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I've also researched languages and written a similar piece[1]. Most successful languages had adoption momentum outside of the language itself. Conversely, there
by jdw64 2mo ago
I've also researched languages and written a similar piece[1]. Most successful languages had adoption momentum outside of the language itself.
Conversely, there are many interesting failures—languages that were technically fascinating but ended up having their ideas stolen by later successful languages. A language isn't like a paper; it doesn't compete solely on the quality of its ideas
[1]https://www.makonea.com/en-US/blog/programming-languages-are-authoring-tools-for-platforms https://www.makonea.com/en-US/blog/programming-languages-are...
- lyu07282 2mo agoI wouldn't call it stealing ideas, all languages build on ideas from older languages. language design is more akin to a academic discipline building on top of each other, languages have lineages like a family tree. Language users have usually no idea about the ancestry of the language they are using. Like Ruby borrowed heavily from Smalltalk, nobody is arguing Ruby stole from it. But I agree the adoption is the key factor, more people using a language grows the ecosystem and it becomes self perpetuating from there. This is why I disagree with the article, I don't think python is a good language but I still wrote hundreds of thousands of lines in it over the last decade, not because it's fun but because of its strong ecosystem fitting the task at hand.