Subject: Re: Learning from C++'s success ( was C++ briar patch ) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/05/20 Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.c++ Message-ID: <3073076743643317@naggum.no> * David Hanley | ... Mr Strosup ... his name is actually Bjarne Stroustrup. (all good text editors can help you write names correctly. Forté Agent probably doesn't have a good text editor the way it breaks your lines, but it's worth investigating, anyway.) | How does this apply to functional languages? Well, for whatever reason | functional languages are not the 'norm' in the software community. | Sorry, that's the fact. If I were to start a project and decide 'let's | do it in LISP' i'd have a pretty hard time finding enough qualified lisp | programmers, and a hard time convincing management it was a good idea to | use lisp. this is not my experience. rational management is interested in solutions to their problems, and will listen to their programmers. irrational management is interested in reducing their investments, at all costs. there is probably a difference between hired personnell and consultants, however. on the other hand, I once worked with a programmer who bought a Smalltalk system with his own money, delivered very useful software in time and only a long time thereafter was he reimbursed for it. we didn't have a particularly bright manager, however. | If C++ can get us increased productivity in the next quarter, great. | Let's use it. It would probably take more time than that to teach the | whole staff passable LISP. I realize that it has become the norm to guise wild guesses in the cloth of respectable fact, but where do you find the foundation for your "probably"? | We might surmise that a small software company could use LISP and be | sucessful because of higher productivity. Unfortunately, this evidence | is mysteriously lacking. sigh. do you think the same can be said for any other languages or tools? do you think it might be possible to say this for _all_ inventions at one time or another? #\Erik -- if we work harder, will obsolescence be farther ahead or closer?