Re: bindings and assignments (was: Re: continuations)

[Michael Vanier <address@hidden>]

> Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 15:57:40 -0700
> From: Aaron Leung <akhleung@earthlink.net>
> 
> (I'm coming into this discussion late, so I hope I don't say something 
> totally irrelevant.)
> 
> On Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 03:26  PM, Zooko wrote:
> > Yes!  Java broke C++'s monopoly, and now C# is breaking Java's, and 
> > this
> > sequence of broken monopolies dispelled the belief that have to use 
> > "the
> > standard language", and now I code in Python for a living.
> 
> This reminds me of the Hegelian notion of the dialectic -- thesis, 
> antithesis, and synthesis.  I guess that makes C++ the thesis, Java the 
> antithesis, and C# the synthesis.  But Hegelian dialectic is an 
> iterative, ongoing process, so I guess the ultimate thesis, and the end 
> of the history of programming languages, will be Lisp.
> 
> Aaron
> 

Much as I like lisp, I have a really hard time thinking that it, or
anything else, will be the Ultimate One True Language.  The problem space
is IMO too complex to admit an uber-language that will subsume all others.
Too many features in language design are mutually exclusive (in practice,
if not necessarily in theory).

Now, one can argue (as Paul Graham does) that the "ultimate language", if
it's ever created, will look more like lisp than like any currently
existing language.  That seems more plausible to me.

Mike