3 ms·

I think a superrational individual (in Douglas Hofstadter's sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality)

I think a superrational individual (in Douglas Hofstadter's sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superrationality) would choose the best programming language (for the task), not the fashionable one; and would expect others to do similarly. Unfortunately - where are those others...? The niche popularity of Smalltalk (and other key languages) reveals more about the mentality of people comprising the computing ecosystem than it does the languages.

batista 15y ago
>The niche popularity of Smalltalk (and other key languages) reveals more about the mentality of people comprising the computing ecosystem than it does the languages. I disagree. If it reveals anything is that the language itself is small part of the equation. People avoid Smalltalk for historical reasons, not because of their mentality. What historical reasons? 1) Smalltalk was slow at the time it had to catch on, and cpus/memories weren't up to par. C++ gave far better results with the same equipment. 2) Smalltalk vendors charged an arm and a leg. 3) Smalltalk image environment wasn't easily integrated with other workflows. 4) Smalltalk vendors were in competition for the market, instead of trying to grow it and have a smaller slice of a much larger pie. 5) The UIs were horrible.