4 ms·

The important question isn't necessarily: Is it worth it, without the ecosystem? The more interesting questions is: What does this language add? For example, I

by tetha 12y ago

The important question isn't necessarily: Is it worth it, without the ecosystem? The more interesting questions is: What does this language add? For example, I need to deal with some unix process management tasks. I'm not crazy enough to do them in straight C, so I'm using python for it's strong C bindings, so I can use system calls in C with python level control flow. However, there's a lot to be desired, because dealing with all this concurrency and inherent raciness of the system in a language like python is a royal pain in the rearside. Similar things with java and performant programming. Some of my major programs at work don't use the java ecosystem outside of log4j, junit, apache commons lang and apache commons collections. They use java, because java is darned fast without being as brittle as C or as nuts as C++. So java adds a lot of really cheap development security. Designing yet another language that puts the existing features together with just a tiny difference doesn't add anything. I've enjoyed looking at experimental languages, and I've enjoyed tinkering around with ideas myself some time ago. But by now, I've accepted I'm not smart or talented enough to make something worthwile, and it will be some time until an interesting new breakthrough occurs.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
My languages tend to be very innovative or even inventive; e.g. I recently posted this to HN: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/managedtime.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/managedti... My problem is quite the opposite: when the languages are so different from what already exists, people (and even myself) have trouble thinking about how adoption would even occur, at least in the short term.
- tetha 12y ago
  A lot of languages have made one major mistake: It's not easy to get a development environment going, and some even wanted me to not use vim. The first step to some kind of adoption is that I can get it running with an "aptitude install crazy-foo-language-dk", maybe after adding a repository. After that, crazy-foo or crazy-fooc should be interpreter and/or compiler, and that's that.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Ya, well, my languages include their own development environments (I see no different from language and IDE, actually). Smalltalk was great in this regard also, to the chagrin of many developers who wanted to use vim.

by tetha 12y ago

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

My languages tend to be very innovative or even inventive; e.g. I recently posted this to HN: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/managedtime.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/people/smcdirm/managedti... My problem is quite the opposite: when the languages are so different from what already exists, people (and even myself) have trouble thinking about how adoption would even occur, at least in the short term.

tetha 12y ago
A lot of languages have made one major mistake: It's not easy to get a development environment going, and some even wanted me to not use vim. The first step to some kind of adoption is that I can get it running with an "aptitude install crazy-foo-language-dk", maybe after adding a repository. After that, crazy-foo or crazy-fooc should be interpreter and/or compiler, and that's that.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Ya, well, my languages include their own development environments (I see no different from language and IDE, actually). Smalltalk was great in this regard also, to the chagrin of many developers who wanted to use vim.