Subject: Re: Theory #51 (superior(?) programming languages)
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 1997/01/28
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme
Message-ID: <3063475763718260@naggum.no>


* Bernd Paysan
| But as C and Unix were hacker projects around '70 and got public (in the
| broader sense) at around '80, a step back by 10 years should be expected,
| anyway. Basic was a Hacker project in the 60th, and DOS was crap
| only. And that's what many people use now, although it's cluttered with
| Windows, the worst GUI incarnation (from the CS point of view) the world
| has seen yet.

a while ago, somebody posted a summary of programming cultures, noting that
Microsoft is basically growing a whole new culture from scratch, rejecting
all other cultures and what they have built.  considering that it has taken
50+ years of research and very serious thinking by many more good people
than Microsoft could ever hire, we should _expect_ that programmers under
constant pressure to release products are no match for researchers.  it's
just like C and DOS and those other products they build: they effectively
fail to recognize that cultures can be built "vertically", and instead
build them "horizontally".

#\Erik
-- 
1,3,7-trimethylxanthine -- a basic ingredient in quality software.