[stellalo]

> Programming languages do matter but not as much as many people think f.ex. the HN crowd has a soft spot for LISP, and most of the don't even have proper parallel execution

I don’t understand how the argument about LISP would imply that programming languages matter “not as much as many people think”

[pdimitar]

I mean that people over-fixate on syntax or language quirks, but when you start writing for (and deploying for) production then it turns out that many others things are much more important. And I wish people were more practical in our area and they are often not, they are like kids who only want to play even.

And even though I am eating down votes I will keep saying it: fangirling over LISP I view as a collective drag and to the detriment of the entire programming area.

Obviously I am not a world dictator saying what should people spend their time on. I am saying that if you want to truly move the art forward, well, we have 5000 other problems that are at least 100x more important than "oh look I can code a basic LISP interpreter".

My opinion, obviously, but it's also one that I would not be easily dissuaded from.

[spit2wind]

> I am saying that if you want to truly move the art forward, well, we have 5000 other problems that are at least 100x more important than "oh look I can code a basic LISP interpreter".

How does one "move the art forward" without understanding the landscape first? That is, an individual can't know what "forward" means without understanding where they currently are. There isn't a finite number of people over a fixed period of time doing all this. Just because something "is known" to humanity doesn't mean it's known by every individual presently. Each generation must rediscover what previous generations knew, either through raw insight or by knowledge transfer. People aren't born with computing knowledge :)

Viewed this way, how many people in the world, presently, have sufficient knowledge to "move the art forward"? How many have the means? I'd put it at a few hundred. Maybe you're one of them?

You explicitly say you can't be easily disuaded from your opinion, so maybe I'm just spitting into the wind. However, rather than talk down on people doing the hard work of learning where they're at in history, being excited my genuinely exciting things, and taking the necessary steps to "move the art forward", maybe you could assist them by sharing your experience? Or, simply move the art forward yourself :)

PS: Play is exactly what's needed. That's how humans learn and discover :) But maybe we need to play more efficiently? ;)

[pdimitar]

> How does one "move the art forward" without understanding the landscape first?

Practice data structures, make complex algorithms described in books (most of which are free, and the rest are maximum $35), code a small program for an embedded controller for once to see how the sausage is made first-hand, participate in different kinds of open-source. There are plenty of ways outside of "the world needs one more LISP interpreter".

> Just because something "is known" to humanity doesn't mean it's known by every individual presently.

Sadly. I wish I belonged to another species where this assertion was not true. Sigh.

> Viewed this way, how many people in the world, presently, have sufficient knowledge to "move the art forward"? How many have the means? I'd put it at a few hundred. Maybe you're one of them?

Me? Absolutely not, I am 43 and at this point I am severely burned out. I had so many ideas and ambitions but working for the man for 22 years has crushed me. Maybe if I get a bag of money in the upper 7 digits I'll be able to reignite my tinkering spirit but we don't live in fairly land and this is not happening so nope. You're looking at one more person who was crushed by the free market forces.

That being said, you have people working on e.g. the Rust compiler or OCaml in general. Likely a bunch of geniuses and I love it that they are actually funded and are keeping up the good fight. Gives me some hope.

> maybe you could assist them by sharing your experience?

Yes, that's the best idea really: education. But as we all know (1) younger people never listen to advice, and (2) I probably never found the right audience (though thinking of it I am starting to see some lectures popping up lately in my city again, maybe I should try to go). I've been told I am excellent mentor (as recently as 3 months ago) but my health and time constraints prevent me from doing it more.

But how do you educate people to be unhappy with the status quo? I seriously don't know. The human brain is kind of like this: "Hey I am not hungry, I have where to sleep and most of my basic needs are covered, I guess the world is perfect and I don't need to change anything at all anywhere". Observed it thousands of times in my life and I am bitter about it to this day, likely to my grave.

> But maybe we need to play more efficiently?

Yep, I would not be against some central "authority" website / app that distributes "play" tasks to whoever is willing to do them (obviously with plenty of repetition and redundancy, you can't have 10 people agree to tackle on 10 different tasks and then they never show up again). And this does not remove choice, you can still present people with like 50 choices and they surely will identify with at least one of them.

All this free energy, wasted all the time. [sighs deeply] I wish we had more structure and direction is what I am saying all along.