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I'm not so sure that's a good example. It seems to me that PG had a Lisp he'd created for his own gratification and Hacker News was a good chance to try it out
by chc 14y ago
I'm not so sure that's a good example. It seems to me that PG had a Lisp he'd created for his own gratification and Hacker News was a good chance to try it out in the real world. It's hard to imagine Hacker News would have suffered if Arc hadn't been ready yet and he'd been forced to use Django or something. I think HN helped Arc more than vice-versa.
- dschiptsov 14y agoThe point is that he (with mr. Morris, I suppose) made this site quickly, cheap and are able to evolve it on the go, almost without downtime with help of very few people. Another point is that this site is the proof of an approach to software development described in the On Lisp book. So, it is not a gratification, it is just a real-world project they have done for themselves to make money. It is not some showcase or a demo, it is real thing. In case of Django, I think, it will require much more man-hours for building and maintaining and more resources (cost) to run. This is an example of Less is More principle in action: less code (the core language concept) and, as a consequence, less everything - time, people, money. Lisp isn't just a language with parenthesis. It is a whole philosophy (a multi-paradigm language). Well, better to read On Lisp.
- nialo 14y agoPG says in several of the Arc essays that HN exists because he found that programming languages turned out better when their creators worked on the language and some problem being solved in that language together. HN exists because he needed an application to force Arc to be better.