[CLUE-Talk] On hackers, productivity, and languages

[Glenn Oppegard]

On Jul 31, 2004, at 12:39 PM, Sean LeBlanc wrote:

> This posting by Paul Graham has lit up the Java blogging community 
> like a
> Christmas tree...mostly folks irritated at Graham for doing the all too
> often "my language can beat up your language" thing. I think "real" 
> hackers
> use the toolset that is appropriate for the job at hand. You can feel 
> l33t
> all you want, but even bright people have to admit that sometimes 
> something
> as lowly as VB/Access is right for some jobs under the right 
> circumstances,
> IMHO. Asserting that there is One True Language for all tasks is 
> venturing
> into I-have-a-hammer-and-everything-looks-like-a-nail territory. For
> humorous reading:

PG is talking about "Great Hackers," the ones in the top 99% of the 
field...like Alan Kay, RMS, Rob Pike, people like that. He's not 
talking about the guys with jobs working with J2EE, because a "great 
hacker" would hate coding that kind of stuff and not take the job. Just 
like a  "great hacker" wouldn't have a job where they have to write a 
VB/Access app. They take jobs at Google or Microsoft Research, where 
they can push the envelope.

Basically, he's saying they get to choose what they want to work on. 
And when they know they'll enjoy their work more when coding in Python, 
Perl, or LISP, they'll try and take jobs that use those languages. For 
them, those languages are more expressive and powerful, whereas maybe 
they feel suffocated by Java.

PG has an article called "Beating the Averages," 
(http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html) discussing his thoughts of how one 
language can be more powerful than another. For him, the ultimate 
language is LISP. When he's programming in another language, he feels 
really limited in his effectiveness without LISP-style macros.

It's certainly possible that some great hackers choose to program in 
Java -- but I wonder if those hackers have tried Python or LISP yet, 
and just don't know what they're missing.

Anyways, I think Graham's articles are interesting, and make me want to 
learn LISP just to see what the fuss is about. Maybe he's full of bunk 
though, is not a great hacker, and is just a fortunate millionaire from 
the dot-bomb. But his code is there, waiting for you to make the 
judgment yourself...

Glenn Oppegard
Aktiom Networks LLC