4 ms·

History doesn't really support that. PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, Lua. Successful programming languages seem to come in equal measures from both large corpo

History doesn't really support that. PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, Lua. Successful programming languages seem to come in equal measures from both large corporate backers and not. There is certainly the need for network effects which large corporations often can provide more consistently, but we have seen plenty of examples within the space where individuals or smaller companies have been successful in providing these same network effects.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gchamonlive 7y ago
in the early 90s the languages had to provide fewer features to be considered adoptable. Once people adopted that language they had to expand it. Nowadays if you want to create a new language there is a minimum set of features everybody expects that raises the complexity quite high. You could just create a bare language but who would adopt that?
- spamizbad 7y ago
  Isn't that kind of what Elixir and Clojure did? Neither language is festooned with bells and whistles and both leveraged the Erlang VM and JVM respectively to assist in bootstrapping their ecosystems.
  - verttii 7y ago
    Actually, Elixir did add the bells and whistles to Erlang, sort of. That is pretty much the whole point of Elixir.
    - paublyrne 7y ago
      I assume OP meant that Elixir is a purposefully small language. It taps into a lot of functionality in Erlang without necessarily re-implementing it. There isn't even a wrapper around the Erlang :sleep function.
      - dnautics 7y ago
        Well to be honest there's a lot of functionality in erlang you should probably forget about (like the :http and :tftp modules). Not to hate too much on erlang, but I would say that beyond being small, as a pushback to characterizing it as "bells and whistles", Elixir brings to the table "21st century" understanding/opinions on what makes for readable and maintainable code (build packaging, first-class documentation, module organization, file types, strings, map-focused vs struct-focused, sane function parameter ordering). As a result, I can confidently onboard a junior into Elixir (especially if they were in a RoR bootcamp) and have them be productive. I probably wouldn't for erlang.
atombender 7y ago
Python came out of CWI in the Netherlands, where Guido van Rossum worked and had previously developed the language ABC. OCaml came out of INRIA in Paris. So both had institutional backing and financing.
- bigtunacan 7y ago
  While it's certainly a form of institutional backing it's very dissimilar to Google as CWI and INRIA are both research institutes. They would have their own network effects within research and academia, but that doesn't necessarily translate to wider scale adoption. That's sort of why I threw in OCaml; largely it is still only successful within academia. Python on the other hand had similar beginnings, but has been wildly successful both in academia and in common use.
sametmax 7y ago
Different times, different stakes.
zemo 7y ago
Lua was the consequence of trade embargoes in Brazil. It was created with substantial institutional support.
- hnlmorg 7y ago
  As well as targeting a use case that didn't have much competition (at that time).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
vorg 7y ago
> PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, Lua Many of those languages came out in the 1990's when the big corporates were busy pushing visual 4GL's to replace programming languages. But programmers prefered to write a Perl ten-liner rather than fire up a visual environment, click on some toolbars to place some widgets on a form, link in the data files using the right-click form, wait while the OS thrashes the hard drive as it paints the screen for the first test, and on and on. When those corps realized they'd dropped the ball, they soon built their own.
- kragen 7y ago
  My memory of that time is pretty different. I worked as a programmer in the 1990s, when I got paid to write things in C, C++, Perl, Khoros (I guess that's a "visual 4GL"?), IDL (the array language), VB, SQL, INFORMIX's horrible forms thing (which was not especially "visual"), sh, csh (not my fault), and occasionally Tcl. It's true that PHP, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, and Lua came out in the 1990s (Python is from 1990, so arguably the 1980s), but they became widely used in the 2000s. In fact, even Perl was considered kind of déclassé until these "lightweight languages" took over the world, and then Perl became déclassé again after being eclipsed by Python, Ruby, and most surprisingly, JS. (OCaml is not a "lightweight language" and is not like the others, and consequently never became popular.) I don't recognize your description as corresponding to any events I remember. Sun was pushing Java. Microsoft was pushing C++, then Java, and then when Sun sued them, C#. Apple wasn't pushing much of anything until they bought NeXT, and then they started pushing Objective-C. As far as I know Oracle was pushing PL/SQL and cisco was pushing bletcherous IOS commands. Microsoft was pushing VB, which sort of resembles what you're saying, but VB wasn't a 4GL (the language was just 1960s Basic minus line numbers and plus subroutine arguments) and was actually spectacularly successful at what it did; it just wasn't good at making web sites. Borland was pushing Delphi. I guess in a way Microsoft was pushing Access? Are you thinking of Microsoft Access? Maybe you were thinking of PowerBuilder? It was spectacularly successful at what it did, too (again, not building websites), and it was a visual 4GL, but it was being pushed by Powersoft, not a big corporate, until (Wikipedia tells me) Sybase bought it for 0.9 Instagrams in 1995. I never saw anybody use PowerBuilder but I didn't use Microsoft Windows a lot. When you say, "they soon built their own", do you mean VBA and PowerShell, or what?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gchamonlive 7y ago

in the early 90s the languages had to provide fewer features to be considered adoptable. Once people adopted that language they had to expand it. Nowadays if you want to create a new language there is a minimum set of features everybody expects that raises the complexity quite high. You could just create a bare language but who would adopt that?

