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The fact that dozens of companies have been built around millions of lines of Common Lisp code at all levels of abstraction solving some of the most complicated

The fact that dozens of companies have been built around millions of lines of Common Lisp code at all levels of abstraction solving some of the most complicated problems is a testament to the scalability of Lisp. What has changed is that most software shops aren’t solving technical problems anymore. Most places are engaged in the business of plumbing—connect this database (whose problems are solved) to this dashboard (whose problems are solved)—but many of us don’t want to admit it. It’s not glamorous and Silicon Valley prefers to keep its death grip on titles like “Senior Solutions Architect.” Plumbing doesn’t necessarily need expressive power of a programming language, but I contend that problem-solving greatly benefits from it.

kazinator 8y ago
this hasn't really changed. Yesteryear it was Visual Basic, reviled by anyone coming from a Computer Science background. Most if it was "connect to database". Prior to that, 4GL's: dBase III derivatives, right through Microsoft's (eventually) FoxPro. Before that COBOL. There has always been "plumbing" for as long as computers have been "business machines".
- reikonomusha 8y ago
  I think the proportions have shifted significantly. (Proportion of “problem solving” to “plumbing”.) There’s at least a couple orders of magnitude more software and services available to use and connect to today than there was 25 years ago.
  - antt 8y ago
    Plumbing is not what you read in your textbooks about. It has always been the case that the majority of programmers are plumbers. As a fraction of people I would be surprised if we do not have more people working on blue skies problems today because all the tools are available for free, as opposed to the 80s when a workstation with the software on it cost 30% of the developers yearly salary.
untangle 8y ago
> The fact that dozens of companies have been built around millions of lines of Common Lisp code at all levels of abstraction solving some of the most complicated problems is a testament to the scalability of Lisp. I would draw the opposite conclusion from your statement. "Dozens" is not a big number compared to the universe of software-based companies. Up that number by three orders of magnitude and I'm sold.

kazinator 8y ago

this hasn't really changed. Yesteryear it was Visual Basic, reviled by anyone coming from a Computer Science background. Most if it was "connect to database". Prior to that, 4GL's: dBase III derivatives, right through Microsoft's (eventually) FoxPro. Before that COBOL. There has always been "plumbing" for as long as computers have been "business machines".

reikonomusha 8y ago
I think the proportions have shifted significantly. (Proportion of “problem solving” to “plumbing”.) There’s at least a couple orders of magnitude more software and services available to use and connect to today than there was 25 years ago.
- antt 8y ago
  Plumbing is not what you read in your textbooks about. It has always been the case that the majority of programmers are plumbers. As a fraction of people I would be surprised if we do not have more people working on blue skies problems today because all the tools are available for free, as opposed to the 80s when a workstation with the software on it cost 30% of the developers yearly salary.

untangle 8y ago

> The fact that dozens of companies have been built around millions of lines of Common Lisp code at all levels of abstraction solving some of the most complicated problems is a testament to the scalability of Lisp. I would draw the opposite conclusion from your statement. "Dozens" is not a big number compared to the universe of software-based companies. Up that number by three orders of magnitude and I'm sold.