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> convincingly He wrote that article in 2001, eighteen years ago, and people haven't stopped bringing it up on HN since. So where are these startups crushing t
by twic 7y ago
> convincingly
He wrote that article in 2001, eighteen years ago, and people haven't stopped bringing it up on HN since. So where are these startups crushing their opposition because they're using a more powerful language?
- apples_oranges 7y agoThat's why I mentioned Ruby on Rails. I think RoR-startups count as examples.
- mattmanser 7y agoYour username seems apt here, RoR was (is?) notorious for being a particularly "weak" language in terms of performance, but being a "powerful" one in terms of being a good template with good tooling/ecosystems. While perhaps functional languages are "powerful" in terms of performance[1], but "weak" because they have poor tooling/ecosystems, not even starting on the difficulty of recruiting, etc. [1] Though I personally think the author is exaggerating the benefits, while conveniently skipping over the massive ((neg))((ati)(ves))))) and incomprehensible code large functional code bases often produce
- vincent-toups 7y agoI can give at least one data point for a startup based on Common Lisp that crashed and burned at least in part _because_ of Common Lisp.
- vincent-toups 7y agoLisp/Functional programming might indeed be a silver bullet, but you still need to know how to operate a gun to use it, is the lesson.
- twic 7y agoI bet that was really good fun, though!
- vincent-toups 7y agoIt was a major strain on my marriage, among other shitty things.
- pmontra 7y agoI think you crush opposition because you're good at selling. Then you need something to sell but it's the least important thing. I'm writing this as a 95% developer and 5% salesman. However using reasonable tools is important. The wrong ones can slow down companies and make business fail beyond the skills of the marketing departments. In my experience I didn't see much difference between Elixir, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby. Properly handled any of them could be ok even if I've got preferences. JavaScript... too much cognitive overhead because of constant ecosystem changes and fragmentation but maybe it's slowing down now.
- blub 7y agoBesides selling, I'd include having a good business plan and management skills. Focusing on programming languages is the mother of all local optimizations. Although what we do is obsessing, not merely focusing.