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This reminds me of Peter Norvig's move to Python: I came to Python not because I thought it was a better/acceptable/pragmatic Lisp, but because it was bet

This reminds me of Peter Norvig's move to Python: I came to Python not because I thought it was a better/acceptable/pragmatic Lisp, but because it was better pseudocode. Several students claimed that they had a hard time mapping from the pseudocode in my AI textbook to the Lisp code that Russell and I had online. So I looked for the language that was most like our pseudocode, and found that Python was the best match. Then I had to teach myself enough Python to implement the examples from the textbook. I found that Python was very nice for certain types of small problems, and had the libraries I needed to integrate with lots of other stuff, at Google and elsewhere on the net. I think Lisp still has an edge for larger projects and for applications where the speed of the compiled code is important. But Python has the edge (with a large number of students) when the main goal is communication, not programming per se. In terms of programming-in-the-large, at Google and elsewhere, I think that language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you; if you don't have those things you're in trouble regardless of your language choice. (from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803815 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803815)

dmbaggett 16y ago
I worked with Andy on Crash 1 and 2. GOOL (predecessor to GOAL) was rough around the edges then, but incredibly productive to work in once you got the hang of it -- for all the reasons lisp hackers routinely cite. Then, at ITA, we used Lisp for the QPX airfare pricing system. Both projects used lisp because the early people at both companies came out of the MIT AI Lab: Andy and I at Naughty Dog; Jeremy, Carl, and I at ITA. The issue with lisp -- especially in light of decent alternatives like Ruby and Python -- is that it's hard to find developers. Yes, you can hire from the higher-than-average-talent set of current lispers. But that's a finite and shrinking set. I think that both Andy and Carl (who wrote the basis of ITA's lisp airfare system) would probably tell the current crop of startup hackers to use a more popular dynamic language. Personally, I'm using Python now, and Peter Norvig's comment about the psuedocode-like nature of Python really resonates with me. But the main reason the popular dynamic languages are winning now, IMO, is all the code you don't have to write. Look at CPAN, PyPi, and whatever the Ruby equivalent is: there are hundreds of really well-written open source modules to do all the things you need to do on a big project. CPAN was first, but Perl poses so many syntactic challenges that it's hard to use it for a big project. In terms of productivity, no language design can compete with not have to write code at all. That's the bottom line for me these days.

dmbaggett 16y ago

I worked with Andy on Crash 1 and 2. GOOL (predecessor to GOAL) was rough around the edges then, but incredibly productive to work in once you got the hang of it -- for all the reasons lisp hackers routinely cite. Then, at ITA, we used Lisp for the QPX airfare pricing system. Both projects used lisp because the early people at both companies came out of the MIT AI Lab: Andy and I at Naughty Dog; Jeremy, Carl, and I at ITA. The issue with lisp -- especially in light of decent alternatives like Ruby and Python -- is that it's hard to find developers. Yes, you can hire from the higher-than-average-talent set of current lispers. But that's a finite and shrinking set. I think that both Andy and Carl (who wrote the basis of ITA's lisp airfare system) would probably tell the current crop of startup hackers to use a more popular dynamic language. Personally, I'm using Python now, and Peter Norvig's comment about the psuedocode-like nature of Python really resonates with me. But the main reason the popular dynamic languages are winning now, IMO, is all the code you don't have to write. Look at CPAN, PyPi, and whatever the Ruby equivalent is: there are hundreds of really well-written open source modules to do all the things you need to do on a big project. CPAN was first, but Perl poses so many syntactic challenges that it's hard to use it for a big project. In terms of productivity, no language design can compete with not have to write code at all. That's the bottom line for me these days.