How many people use or used Lisp?
in [Lisp]
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From: Alain Picard on 16 Mar 2010 20:39 "vanekl" <vanek(a)acd.net> writes: > I know a PHB who wants to switch to a commodity language so that he can hire > commodity programmers and pay commodity wages, firing all the expensive > programmers on one of his major software projects. This is a very, very common situation. However, the solution there isn't to try to pretend that lisp is "popular" --- it's to find a better job with a better boss. Ultimately, creating your own job/company may be the only avenue left for those "expensive, prima donna programmers" (sic!) unwilling to allow themselves to become replaceable, commodity items. Also, note that often, the PHB isn't really the boss; he's a middle-manager. Good programmers should have no compunction about going over his head to explain to the real boss why the rewrite is a catastrophically bad idea. What've they got to lose in any case?
From: vanekl on 16 Mar 2010 22:32 Alain Picard wrote: > "vanekl" <vanek(a)acd.net> writes: > >> I know a PHB who wants to switch to a commodity language so that he >> can hire commodity programmers and pay commodity wages, firing all >> the expensive programmers on one of his major software projects. > > This is a very, very common situation. However, the solution there > isn't to try to pretend that lisp is "popular" --- it's to find a > better job with a better boss. Ultimately, creating your own > job/company may be > the only avenue left for those "expensive, prima donna programmers" > (sic!) unwilling to allow themselves to become replaceable, commodity > items. That's the plan, Stan. > Also, note that often, the PHB isn't really the boss; he's a > middle-manager. Right again. > Good programmers should have no compunction about > going over his head to explain to the real boss why the rewrite > is a catastrophically bad idea. Here in the fly-over area IT managers are largely brain-dead. Since they don't know how much effort a project takes, they keep asking for a commitment hoping you are stupid enough to do so, and if you aren't stupid their fallback position is to make up an arbitrary date. I think chicken entrails are used, but I've never seen behind that curtain -- blood makes me queasy. One of the projects I worked on at that place had a projected schedule of 360 hours. I finished in 8.5 hours. Unfortunately the standard deviation of their time estimates was wide and their corporate random number generator (which they referred to as "project management") erred both high and low. > What've they got to lose in any case? If the company is rotting from top to bottom you can lose a large chunk of your life. I quit. No regrets.
From: David Thole on 18 Mar 2010 07:06 "vanekl" <vanek(a)acd.net> writes: > David Thole wrote: >> Some have already said this - but what's the point in worrying about >> popularity of Lisp-like languages anyways? > > I know a PHB who wants to switch to a commodity language so that he can hire > commodity programmers and pay commodity wages, firing all the expensive > programmers on one of his major software projects. So questions like this > that test the waters to check whether a language is popular enough to > support a large enough ecosystem of programmers could be useful. I'm not > suggesting this is Kazimir's motivation, however. > > PHBs don't care if you are programming in PHP, CL, or Smalltalk, they just > want it done cheaply and not by expensive, prima donna programmers. The > ironic thing? The program that was written by expensive programmers with an > exotic language is already built, is running well, and the company uses it > successfully every day. What's even more of a poke in the eye, it's the > company's only major custom software system that was able to adapt to the > changing business requirements on schedule. Of course this is just one data > point, but it's a rather large one. Names withheld to protect the guilty. > > Yeah, that's really part of the problem in that companies think they are getting by cheap by hiring poor programmers. In the end, maintenance cost of the application, and extended deadlines really balance out the cost area when it comes to hiring good developers. Exotic languages are definitely a risk if it depends on too few of developers, but I suppose a company would then need to concern themselves with staff happiness instead of being concerned with the "bus-factor" as I hear it commonly said (more people familiar with everything so less reliance on 1-2 people). Sadly, at least my experience, companies are edging their way on trying to be able to hire/fire anyone easily with litte/no impact on the project. Ah the fun of feeling like a number. -- David http://www.thedarktrumpet.com/
From: David Thole on 18 Mar 2010 07:10 Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla(a)gmail.com> writes: > On Mar 15, 11:26 am, Pascal Costanza <p...(a)p-cos.net> wrote: >> On 15/03/2010 04:46, Kazimir Majorinc wrote: >> >> > How many people use Lisp (all dialects >> > combined) today? My guess: 3000, based >> > on the membership on various Lisp forums. >> > Anyone with better guess? >> >> The people who use such forums probably represent only a minor fraction >> of the number of actual Lisp users. > > I completely agree. As an example, if you count the number of people > who actively post on comp.lang.java.programmer you'll find it's more > or less the same number as comp.lang.lisp, if not inferior. Yet, Java > is used much, much more than Lisp. > > Alessio I wonder if this also has to do with passion of a language. I rarely see that much passion in the Java community as I see in the Lisp-like-languages community (grouping together CL, Clojure, and Scheme in this regard). -- David http://www.thedarktrumpet.com/
From: David Thole on 18 Mar 2010 07:19
Slobodan Blazeski <slobodan.blazeski(a)gmail.com> writes: > On Mar 15, 6:03 pm, Otto Diesenbacher <diesenbac...(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> Duke Normandin <dukeofp...(a)ml1.net> writes: >> > Haven't got a clue on Lisper population. ;) >> >> > I'd be more interested in the popularity of Lisp et al (and other languages) >> > based on nationality or geographic region. I didn't see any such stats at >> > tiobe.com, but it doesn't mean that they don't exist. I must have used the >> > wrong search terms at Google. ;) >> >> http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid... > According to the map I don't exist. You may be on the 2nd or 3rd pages. Took me awhile to find this, but you can scroll down in the left column to the bottom and hit "next" -- David http://www.thedarktrumpet.com/ |