Re: A plea for a new old language

[Matt Hellige <address@hidden>]

[Brent Fulgham <brent.fulgham@xpsystems.com>]
> 
> Personally, I think you should just *do* it!  Imagine what a "feather in the
> cap" you would be creating for advanced languages by introducing such
> a feature into Parrot....  Plus you would instantly make Parrot so much cooler
> than any other alternatives.  :-)
> 

I agree. Developers will learn to deal with "difficult" concepts when
they're faced with them. This is how we grow as programmers... 

This actually brings up an interesting issue with open source
development, though: if maintainers of OSS are afraid to use XYZ
"advanced technique" in their code, because they fear losing the
help of less experienced contributors, what does this say about the
quality of OSS relative to its potential? How many code-bases out
there have been dumbed-down this way out of fear? Perhaps more
importantly, what does this say about the personal development of open
source programmers? How do we expect less experienced programmers to
improve their skills if they just leave when the going gets tough?

Maybe this is an argument in favor of a more traditional employment
relationship where programmers can't simply walk away from a project
when faced with something they don't yet undrestand... Look, for
example, at the success of Erlang. Would that ever have happened in an
open source environment?

Matt

-- 
Matt Hellige                  matt@immute.net
http://matt.immute.net