4 ms·
Perhaps this won't be a popular sentiment, but since when did programming languages need brand identity?
by hazeii 8y ago
Perhaps this won't be a popular sentiment, but since when did programming languages need brand identity?
- aphistic 8y agoAround the time exploits needed fancy names.
- whitepoplar 8y agoAlways! People underestimate the subliminal effects of good design. In the early days of Slack, several people I know (not in tech) were practically begging to use it at their workplace. The reason? The branding was "mesmerizing," particularly the hash. I think the same goes for programming languages.
- ben509 8y agoIt seems like a factual claim, not a sentiment. Languages do need to develop a critical mass of resources related to them, people need to provide services for them, and you do want to identify which ones are official. For that purpose, a brand identity is going to be helpful. (At least as helpful as a brand can be.) In a nutshell, it's about ensuring people can distinguish between golang.org and w3schools.com.
- cup-of-tea 8y agoOne of the reasons I really like Python is it never had any of this crap. It's popular just because it's useful and people like it.
- matthberg 8y agoI think that though Python is popular independent of its branding, it definitely has a strong branding system, just less explicitly stated as go's. Their font is quite iconic, and their logo and colors more so: https://www.python.org/community/logos/ https://www.python.org/community/logos/
- carapace 8y agoThat all happened waaaay later.
- candiodari 8y agoPlus when it comes to moustaches, Python's is ... well ... "better than Cobol" seems an apt description.
- nikolaj 8y agoPython used to have a cute hand-drawn animal logo too. In fact there are old comments on HN from '05 when people lamented the loss of the old logo.. http://www.demiurgo.org/charlas/python-unittesting/img/python-logo.png http://www.demiurgo.org/charlas/python-unittesting/img/pytho...
- wsy 8y agoLogos are not the only signs of a brand. Already the fact that there is the word "pythonic" signifies a strong branding.
- chickenfries 8y agoProbably for similar reasons that modern "brands" developed: to compete with the competition who mostly provide the same thing as you.
- bigbluedots 8y agoI don't think languages should need branding, but the marketing department of a large corporate disagrees in this case
- remir 8y agoEverything is about impression and perception. For example, I have observed that people treat me more seriously when I dress better than with the typical "jeans+tshirt" combo. Now, we can say this is superficial bullshit, but at the end of the day, the way you dress influence people's perception of you. So in my opinion, Go's new branding give it a more "serious" image and perhaps people unfamiliar with the language will be more inclined to consider it. Again, it's superficial bullshit, but it is what it is.
- doctorstupid 8y agoIn this case the cliché brand identity is the jeans and t-shirt combo. Does hip branding not make a language seem juvenile? You talk about serious image, but surely you can't find more serious languages than those devoid of branding, like C and Lisp.
- pjmlp 8y agoIt helps when the language is the only path to write for a specific platform.
- candiodari 8y agoNeither C nor Lisp have any branding at all, do they ? Other than the moustache, and frankly, on that front Perl has got them beat.
- kazinator 8y agoFor C, it's basically the cover of the K&R2.
- remir 8y agoThe new logo is more serious than the gopher.
- baby 8y agoMost people who got into Laravel did it because it was pretty.
- sacado2 8y agoSince people have to convince their management that a given language is a suitable choice to run the company's main product.