Re: Industry versus academia

[Spencer Schumann <address@hidden>]

> 
> One thing that I've always hoped would happen (but hasn't yet) is that new,
> advanced languages would be able to do things that are not merely difficult
> or tedious in existing languages, but well-nigh impossible.  In that case,
> and assuming what they do is valuable to industry, I think industry types
> would rush to hire pointy-headed academics who know about monads and
> continuations etc., simply because that's the only way the job is going to
> get done.  
> 

Maybe it would be enough for an advanced language to do things that can be
done in other languages, but do them so much more quickly and provide
such a better solution in the end than would a conventional language that
the clear choice would be the advanced language.

I have read Paul Graham's essay on how Lisp enabled his company to produce
better online stores faster than anyone else could.  If there were more stories
like this, I think the industry would take notice that, although they could
do the same kinds of things with languages like C++, some other language
could make their programmers so much more productive that it would be insane
to do things "the old way."


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