4 ms·

Shopify was founded in 2006 and I'm sure (having never worked there) there are things in their codebase that are that old. What were the options in 2006 for la

by zrail 4y ago

Shopify was founded in 2006 and I'm sure (having never worked there) there are things in their codebase that are that old. What were the options in 2006 for languages with both a fast runtime and reasonable DX? I honestly can't think of any. Ruby at the time was pretty far ahead on DX for mainstream and up and coming languages. It was known to be slow but DX for Java was really not great and mired in "enterprise" features and mindset. Edit: python was of course around and I don't remember the Django timeline well enough to say if it was viable in 2006 or not. PHP was of course around but again there was a mindset issue at the time.

cultofmetatron 4y ago
cough common lisp cough
- zrail 4y ago
  Sure. Not exactly mainstream so one would need to consider the hiring pipeline, but if it serves as a competitive advantage then sure.
  - cultofmetatron 4y ago
    it was used to write viaweb back in the 90's. The original saas that made Ycombinator possible.
    - zrail 4y ago
      Ok but that still doesn't make it mainstream or have a candidate pool. If those things don't matter then anything goes.
      - closeparen 4y ago
        An underrated feature of obscure languages is that they alienate people who think “$tool developer” is a an identity.
  - rurban 4y ago
    You definitely don't need to consider a hiring pipeline with Common Lisp. 1-2 people are enough to write and maintain it. But if you prefer 500 devs instead you should consider ruby, python or PHP. Middle managers are getting high on these numbers.
    - kaba0 4y ago
      Honestly, that’s just bullshit. Every language is more productive with fewer developers since communication does have an inherent cost. But there is no Silver bullets as per the famous article, no language provides not even 2fold increase in productivity over another managed one, let alone an order.
      - cultofmetatron 4y ago
        while I agree a 500 fold increase is a bit of exaggeration, There is some merit to the argument. more expressive languages including common lisp certainly give more power for an experienced engineer to outperform someone fresh out of univeristy. enough to say that I'd rather have 2-3 senior engineers experienced with common lisp or clojure or haskell over 10-15 juniors working on go or python. and what if you gave them the same expressive language? I'd argue that its even more dangerous. Common lisp is a powerful language but its easy to code yorself into a corner if you don't have the experience to properly use it. it;d be easy to build overcomplicated systems that are brittle. go is in fact better for them because it limits the damage they can cause.
- yowlingcat 4y ago
  Where would the community, mindshare, and hiring pool be? Or would you have to innovate on how you come up with that (on top of your core product) to accomplish anything there?
  - cultofmetatron 4y ago
    community is small but extremely dedicated. I agree that the hiring pool is small but if you want go level performance, metaprogramming and developer productivity, common lisp was your best option. Shopify went with ruby. not a terrible language but it did come at teh cost of performance.

by zrail 4y ago

cultofmetatron 4y ago

cough common lisp cough

zrail 4y ago
Sure. Not exactly mainstream so one would need to consider the hiring pipeline, but if it serves as a competitive advantage then sure.
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  it was used to write viaweb back in the 90's. The original saas that made Ycombinator possible.
  - zrail 4y ago
    Ok but that still doesn't make it mainstream or have a candidate pool. If those things don't matter then anything goes.
    - closeparen 4y ago
      An underrated feature of obscure languages is that they alienate people who think “$tool developer” is a an identity.
- rurban 4y ago
  You definitely don't need to consider a hiring pipeline with Common Lisp. 1-2 people are enough to write and maintain it. But if you prefer 500 devs instead you should consider ruby, python or PHP. Middle managers are getting high on these numbers.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Honestly, that’s just bullshit. Every language is more productive with fewer developers since communication does have an inherent cost. But there is no Silver bullets as per the famous article, no language provides not even 2fold increase in productivity over another managed one, let alone an order.
    - cultofmetatron 4y ago
      while I agree a 500 fold increase is a bit of exaggeration, There is some merit to the argument. more expressive languages including common lisp certainly give more power for an experienced engineer to outperform someone fresh out of univeristy. enough to say that I'd rather have 2-3 senior engineers experienced with common lisp or clojure or haskell over 10-15 juniors working on go or python. and what if you gave them the same expressive language? I'd argue that its even more dangerous. Common lisp is a powerful language but its easy to code yorself into a corner if you don't have the experience to properly use it. it;d be easy to build overcomplicated systems that are brittle. go is in fact better for them because it limits the damage they can cause.
yowlingcat 4y ago
Where would the community, mindshare, and hiring pool be? Or would you have to innovate on how you come up with that (on top of your core product) to accomplish anything there?
- cultofmetatron 4y ago
  community is small but extremely dedicated. I agree that the hiring pool is small but if you want go level performance, metaprogramming and developer productivity, common lisp was your best option. Shopify went with ruby. not a terrible language but it did come at teh cost of performance.