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Re: What makes a programming language popular?

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On 2/7/2012 11:34 AM, Rui Maciel wrote:
> Fritz Wuehler wrote:
>
>> The most obvious factor is what is the OS and its interface written in?
>
> This is irrelevant.  If this was the case then no interpreted language would
> ever have succeeded. Yet, Java is one of the most popular programming
> languages, along with perl, PHP and python.
>

yeah.

it is not what the OS is written in, but what can most easily access the 
relevant functionality.

for many tasks, this means C or C++, but it is not always the case, and 
a "not entirely terrible" FFI can go a long ways to helping in this case 
(IOW: can I access the relevant APIs without writing a crapload of ugly 
cruft and boilerplate?...).


>
>> If
>> not for UNIX being written in C with an interface defined in C header
>> files, C wouldn't have seen the light of day outside Bell Labs.
>
> This is stupid.  A group of smart people took the time to design and develop
> a new programming language because at that time no other programming
> language successfully scratched the itch they needed scratching.  As the
> world was packed with people who also wanted to scratch that particular
> itch, the C programming language quickly took off.  This has absolutely
> nothing to do with UNIX or "C header files".
>

yeah...

otherwise, no one would have bothered to port C compilers to other, 
non-Unix, targets (such as MS-DOS).


>
>>> some factors:
>>> familiarity, how much does it look like what people already know and
>>> like?
>>
>> Historically irrelevant, now probably very relevant.
>
> What do you mean by "historically"?  One of the reasons behind the success
> of programming languages such as C++, Java, C#, javascript and others is how
> they managed to become familiar by copying the syntax of the C programming
> language.
>

agreed.

actually, in many cases each has made a fair amount of inroads by 
copying the syntax/semantics/... of preceding popular languages.

sort of know C++ or Java?... you should have little problem learning C#, ...

many languages which have looked new or unfamiliar have often been 
received coldly, and the less familiar it looks, the harder time it will 
have.

not that it has to dogmatically clone the preceding languages (and 
especially not their built-in limitations), but being close enough that 
people who know the old language can figure out the new language without 
too much pain or a steep learning curve seems fairly relevant.


>
>>> what merits does it bring versus existing options?
>>
>> Irrelevant. What do you need to use to get the job done in environment X?
>> That is what you will choose whether the language itself is good or bad.
>
> The main reason that defines if a particular programming language is good or
> bad is if gets the job done and how well it does the job when compared with
> alternatives.  Therefore, why can you claim it is irrelevant?
>

yep.

"getting the job done" is a big factor in what defines "merit".

it one is left to choose "well, I could use language X or I could use 
Perl?". if Perl can perform the task easily, but X would make it a 
horrible pain or have some other crippling drawback, this sort of counts 
against it having all that many "merits" (these are, in-fact, "demerits").

if the reverse is true:
the task would be horribly painful in Perl, but trivial in X, and X 
lacks any obvious drawbacks, well then, X has "merit" with regards to 
the task at hand.


merit is not built from "magic" or "what should be", but rather is built 
(much like nearly everything else) from cost/benefit tradeoffs and the 
pursuit of self-interest (not necessarily money, but pursuit of money is 
a potential form pursuit of self-interest may take).

so, the merit of something is thus how well it aligns with ones' 
self-interests (within the confines of bounded-rationality), which may 
in turn be defined by various other factors (both internal and external).


>
>> The answer for UNIX-eunichs is always C
>
> How do you explain the multitude of software developed to run on UNIX and
> unix-like OSs that is actually developed in languages other than C?
>

yep.

many use Java, and some use C# (even if, IMHO, Mono is sort of crap, but 
whatever...).

likewise, the world is not Unix, and I personally mostly develop on 
Windows (actually, if everything were about Unix, then probably the 
world wouldn't have become dominated by Windows systems...).


Windows in-fact had a fair amount of merit from the POV of most 
consumers and end-users:
was user friendly;
came by default on most new PCs;
wasn't absurdly expensive;
...

now, it had drawbacks early on:
was buggy, prone to crashing, ...
but this was outweighed by its other merits (and, MS has since greatly 
improved stability as well).

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What makes a programming language popular? Aaron W. Hsu <arcfide@sacrideo.us> - 2012-02-05 19:33 -0600
  Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-05 22:57 -0700
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201202.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-02-07 18:12 +0100
      Re: What makes a programming language popular? Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@gmail.com> - 2012-02-07 18:34 +0000
        Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-07 15:25 -0700
  Re: What makes a programming language popular? tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2012-02-06 23:27 -0800
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-07 15:53 -0700
      Re: What makes a programming language popular? gremnebulin <peterdjones@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-08 04:07 -0800
        Re: What makes a programming language popular? BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-08 17:15 -0700
          Second Best Language Aaron W. Hsu <arcfide@sacrideo.us> - 2012-02-08 20:19 -0600
            Re: Second Best Language BGB <cr88192@hotmail.com> - 2012-02-08 21:27 -0700
    Re: What makes a programming language popular? gremnebulin <peterdjones@yahoo.com> - 2012-02-08 04:05 -0800

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