

 Purpose-Built Languages - pmarin
http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1508217

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10ren
Summary: many languages are dev tools, playing specific support-roles in an
eco-system. Where major languages interact, you'll likely get hybrid support
languages between.

This article confirms for me that dev tools are worth investing time in
developing (and crappy is OK); that languages wars in the abstract are
pointless, as you can only evaluate language utility with respect to a 1.
specific task; and 2. specific users. It's better to ignore anyone who goes on
about any particular language being "better". Better for _what_? Better for
_whom_?

I found the writing a bit dry; and the in-depth examples were mostly of the
languages that the author himself wrote. Although they were successfully
adopted for their task, and they are examples he can speak authoritatively
about, it's a small sample from which to generalize.

