a given language. I think its important to separate an honest assessment of the virtues of a language, an assessment of its value to the larger community a great language with no libraries after all still may not be too useful, and worrying about how people spend their time.
- prodigal_erik 10y agoIt's a kind of tragedy of the commons. If two languages are basically equivalent yet incompatible, neither of the authors did something wrong, but it's a shame about the missed opportunities and problems that didn't need to happen.
- michaelmrose 10y agoWhat missed opportunity? There is little reason to suppose someone that got motivated to create language A would have spent their time on language B if only they hadn't got involved in creating A. They could have spent that time learning to play chess or fishing.