[Baypiggies] OT: The Future Of Programming Languages

[Tony Cappellini]

>
> >>That was interesting.


You may find this book interesting as well.
http://www.baypiggies.net/index_html/user-group-association-program/BookReviews/coders-at-work-reflections-on-the-craft-of-programming-by-peter-seibel-review-by-tony-cappellini

Guy Steel is one of the 15 people interviewed, and was in the panel I
previously posted about.

For the Lispers out there, there is a *lot* of talk about Lisp history and
development in this book, *almost* enough to make me want to find out what
all the fuss is about.

L Peter Deutsch quoted Larry Wall's reference to the Lisp language "a bowl
of oatmeal with fingernail clippings in it"
(LMAO)

As if Larry has any room to talk about the unsightliness of the source code
of other languages ;-))



> >>And Python was voted both best overall language and best scripting
> >>language by Linux Journal readers.
>
I believe this was two years in a row, or two years in recent times.


>
>  <http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/readers-choice-awards-2010>>>nother
> message I got from that, between the lines, is that Perl is a
> >>dead-end.
>
As much as I dislike Perl, I think it still has a lot of life although I'm
not holding my breath for Perl 6.
I think people can continue using Perl 5 for a long time.

Having just read "Seven Languages", and "Coders At Work", it makes me
wonder- does the world still need so many languages?
Is the trend going for more language development or languages which attempt
to consolidate several languages and programming paradigms?

Could we survive with say only 10 or 20 languages?

I should probably take this offline since I've strayed way off topic, but
these books and the panel video bring up so many questions.
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