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investing in creating a new language is too much risk, very few languages get the popularity needed to guanranty their longivity i really wonder why so many ar

by systems 13y ago

investing in creating a new language is too much risk, very few languages get the popularity needed to guanranty their longivity i really wonder why so many are so willing to take this risk, google with Go the mozilla foundation and Rust

dbaupp 13y ago
Because current languages aren't good enough for the various domains the two companies are creating them for (Go for server middleware, aiui; Rust for concurrent and safe web browsers), and so by biting the bullet and creating new languages, they can get something curated for exactly what's necessary.
coldtea 13y ago
Seems more languages catch on the last 5-10 years than they did in previous decades. Here a few that weren't around (or just starting) 5-6 years ago, but have nice communities and even industry adoption now: Go, Scala, Clojure, Clojurescript, Coffeescript. >I really wonder why so many are so willing to take this risk, google with Go the mozilla foundation and Rust What risk? Google spends all of like 10 million dollars per year for Go (if we are to count the salaries of several developers, which it also uses to make other stuff), which is spare change for them. And the reason is that they find that there is a need that isn't properly covered.
- ma2rten 13y ago
  The risk is that you are using a legacy language in some of your products which no one else knows how to write in.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    Noted how Google didn't wholesale adopt Go? And also how they started using some of it here and there (a YouTube MySQL balancer, a downloads tool) AFTER there was decent adoption of it already? Not to mention that at the scale of Google, they can pay for the continued development of 5 or 10 languages and/or compilers to suit their needs (and, well, they do: Dart, Closure, Go, V8, their Unladden Swallow experiment etc etc), as well as train stuff to use it. And it's not like an half-competent Google employee can't learn how to "write in" Go in a week or so. So, it's not a case like some random startup chosing to use an obscure language -- those indeed would have the problem of not finding enough hires.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  >Seems more languages catch on the last 5-10 years than they did in previous decades. I think that's partly due to the increasing acceptance of "polyglot programmers", the realization that many programming concepts are shared across languages and that good programmers work with those concepts rather than just syntax or implementations, the resulting push-back against "X years of experience in Y language" type recruiting, and the "use the right tool for the job" while interfacing across different platforms via defined API/messaging system only. It's good see all that come together and enable and incentivize a Cambrian explosion of programming language experimentation. Good time to be in the field.

by systems 13y ago

dbaupp 13y ago

Because current languages aren't good enough for the various domains the two companies are creating them for (Go for server middleware, aiui; Rust for concurrent and safe web browsers), and so by biting the bullet and creating new languages, they can get something curated for exactly what's necessary.

coldtea 13y ago

Seems more languages catch on the last 5-10 years than they did in previous decades. Here a few that weren't around (or just starting) 5-6 years ago, but have nice communities and even industry adoption now: Go, Scala, Clojure, Clojurescript, Coffeescript. >I really wonder why so many are so willing to take this risk, google with Go the mozilla foundation and Rust What risk? Google spends all of like 10 million dollars per year for Go (if we are to count the salaries of several developers, which it also uses to make other stuff), which is spare change for them. And the reason is that they find that there is a need that isn't properly covered.

ma2rten 13y ago
The risk is that you are using a legacy language in some of your products which no one else knows how to write in.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Noted how Google didn't wholesale adopt Go? And also how they started using some of it here and there (a YouTube MySQL balancer, a downloads tool) AFTER there was decent adoption of it already? Not to mention that at the scale of Google, they can pay for the continued development of 5 or 10 languages and/or compilers to suit their needs (and, well, they do: Dart, Closure, Go, V8, their Unladden Swallow experiment etc etc), as well as train stuff to use it. And it's not like an half-competent Google employee can't learn how to "write in" Go in a week or so. So, it's not a case like some random startup chosing to use an obscure language -- those indeed would have the problem of not finding enough hires.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
>Seems more languages catch on the last 5-10 years than they did in previous decades. I think that's partly due to the increasing acceptance of "polyglot programmers", the realization that many programming concepts are shared across languages and that good programmers work with those concepts rather than just syntax or implementations, the resulting push-back against "X years of experience in Y language" type recruiting, and the "use the right tool for the job" while interfacing across different platforms via defined API/messaging system only. It's good see all that come together and enable and incentivize a Cambrian explosion of programming language experimentation. Good time to be in the field.