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This article barely mentions Common Lisp. The author makes a good point that for complicated languages, programmers carve out a subset of features to get their

This article barely mentions Common Lisp. The author makes a good point that for complicated languages, programmers carve out a subset of features to get their work done. (At least, this is what I do for Common Lisp, Haskell, Swift, etc.) I have always loved a tech world with many programming languages, but I wonder if this might change in a few decades if software reliability becomes more of an issue. I don’t know much Rust, but I have taken a good look at Swift as being a possible direction for a universal language (REPL development, strongly typed with fast compilation speeds on M1, and a generally pleasant language). I have a prediction: IT security will become such a larger problem in the future that programming languages and operating systems will go through a winnowing out phase, fewer choices, and those fewer choices will have more effort in producing provably correct software.

nescioquid 5y ago
Scott Meyers, in Effective C++, writes at the outset that C++ is a federation of languages and that one must come to an agreement at the beginning of a project about which parts of the federated language will be used. I think Java is in the same ball-park these days. Common Lisp has little syntax (but complicated by macros), 900+ functions in the language spec, supports many programming paradigms, and yet I don't feel it as having become fragmented as a language. Your winnowing idea is interesting, but would seem to suggest we periodically discard entire languages. A language's library ecosystem is often a critical factor in selection, which also makes it harder to give up. The longer a language is actively developed, it seems there's a greater risk for the language to become fragmented. I wonder if this is ever a concern for language designers (I presume it is) and what sorts of decision might lessen the probability of fragmentation occurring in the future. > I have always loved a tech world with many programming languages, but I wonder if this might change in a few decades if software reliability becomes more of an issue. I don't expect that to happen unless the liability landscape or some other financial incentive changes. Do you see force that would drive an increased focus on reliability in the industry?

nescioquid 5y ago

Scott Meyers, in Effective C++, writes at the outset that C++ is a federation of languages and that one must come to an agreement at the beginning of a project about which parts of the federated language will be used. I think Java is in the same ball-park these days. Common Lisp has little syntax (but complicated by macros), 900+ functions in the language spec, supports many programming paradigms, and yet I don't feel it as having become fragmented as a language. Your winnowing idea is interesting, but would seem to suggest we periodically discard entire languages. A language's library ecosystem is often a critical factor in selection, which also makes it harder to give up. The longer a language is actively developed, it seems there's a greater risk for the language to become fragmented. I wonder if this is ever a concern for language designers (I presume it is) and what sorts of decision might lessen the probability of fragmentation occurring in the future. > I have always loved a tech world with many programming languages, but I wonder if this might change in a few decades if software reliability becomes more of an issue. I don't expect that to happen unless the liability landscape or some other financial incentive changes. Do you see force that would drive an increased focus on reliability in the industry?