4 ms·

Yes, but given A = people, B = architecture, and C = language (and ignoring process for brevity’s sake), the two honking giant caveats are these: Just because

Yes, but given A = people, B = architecture, and C = language (and ignoring process for brevity’s sake), the two honking giant caveats are these: Just because A > B > C does not mean that C does not contribute to the result and can be dismissed. C may be less important than A, but that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. Specifically, assuming you have a sane process for hiring people and a sane process for choosing a language (e.g. we are not talking about the gap between “I CAN HAZ CODES” programmers and Norvig, nor are we talking about the gap between Brainfuck and Lisp), the contribution of A to the result is not so many orders of magnitude greater than C that you can ignore C. And: A > B > C. Fine. But are these independent variables? No, we know that the language affects (for better or worse) your ability to attract and retain certain developers. So A and C are not independent. Likewise, certain architectures are just plain hell to implement with certain languages, so B and C are not independent. Solving for the maximal result of A, B, and C does not mean choosing A first, then B, and then C. It means choosing the best combination of all three at once. Update: Nothing I’ve said here disagrees with Norvig, caveats are warnings not to oversimplify, not suggestions the advice is incorrect. Also, http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html http://paulgraham.com/pypar.html

discreteevent 15y ago
I agree entirely. Its a balance, that's why I referenced the qoute from Norvig. Not to show that language has no importance at all but that even in this very particular case the author has a broader point of view than is represented in the article. Anyway even though I don't really miss C++ I was thinking the other day of all the code that I wrote in it when I had no choice but to use it. I got a lot of work done, and it wasn't a mess either. I would say that in my case anyway I tend to think that the language matters more than it does and this (in my case again) is a source of procrastination. So Norvig's qoute is like a kick in the backside for me (focus on what matters) and that's a good thing.
hello_moto 15y ago
That's true, choice of language does attract certain type of developers. At one time in the past, it seemed that it was for the better goods. But lately, it isn't. Choice of language is used as a recruiting/promotion practice that may not be for the good of the business: they tend to attract people who jump between companies quickly as soon as they found another "cool" technology. Let's be very very very honest here. Geeks like to try the latest coolest cutting edge. Don't forget to add the allure of working at the coolest hottest startup in Silicon Valley (or the "chance" to be able work, given that you mastered a specific technology) for street-cred and if they're lucky, IPO or big $$$. How many times you see/hear/meet people switching jobs just because they don't want to be perceived as "behind the time"? (When in reality Google, Microsoft, are still moving forward with old-school technology). Personally, I felt that there's Fire and Motion (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html) going on in the so-called "hacker/startup" community. At the end of the day, there are some developers becoming the victim of Fire and Motion being executed by a small group of alpha-nerds that write the initial code in their preferred cutting edge technology and left the company for another cutting edge green-field software development, leaving the "legacy 2 years old code-base filled with hacks" to the next group of developers that try to catch up the boat. OK, enough ranting. Now, can we move on from the whole programming language war conversation?

discreteevent 15y ago

I agree entirely. Its a balance, that's why I referenced the qoute from Norvig. Not to show that language has no importance at all but that even in this very particular case the author has a broader point of view than is represented in the article. Anyway even though I don't really miss C++ I was thinking the other day of all the code that I wrote in it when I had no choice but to use it. I got a lot of work done, and it wasn't a mess either. I would say that in my case anyway I tend to think that the language matters more than it does and this (in my case again) is a source of procrastination. So Norvig's qoute is like a kick in the backside for me (focus on what matters) and that's a good thing.

hello_moto 15y ago

That's true, choice of language does attract certain type of developers. At one time in the past, it seemed that it was for the better goods. But lately, it isn't. Choice of language is used as a recruiting/promotion practice that may not be for the good of the business: they tend to attract people who jump between companies quickly as soon as they found another "cool" technology. Let's be very very very honest here. Geeks like to try the latest coolest cutting edge. Don't forget to add the allure of working at the coolest hottest startup in Silicon Valley (or the "chance" to be able work, given that you mastered a specific technology) for street-cred and if they're lucky, IPO or big $$$. How many times you see/hear/meet people switching jobs just because they don't want to be perceived as "behind the time"? (When in reality Google, Microsoft, are still moving forward with old-school technology). Personally, I felt that there's Fire and Motion (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html) going on in the so-called "hacker/startup" community. At the end of the day, there are some developers becoming the victim of Fire and Motion being executed by a small group of alpha-nerds that write the initial code in their preferred cutting edge technology and left the company for another cutting edge green-field software development, leaving the "legacy 2 years old code-base filled with hacks" to the next group of developers that try to catch up the boat. OK, enough ranting. Now, can we move on from the whole programming language war conversation?