spamizbad 7y ago
Isn't that kind of what Elixir and Clojure did? Neither language is festooned with bells and whistles and both leveraged the Erlang VM and JVM respectively to assist in bootstrapping their ecosystems.
- verttii 7y ago
  Actually, Elixir did add the bells and whistles to Erlang, sort of. That is pretty much the whole point of Elixir.
  - paublyrne 7y ago
    I assume OP meant that Elixir is a purposefully small language. It taps into a lot of functionality in Erlang without necessarily re-implementing it. There isn't even a wrapper around the Erlang :sleep function.
    - dnautics 7y ago
      Well to be honest there's a lot of functionality in erlang you should probably forget about (like the :http and :tftp modules). Not to hate too much on erlang, but I would say that beyond being small, as a pushback to characterizing it as "bells and whistles", Elixir brings to the table "21st century" understanding/opinions on what makes for readable and maintainable code (build packaging, first-class documentation, module organization, file types, strings, map-focused vs struct-focused, sane function parameter ordering). As a result, I can confidently onboard a junior into Elixir (especially if they were in a RoR bootcamp) and have them be productive. I probably wouldn't for erlang.

atombender 7y ago

Python came out of CWI in the Netherlands, where Guido van Rossum worked and had previously developed the language ABC. OCaml came out of INRIA in Paris. So both had institutional backing and financing.

bigtunacan 7y ago
While it's certainly a form of institutional backing it's very dissimilar to Google as CWI and INRIA are both research institutes. They would have their own network effects within research and academia, but that doesn't necessarily translate to wider scale adoption. That's sort of why I threw in OCaml; largely it is still only successful within academia. Python on the other hand had similar beginnings, but has been wildly successful both in academia and in common use.

sametmax 7y ago

Different times, different stakes.

zemo 7y ago

Lua was the consequence of trade embargoes in Brazil. It was created with substantial institutional support.

hnlmorg 7y ago
As well as targeting a use case that didn't have much competition (at that time).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vorg 7y ago

> PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, Lua Many of those languages came out in the 1990's when the big corporates were busy pushing visual 4GL's to replace programming languages. But programmers prefered to write a Perl ten-liner rather than fire up a visual environment, click on some toolbars to place some widgets on a form, link in the data files using the right-click form, wait while the OS thrashes the hard drive as it paints the screen for the first test, and on and on. When those corps realized they'd dropped the ball, they soon built their own.

kragen 7y ago
My memory of that time is pretty different. I worked as a programmer in the 1990s, when I got paid to write things in C, C++, Perl, Khoros (I guess that's a "visual 4GL"?), IDL (the array language), VB, SQL, INFORMIX's horrible forms thing (which was not especially "visual"), sh, csh (not my fault), and occasionally Tcl. It's true that PHP, Ruby, Tcl, OCaml, and Lua came out in the 1990s (Python is from 1990, so arguably the 1980s), but they became widely used in the 2000s. In fact, even Perl was considered kind of déclassé until these "lightweight languages" took over the world, and then Perl became déclassé again after being eclipsed by Python, Ruby, and most surprisingly, JS. (OCaml is not a "lightweight language" and is not like the others, and consequently never became popular.) I don't recognize your description as corresponding to any events I remember. Sun was pushing Java. Microsoft was pushing C++, then Java, and then when Sun sued them, C#. Apple wasn't pushing much of anything until they bought NeXT, and then they started pushing Objective-C. As far as I know Oracle was pushing PL/SQL and cisco was pushing bletcherous IOS commands. Microsoft was pushing VB, which sort of resembles what you're saying, but VB wasn't a 4GL (the language was just 1960s Basic minus line numbers and plus subroutine arguments) and was actually spectacularly successful at what it did; it just wasn't good at making web sites. Borland was pushing Delphi. I guess in a way Microsoft was pushing Access? Are you thinking of Microsoft Access? Maybe you were thinking of PowerBuilder? It was spectacularly successful at what it did, too (again, not building websites), and it was a visual 4GL, but it was being pushed by Powersoft, not a big corporate, until (Wikipedia tells me) Sybase bought it for 0.9 Instagrams in 1995. I never saw anybody use PowerBuilder but I didn't use Microsoft Windows a lot. When you say, "they soon built their own", do you mean VBA and PowerShell, or what?