3 ms·

Design the ideal programming language for startups

1 points by neilk 19y ago

Syntax Clause, that jolly old elf who has thousands of magically outsourced programmers in the far north, grants you a Christmas wish: the ideal programming language for startups. What sort of language would you ask for?

macmac 19y ago
Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the answer depends entirely on what that start-up would be doing and in what context it would be operating(skills of programmers available, integration to other code etc.)
- neilk 19y ago
  I originally posed this question with an additional condition -- you get $100M to invest in 10 startups that use this new language. The point was to see if there was anything startups might have in common, in their language needs. Maybe the answer to that is "nothing", but I wonder.
bayareaguy 19y ago
How about a - modern functional language with - development and debugging tools as good as state of the art for imperative languages and - a large and well maintained set of libraries that - run on all major platforms and - have a liberal distribution license (BSD/GNU/Apache/etc)
iamelgringo 19y ago
There is no One True Universal Startup (tm). There are startups that work with embedded micro controllers, and there are startups that create networking software, startups that work on the Windows Desktop and startups that work as server ware that is accessed via http. Each one of those domains is going to have different requirements, and each one of those would be better served by one language as opposed to another. It would be like asking people, "which human language is best for communicating". Well, if I had to describe many different kinds and varieties of snow, I'd probably choose an Eskimo dialect. If I had to describe many different levels of respect, honor and shame, I'd say Japanese. If I was to communicate in the business realm, I'd have to say English. And, if I had to talk about hunting tapirs in a rain forest, I'd probably use a dialect native to tribes in the Amazon. With all due respect to PG, the idea of One True Language (tm) is a myth as far as I'm concerned. Langauges are tools. Different languages have different strengths and weaknesses. Familiarize yourself with enough different tools so you can make intelligent decisions, and then use the most powerful language/tool for the job at hand.

1 points by neilk 19y ago

macmac 19y ago

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the answer depends entirely on what that start-up would be doing and in what context it would be operating(skills of programmers available, integration to other code etc.)

neilk 19y ago
I originally posed this question with an additional condition -- you get $100M to invest in 10 startups that use this new language. The point was to see if there was anything startups might have in common, in their language needs. Maybe the answer to that is "nothing", but I wonder.

bayareaguy 19y ago

How about a - modern functional language with - development and debugging tools as good as state of the art for imperative languages and - a large and well maintained set of libraries that - run on all major platforms and - have a liberal distribution license (BSD/GNU/Apache/etc)

iamelgringo 19y ago

There is no One True Universal Startup (tm). There are startups that work with embedded micro controllers, and there are startups that create networking software, startups that work on the Windows Desktop and startups that work as server ware that is accessed via http. Each one of those domains is going to have different requirements, and each one of those would be better served by one language as opposed to another. It would be like asking people, "which human language is best for communicating". Well, if I had to describe many different kinds and varieties of snow, I'd probably choose an Eskimo dialect. If I had to describe many different levels of respect, honor and shame, I'd say Japanese. If I was to communicate in the business realm, I'd have to say English. And, if I had to talk about hunting tapirs in a rain forest, I'd probably use a dialect native to tribes in the Amazon. With all due respect to PG, the idea of One True Language (tm) is a myth as far as I'm concerned. Langauges are tools. Different languages have different strengths and weaknesses. Familiarize yourself with enough different tools so you can make intelligent decisions, and then use the most powerful language/tool for the job at hand.