Paul Wilson (wilson@cs.utexas.edu) wrote:
: That's understandable, too. What I'm trying to figure out is which issues
: are the most important in overcoming resistance to things like Scheme
: and Smalltalk.
I can't address smalltalk, but with regards to scheme and lisp
in general:
1. People thing lisp is weird.
2. People think lisp programmers are weirdos.
3. All attempts by lisp programmers to refute #1 seem to confirm #2.
I have to agree with Karl Lehenbauer's points regarding this... I
enjoyed lisp, but there's lots of people who just don't seem
to relate to it.
In another post, you mention that the computer language community
should be embarrased by Tcl (I can't quite remember the exact wording).
I think that an equally valid question is:
Why are so many of the popular languages created not by language
theorists but by people trying to accomplish some other task?
(I think JO raised this last point in his MIT lecture.)
Mark.
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