Choosing a programming language as a competitive tool

[Courageous]

On 02 May 2001 10:44:04 -0400, Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin at mems-exchange.org> wrote:

>John Schmitt <jschmitt at vmlabs.com> writes:
>> What I got out of this was that choosing a good programming language can be
>> a competitive advantage.  Graham chooses Lisp.  For me this isn't a Lisp
>
>I liked all the comments on Slashdot that said they'd prefer to use
>something more common such as C++ because it's too difficult to find
>good programmers who can handle Lisp.  Hmmm.... "let's not get good
>programmers to make our product in Lisp/Python/whatever; we'll get
>some mediocre programmers to make it in C++ and that'll be better for
>the company."  Explains a lot about the pathetic state of software,
>doesn't it?

Not really, no. Not only is it difficult to find Lisp programmers, it's hard
to train them, and even harder to make them good Lisp programmers.
Add to this mix that there's little out there in terms of third party (pay or
free) library support, and you have a really sour recipe. In my experience,
if you're going the Lisp route, you need mavericks.

Python, however, is different. Whether they know the language or not
doesn't matter much. They can learn all they need to know in under a
week, and the library core, both included and supplementary, is
enormous. There's also much higher support in the free community
(the net, etc).

C//