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The benefit of Python is that developers already know about these language constructs, and that more developers know Python than Prolog.

lostcolony 5y ago
I don't think the op's point was "how easy it would be to hire developers", or even "taking all the considerations a business is under, I feel Prolog makes sense". He was just touting how easy Prolog's built in pattern matching and declarative style makes implementing and using selectors at a language level. Honestly, if we didn't talk about the benefits of a language irrespective of how easy it is to hire for it, we'd never have introduced anything beyond FORTRAN, if we even made it that far. Bringing "X is easier to hire for" into a conversation about the language is, at best, a non-sequitur.
- notriddle 5y ago
  We might have been better off that way. FORTRAN does have its downsides, but language churn itself has downsides that almost always outweigh the assumed upsides of a better language. If we had just stuck with FORTRAN forever, how many problems would have been completely avoided!? There’d be better, and more, IDEs, since even if the language is hard to parse, it’s still just one parser that needs all the effort. So many unfortunate problems in education caused by language and ecosystem churn would have been avoided (the infamous “by the time you graduate, it’s always outdated” problem). The only problem is that FORTRAN is too new. Should’ve stuck with the Hollerith tabulator.
  - haswell 5y ago
    Genuinely having a difficult time determining if this is meant to be satire.
    - xnyan 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- swiley 5y ago
  Ye olde pragmatist vs idealist.
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    Fun aside: In practice I've found that most people touting what's easy to hire for -vastly- overestimate how difficult it is to pick up a new language sufficiently well to be productive in it and able to support it in production. This is doubly amusing when you consider that the same people also frequently tout how they want to "hire the best".

lostcolony 5y ago

I don't think the op's point was "how easy it would be to hire developers", or even "taking all the considerations a business is under, I feel Prolog makes sense". He was just touting how easy Prolog's built in pattern matching and declarative style makes implementing and using selectors at a language level. Honestly, if we didn't talk about the benefits of a language irrespective of how easy it is to hire for it, we'd never have introduced anything beyond FORTRAN, if we even made it that far. Bringing "X is easier to hire for" into a conversation about the language is, at best, a non-sequitur.

notriddle 5y ago
We might have been better off that way. FORTRAN does have its downsides, but language churn itself has downsides that almost always outweigh the assumed upsides of a better language. If we had just stuck with FORTRAN forever, how many problems would have been completely avoided!? There’d be better, and more, IDEs, since even if the language is hard to parse, it’s still just one parser that needs all the effort. So many unfortunate problems in education caused by language and ecosystem churn would have been avoided (the infamous “by the time you graduate, it’s always outdated” problem). The only problem is that FORTRAN is too new. Should’ve stuck with the Hollerith tabulator.
- haswell 5y ago
  Genuinely having a difficult time determining if this is meant to be satire.
  - xnyan 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
swiley 5y ago
Ye olde pragmatist vs idealist.
- lostcolony 5y ago
  Fun aside: In practice I've found that most people touting what's easy to hire for -vastly- overestimate how difficult it is to pick up a new language sufficiently well to be productive in it and able to support it in production. This is doubly amusing when you consider that the same people also frequently tout how they want to "hire the best".