Re: Java GOOD -- Fire BAD

[Christopher Barber <address@hidden>]

>
> What you have to remember is that Paul's own experience is that of a 
> startup. And he writes in one of the articles on his website that if 
> you are a startup, using Lisp gives you a competitive advantage. If 
> you can call the shots and don't have to answer to anyone else, why 
> not use the best tool for the job? Makes sense. And there are/were 
> startups that thought this way--I remember a few B2B companies that 
> were using Lisp for this reason--don't think they survived, though 
> (not a fault of Lisp necessarily, just the way the chips fell).

Even if you have a startup, you may still not have a choice.  My very 
first job was working for an early-phase startup and we were required to 
use COBOL because the biggest customer was worried about what would 
happen if we went under and they had to maintain the product 
themselves.  The strange thing was that no one in our company actually 
knew COBOL when this decision was made plus we used a VAX/VMS-specific 
dialect so I am sure any real COBOL programmer would have been confused 
looking at our code.

>
> But in companies? They aren't necessarily interested in the best 
> language--again, Paul writes about this--they are optimizing for being 
> able to make programmers relatively cheap and replaceable. They're 
> optimizing for predictability not productivity, etc. And also they use 
> conventional technology since there are all sorts of third party 
> add-ons and tools available since these languages are popular. And 
> there are no runtime fees, the tools are cheaper, etc. etc. etc. 

Plus you are less likely to get fired for picking the dominant tools, 
even if they are not the best ones for the job, especially when those 
tools often are adequate for the job.

- Christopher