←back to thread

The programmers who live in Flatland

(blog.redplanetlabs.com)
107 points winkywooster | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
Show context
libraryofbabel ◴[] No.46182942[source]
Or perhaps, just perhaps, the true higher-dimensional move is realizing that choice of programming language isn’t usually the critical factor in whether a project, system, or business succeeds or fails, and that obsessing over the One True Way is a trap.

It might surprise the author to learn that there are many people who:

1) Have tried lisp and clojure

2) Liked their elegance and expressiveness

3) Have read through SICP and done most of the exercises

4) Would still choose plain old boring easy-to-read always-second-best Python for 90% of use-cases (and probably Rust for the last 10%) when building a real business in the real world.

The article could really benefit from some steel-manning. Remove the cute Flatland metaphor and it is effectively arguing that lisp/clojure haven’t been universally adopted because most programmers haven’t Seen The Light in some sort of epiphany of parentheses and macros. The truth is more nuanced.

replies(15): >>46183197 #>>46183263 #>>46183285 #>>46183303 #>>46184008 #>>46185053 #>>46185956 #>>46185986 #>>46186097 #>>46186471 #>>46186553 #>>46187246 #>>46188232 #>>46191126 #>>46192256 #
1. zahlman ◴[] No.46186471[source]
Reading SICP (and other such mind expansion) has definitely (gradually over a very long period) shaped how I write Python.