Re: True faiths ( was Re: The true faith )

[Kenny Tilton <ktilton@nyc.rr.com>]

"Thomas F. Burdick" wrote:
> 
> Kenny Tilton <ktilton@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> 
> > Doug Hockin wrote:
> > >
> [> > > is Kenny Tilton]
> > > > Obviously the winner is any compiled (fast), GCed, GFing, MI dynamic
> > > > language with macros. Mature, an ANSII standard and a free
> > > > implementation would not hurt either. hang on...
> > >
> > > Like Dylan?
> >
> > Is Dylan mature, stable, ANSII standard?
> 
> I thought those were just niceties, not necessary for the language to
> "win", according to you just above.

was doug making that distinction? anyway, that was just a point of
information. i do not follow dylan, for all i know it's spec is
stable--i wasn't arguing, i was asking.

> > Dylan to me adds no value over Lisp, so why bother?
> 
> Well, sure, right now.  Since Dylan seems to have what you think it
> would take for a non-mainstream language to make it into the
> mainstream, if it did, that's the value it *would* offer.  I'd be
> *thrilled* to be a Dylaner if there were a ton of Dylan jobs.

well, my whole point was, look past current popularity to how developers
are reacting to the status quo with new languages or new features for
java to get at True Popularity. so might-make-it-mainstream is subtly
OT.

I anyway like to separate the question of how great is a language
regardless of its popularity from considerations deriving from
popularity, such as the number of available jobs, programmers and
libraries. The latter effects of popularity do not in the long run wag
the popularity dog; there was a day when COBOL, VSAM and CICS ruled the
world. Pascal was so big the original Mac OS team used it. And the
Romans really kicked the Christians' asses. Hang on...

Note that I am not saying popularity does not add value in the practical
ways we all grok, just that I like to control for popularity when
assessing long-term prospects of languages.

kenny
clinisys