
 2010-02-26 beyond the door (warp speed) - wglb
http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2010-02-26-100443_beyond_the_door.html
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andreyf
Great article, but it beats around the elephant in the room. Most people learn
to program to get something done, not just for the sake of it. That's what the
"killer app" argument amounts to - a "killer app" does something easy to grasp
that you can't in your current language of choice (remember the original RoR
screen casts?).

So while there's nothing wrong with "only learning to program when it'll
clearly let you get more things done", Lisp isn't for those people, since
"building beautiful abstractions" isn't worth the extra effort over learning
PHP or Ruby.

Also, I have no what the author means by people's "aversion to math" in
relation to boolean algebra and graph theory, of all things. Both graph theory
and algebra are subsets of math.

~~~
dpezely
I would emphasize that the killer app for Lisp is simply programming. "Simply"
in the sense that you're unencumbered and not fenced in to any particular
cliche such as Ruby being stereotyped in its association with Rails.

Ten years ago when deep into Python, I'd explain the language to others by
including the disclaimer that you probably wouldn't want to use it for writing
an OS. Writing a near-deterministic scheduler in it ultimately motivated my
return to Lisp.

I offer no such disclaimer when describing Common Lisp to other programmers,
executives or founders at start-ups where I've used it.

Apparently, most people want to convince themselves of the value for a tool by
citing something external. To this end, it's likely that the success of EVE
Online has helped Stackless/Python in terms of reputation.

I suspect everyone paid to write Lisp that I know would respond with something
like: if you need that kind of external validation, then you probably don't
know what you really need or want, so let's not wake the sleepwalker.

Maybe the sociological question has to do with why some people need/want that
validation (killer app) versus those who don't.

For completeness and to preempt questions of what is the EVE equivalent for
Lisp success stories: early days of NaughtyDog using GOAL, work at the
University of Colorado and 2010 book, _Land of Lisp_, just to name a few.

But that will never be enough for people who prefer commodity languages for
the sake of safety in numbers, as Lisp isn't commodity today. More than just a
bootstrapping issue or citing decline due to the AI winter, it may never reach
critical mass to be commodity because so few individuals are involved with
each success story.

That is, since you often need only a few developers when using Lisp, there's
less need to evangelize when recruiting. Job postings I've made have often
been a single sentence mentioning Common Lisp and the city, which yielded very
high quality people.

It's rather like what is said of big dogs: they don't bark nearly as much as
little ones because there's nothing to prove.

For Lisp, questions of killer apps and becoming a mainstream or commodity
language (again) is unfortunately impacted by this larger context. Certainly,
I would love to see my favorite language enjoying popular status. In the end,
however, it's rather like some explanations for the meaning of life: it's a
personal quest, and the journey is part of the answer. So too with deciding to
use Lisp. It's okay to break-away from the crowd.

This brings us back to one recurring theme of Justin's essays: Try it and
decide for yourself. Or Don't.

Regarding "aversion to math," many developers unfortunately opt for the least
they can get away with and retain only enough to pass exams or interview
questions. It's the difference between being able to recite versus being
resourceful and the array of implications associated with each. I suspect that
statement is aimed at people who became programmers because it pays better
than other directions the individual has considered.

