Re: what's your motivation?

[Paul Graham <address@hidden>]

I'm not sure how seriously you meant this, but I agree
completely.  One way to solve hard problems is to write
a language for solving that kind of problem, then write
your app in it.  On Lisp is all about this, and it worked
out spectacularly well in Viaweb, which included several
embedded languages for specific problems.  

People have said (presumably as an article of faith) 
that Viaweb would have done just as well if we had been 
equally proficient in some other language, but I don't 
see how we could have written the code we did without 
Lisp macros.

--- Michael Vanier <mvanier@bbb.caltech.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 16:21:04 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Paul Graham <paulgraham@yahoo.com>
> > 
> > I think it is impossible to become very rich designing 
> > programming languages.  Supply and demand determines the 
> > value of various types of work like any other commodity.  
> > Designing languages is such pleasant work that people will 
> > do it for free.  The way to get rich is to do something 
> > that is too unpleasant or stressful for anyone to do it 
> > for free (but too hard technically for big companies).
> > 
> > --pg
> > 
> 
> Or: to design a language that makes it really easy to do something
> that is
> too unpleasant or stressful for anyone to do it for free, and too
> hard
> technically for big companies, in any existing language.  Then you
> sell the
> results and pretend to be a genius ;-)
> 
> Mike
> 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions for all of
your unique holiday gifts! Buy at http://shopping.yahoo.com
or bid at http://auctions.yahoo.com