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Plan 9 is a little different because it's harder to flitter between operating systems than it is programming languages. That said, I'm not discounting what you
by pushpop 8y ago
Plan 9 is a little different because it's harder to flitter between operating systems than it is programming languages.
That said, I'm not discounting what you're saying about Go's popularity either.
- mstade 8y agoMy point with mentioning Plan 9 was that even with luminaries such as Rob Pike, success is not guaranteed. Having a huge organization backing you doesn’t hurt. (Ok, granted, plan 9 had bell labs but I posit a research arm is altogether different from the commercial entity that is google.)
- rakoo 8y agoIt's interesting you bring Plan 9 up, because it was closed source for a long time, who knows if it was long enough to kill interest. Probably another factor for success.
- pushpop 8y agoI got that. I was saying there were a lot of other mitigating circumstances that contributed towards Plan 9’s lack of success that would be specific to Plan 9 and thus not relevant to general purpose programming languages. So it’s not really a great example. I do think your general point does have merit and the computer industry is littered with examples of great languages that have either failed to gain traction or just fallen out of favour for whatever reason.
- c256 8y agoI think what the OP meant was “cases in point: Alef & Limbo”. (These were languages that were introduced with Plan 9 and its successor Inferno, that didn’t catch on.)