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>Because to assume otherwise that would imply that everyone knows every language and some are uniform winners over others. Do you know every language you have r

by batista 14y ago

>Because to assume otherwise that would imply that everyone knows every language and some are uniform winners over others. Do you know every language you have rejected? Heck, do you even know the general characteristics of Lisp, or Haskell, or ML, or Anic, or Pike, or APL? No, and to really try and learn all of them would take a lot of time unless you're quite gifted. So the premiere and popular programming languages are as unpredictable as fashion. That's quite a jump to an (invalid) conclusion. Sure, no programmer has knows of all the languages he does not use or has rejected. But that doesn't mean that there is not a reason some language gain traction and get to be known by lots of programmers and others do not. You seem to have the simple minded view that simply because I haven't heard of all the languages I don't use, it is random which ones I do use. That's not how it works. It works by statistics and aggregates. I may not know language X I do not use, and I might know Y, which I do use. But this is not random, it's because of various forces at play, that made Y more widely known and X less so. For example, C provided raw speed with less memory use at a time it was very crucial, was easy to learn, had free/cheap compilers available, it was the language UNIX was written in, and it was simple enough. Oh, and portable. Those things got it traction. Lisp was mostly used in academia-AI, was slow at the time, compilers cost an arm and a leg and Lisp Machines even more so, and was associated with the "AI winter". Those are some reasons it did not do well.

KirinDave 14y ago
> You seem to have the simple minded view that simply because I haven't heard of all the languages I don't use, it is random which ones I do use. That's not how it works. But then: > But this is not random, it's because of various forces at play, that made Y more widely known and X less so. Where "various forces" is furious handwaving for the sheer randomness that made that set available to you. And let's say in a slightly different history that set is slightly different (but still contains your current choice), how do you know you would have ended up the same? But perhaps I am being lamentably simple minded. Every decision you make is deliberate and justifiable.
- batista 14y ago
  >Where "various forces" is furious handwaving for the sheer randomness that made that set available to you. You keep using that word, random. I don't think it means what you think it means. A coin toss is random. C picking up for the stuff we did in the eighties is not random. Lisp losing traction after the AI winter is not random. Javascript gaining traction with the web is not random. That the creation of C was effected by random events (the experiences of Ken Thompson, the position of AT&T, the decision to provide the source, etc), does not mean that the success was random. The success was logical and repeatable given the needs of the era and how the language came to be. To put it in another way, if another language had taken the role of C in the industry at the time, it would have been pretty similar to C, and with external qualifications (availability of source, portability, etc) similar to C. From this aspect, the (random) fact that it was C after all and not some other C-like language, doesn't matter at all. The language that would have filled C's role would have quacked like C, and that is the non-random, and substantial part. Read the "Worse is better" for some background.
  - KirinDave 14y ago
    > A coin toss is random. C picking up for the stuff we did in the eighties is not random. Lisp losing traction after the AI winter is not random. Javascript gaining traction with the web is not random. Why is a coin toss any more random than a specific language gaining traction? It's called "(extreme) sensitivity to initial conditions." Many of which are neither observable nor predictable.
    - batista 14y ago
      >Why is a coin toss any more random than a specific language gaining traction? It's called "(extreme) sensitivity to initial conditions." Many of which are neither observable nor predictable. Because my argument was not about a "specific" language. It was about C-capability language gaining and Lisp-capability language losing ground at that era. That the C-capability language was C itself, well, that be more or less random. But that people DID need a portable, close to the metal, constrained with regards to memory use, pointer using, simple to create compilers for, close to assembly language at the time because CPUs and memory were constrained, that was not random, that was a necessity. And, no, there wasn't "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions" to that. The initial conditions varied at the ten odd years it took for the language to gain traction. And Lisps (including CL, Clojure etc) have been going up and down since the early sixties. It's not like some initial condition set the tone, tons of decisions, several of them important and with predictable consequences set the tone.

by batista 14y ago

KirinDave 14y ago

> You seem to have the simple minded view that simply because I haven't heard of all the languages I don't use, it is random which ones I do use. That's not how it works. But then: > But this is not random, it's because of various forces at play, that made Y more widely known and X less so. Where "various forces" is furious handwaving for the sheer randomness that made that set available to you. And let's say in a slightly different history that set is slightly different (but still contains your current choice), how do you know you would have ended up the same? But perhaps I am being lamentably simple minded. Every decision you make is deliberate and justifiable.

batista 14y ago
>Where "various forces" is furious handwaving for the sheer randomness that made that set available to you. You keep using that word, random. I don't think it means what you think it means. A coin toss is random. C picking up for the stuff we did in the eighties is not random. Lisp losing traction after the AI winter is not random. Javascript gaining traction with the web is not random. That the creation of C was effected by random events (the experiences of Ken Thompson, the position of AT&T, the decision to provide the source, etc), does not mean that the success was random. The success was logical and repeatable given the needs of the era and how the language came to be. To put it in another way, if another language had taken the role of C in the industry at the time, it would have been pretty similar to C, and with external qualifications (availability of source, portability, etc) similar to C. From this aspect, the (random) fact that it was C after all and not some other C-like language, doesn't matter at all. The language that would have filled C's role would have quacked like C, and that is the non-random, and substantial part. Read the "Worse is better" for some background.
- KirinDave 14y ago
  > A coin toss is random. C picking up for the stuff we did in the eighties is not random. Lisp losing traction after the AI winter is not random. Javascript gaining traction with the web is not random. Why is a coin toss any more random than a specific language gaining traction? It's called "(extreme) sensitivity to initial conditions." Many of which are neither observable nor predictable.
  - batista 14y ago
    >Why is a coin toss any more random than a specific language gaining traction? It's called "(extreme) sensitivity to initial conditions." Many of which are neither observable nor predictable. Because my argument was not about a "specific" language. It was about C-capability language gaining and Lisp-capability language losing ground at that era. That the C-capability language was C itself, well, that be more or less random. But that people DID need a portable, close to the metal, constrained with regards to memory use, pointer using, simple to create compilers for, close to assembly language at the time because CPUs and memory were constrained, that was not random, that was a necessity. And, no, there wasn't "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions" to that. The initial conditions varied at the ten odd years it took for the language to gain traction. And Lisps (including CL, Clojure etc) have been going up and down since the early sixties. It's not like some initial condition set the tone, tons of decisions, several of them important and with predictable consequences set the tone.