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> So, what's your hot take Unless you already have a rare Lisp job, or you're retired, spend your time on things more employable. > Perusing the various searc

by neilv 2y ago

> So, what's your hot take Unless you already have a rare Lisp job, or you're retired, spend your time on things more employable. > Perusing the various search results on 'CL vs Scheme / Racket' had me personally more convinced of CL for heavy-duty "real-world", CL has more wins on this, but Scheme has, on at least one occasion, been used for large, important, rock-solid stuff, and super-productively. It comes down to the individual programmer(s). > all the other languages have kept picking up nearly everything once-cutting-edge about Lisp Much of the relative value of Lisps nowadays is the communities. They're generally made up of people who would be doing this even if software weren't a well-paying job. And there's relatively little BS to wade through (like explodes in all directions around popular employable platforms), since most BS follows the money.

sho 2y ago
> It comes down to the individual programmer(s). I think you hit the nail here. People credit lisp because it is, or was, the language of the super high end geeky dev. But it's the high end dev self-selecting into lisp, not the language itself, that is the real advantage IMO. Find a really good developer and let them use whatever they like. I've known the proverbial 10x (or even more!) dev in a number of languages, even "blub" ones like C#. A motivated, highly competent developer with an eye on the vision and skin in the game is the real "secret weapon" no matter which tool she happens to choose.
- neilv 2y ago
  > Find a really good developer and let them use whatever they like. Unfortunately, it's rare that a company can identify a really good developer. Also, trusting a developer to choose the programming language for a project might not be a good idea right now, due to a pervasive industry culture of resume-driven-development and job-hopping. (Unless "really good developer" implies conscientious professionalism and alignment with business needs, and you're able to discern that.) > A motivated, highly competent developer with an eye on the vision and skin in the game is the real "secret weapon" Agreed. Though founders tend to think they deserve 20x+ the equity of even first hire engineers. To the point that even your typical early hire is probably best off freshening up their resume keywords (via resume-driven-development), and job-hopping as soon as a better compensation package comes along (maybe after vesting cliff). The founder already signaled that they think the developer is a commodity, not a secret weapon of the company. That's not motivation for the hire to be aligned with company success, much less beyond.

by neilv 2y ago

sho 2y ago

> It comes down to the individual programmer(s). I think you hit the nail here. People credit lisp because it is, or was, the language of the super high end geeky dev. But it's the high end dev self-selecting into lisp, not the language itself, that is the real advantage IMO. Find a really good developer and let them use whatever they like. I've known the proverbial 10x (or even more!) dev in a number of languages, even "blub" ones like C#. A motivated, highly competent developer with an eye on the vision and skin in the game is the real "secret weapon" no matter which tool she happens to choose.

neilv 2y ago
> Find a really good developer and let them use whatever they like. Unfortunately, it's rare that a company can identify a really good developer. Also, trusting a developer to choose the programming language for a project might not be a good idea right now, due to a pervasive industry culture of resume-driven-development and job-hopping. (Unless "really good developer" implies conscientious professionalism and alignment with business needs, and you're able to discern that.) > A motivated, highly competent developer with an eye on the vision and skin in the game is the real "secret weapon" Agreed. Though founders tend to think they deserve 20x+ the equity of even first hire engineers. To the point that even your typical early hire is probably best off freshening up their resume keywords (via resume-driven-development), and job-hopping as soon as a better compensation package comes along (maybe after vesting cliff). The founder already signaled that they think the developer is a commodity, not a secret weapon of the company. That's not motivation for the hire to be aligned with company success, much less beyond.