An Architect's View

10 responses so far ↓

• 1 Peter Bell // Jan 18, 2007 at 4:01 PM

  But is that a function of technology or of management? Will the PHB really risk using a "beautiful" language (for beautiful, usually also read edgy, experimental, not mainstream and generally risky) for an important (and hence useful) project?!

• 2 Jacob Munson // Jan 19, 2007 at 6:47 AM

  I agree with that quote. While I think a 'beautiful' language is more fun to develop with, I find that people that really care about the type of language they use are not necessarily the people with the talent/brains/guts to develop a system that is useful and popular. There are countless examples out there of sites/systems that get the job done, but if 'elite' programmer types saw the code, they'd lift their nose in the air in disgust.

• 3 Richard Tugwell // Jan 19, 2007 at 7:52 AM

  I think the telling phrase is "deemed awful" rather than "praised for being beautiful"

• 4 Peter Bell // Jan 19, 2007 at 10:34 AM

  Hi Jacob,
  
  I think you're pretty much 100% wrong. In my experience, it is the developers who care most about language that are also the most capable of developing great solutions in whatever language they use. I was speaking with Joe Yoder a while back and he clearly loves SmallTalk and is only doing the best he can in .NET because the language choice was a non-technical requirement.
  
  Are you really suggesting the Martin Fowlers and Dave Thomas' don't have the talent, brains and/or guts to develop useful systems? I'm not saying there are not some wannabe hackers who are happier praising Ruby that shipping code, but in my experience the best applications are those that are as elegant as practical given project constraints and it is the best developers who care most about the subtleties of the language used.
  
  To give an analogy, I know nothing about woodwork, so to me a lathe is a lathe. A master craftsperson would no doubt feel the subtly differences between lathes based on balance, weight and materials used. Same with languages.

• 5 Jacob Munson // Jan 19, 2007 at 11:12 AM

  Peter,
  
  I wasn't trying to imply that those kind of developers /can't/ make useful systems, just that often times the most useful systems out there are made by developers that just want to get the job done with whatever language they choose, for whatever reason, and 'beauty' is almost never a factor. What I mean is, if you are smart enough to identify a beautiful language, that doesn't mean you've also got what it takes to develop a useful product. But yes, plenty of these folks make useful products.
  
  Look at the countless shareware/freeware apps out there that were written in VB. I don't think VB would be considered a beautiful language (before the .Net days), but it was used because it was easy, and a LOT of software got produced with it.

• 6 Gus // Jan 19, 2007 at 8:47 PM

  A vehicle launched from earth, flew into space, depostied humans on the moon brought them back safely.
  
  All of this was done without a single line of elegant OO code, and written in a 'primitave' ugly language.
  
  Amazon, Yahoo and virtually every other pioneering website were built with PERL.
  
  The language is irrelevent... the result is all that matters.
  

• 7 Richard Tugwell // Jan 19, 2007 at 11:37 PM

  Gus - agree entirely. How "good" an application is judged by the users, not developers or computer scientists. I include in this non functional aspects as well, so ease of maintenance and other architecture related things is there by implication. Where I'm working CF for example is looked down on by the OO bigots, who are always several months away from releasing anythng, but the CF applications are loved by the users, who have no idea how they are developed.

• 8 J // Jan 21, 2007 at 2:47 PM

  Rather than copying my answer all over, see my comments down at my <a href="http://joshcruz.blogspot.com/2007/01/genius-misquotes.html">blog </a>

• 9 Sean Corfield // Jan 22, 2007 at 3:48 PM

  @J (Joshua Cornejo), I didn't hear Bjarne say that particular quote in person but I have several other favorites from him that do come from personal experience - when I was working with him on the C++ Standards Committee for eight years. The points you make on your blog are good ones however and Bjarne has uttered a lot of memorable lines that can (and often are) taken out of context...

• 10 Roger Lancefield // Jan 26, 2007 at 5:00 AM

  Heh! My favourite of his is "There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses."

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