[dang]

> think you’d also be hard pressed to find someone who would call Arc great.

I would call Arc great! It's one of my favorite things about my job that I get to work in it every day...though not nearly enough every day.

As for Viaweb, are you sure you're not looking at this through hindsight? Those guys were among the first to invent what we now call web apps, years before AJAX. In an era of internet startups coasting on hype, they built a real business - basically what is now called Shopify today. They also did it with a shockingly small team. All that seems pretty great to me.

[luffapi]

I guess I don’t find an online store interesting or innovative. It’s hardly the Apple II or Linux. I also wonder if a sub 100M acquisition would be considered a success by pg himself on a YC company.

Have you ever heard of WebObjects? It was light years ahead of what Viaweb was doing at the time.

[dang]

An online store generator is not an online store. To do that with Lisp macros in 1995 seemed crazily innovative to me when I first read about it in 2001 or so.

[luffapi]

Honestly I’m not trying to be rude, sorry if it came off like that. That’s cool you like Arc, I’m a lisp fan myself (mainly Clojure).

I’m just pointing out that there was a lot of innovation happening at the time and what pg did wasn’t really lasting or that innovative. I don’t have a problem with it, until he espouses what I consider toxic work habits as advice. Too many people listen to him uncritically, it’s not good for our industry.