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Paul Graham’s MO is using language as a startup secret weapon to outmaneuver established companies or lesser rivals (see his earlier writings about Viaweb). Spo

Paul Graham’s MO is using language as a startup secret weapon to outmaneuver established companies or lesser rivals (see his earlier writings about Viaweb). Spoiler they used lisp to implement multi tenant online store. He’s talking to startup founders, potential yc applicants. The reality is today, a lot of what they did in lisp is common functionality in every popular web stack out there. In my view this programming language grand standing hasn’t been compelling for a long time, and now just seems kind of silly. Unless you’re working on really interesting problems, which the vast majority aren’t, judging from recent yc classes.

chubot 5y ago
Yeah it's kind of funny that there was a "controversy" in the very FIRST YC batch, when Reddit switched from Lisp to Python (~15 years ago!) And there was data that showed that like 90%+ of YC startups use either Ruby (often Rails) and Python, including all the most valuable ones like AirBNB, Stripe, Doordash, etc. So basically it's been 15 years since Ruby and Python have been acceptable (or even better) Lisps, according to PG's own metrics. Ruby and Python both have garbage collection, REPLs, and enough reflection/metaprogramming to "compress" your code.
- jeffrwells 5y ago
  Here’s an article about the languages YC’s top startups use https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-startups https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-sta...
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    About what they used not necessarily what they use today, the author does call this out. For example it says Lisp for reddit but today it's Python.
- germandiago 5y ago
  In favor of Lisp I must say that having an image where you replace things instantaneously can be a big plus in exploratory workflows. Same goes for Smalltalk in this regard. I like Python a lot but I miss some kind of functionality like that.
- teataster 5y ago
  I think PG considered competitors hiring Python programers as "dangerous" or something like that.

chubot 5y ago

Yeah it's kind of funny that there was a "controversy" in the very FIRST YC batch, when Reddit switched from Lisp to Python (~15 years ago!) And there was data that showed that like 90%+ of YC startups use either Ruby (often Rails) and Python, including all the most valuable ones like AirBNB, Stripe, Doordash, etc. So basically it's been 15 years since Ruby and Python have been acceptable (or even better) Lisps, according to PG's own metrics. Ruby and Python both have garbage collection, REPLs, and enough reflection/metaprogramming to "compress" your code.

jeffrwells 5y ago
Here’s an article about the languages YC’s top startups use https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-startups https://charliereese.ca/article/top-50-y-combinator-tech-sta...
- eatonphil 5y ago
  About what they used not necessarily what they use today, the author does call this out. For example it says Lisp for reddit but today it's Python.
germandiago 5y ago
In favor of Lisp I must say that having an image where you replace things instantaneously can be a big plus in exploratory workflows. Same goes for Smalltalk in this regard. I like Python a lot but I miss some kind of functionality like that.
teataster 5y ago
I think PG considered competitors hiring Python programers as "dangerous" or something like that.