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Why We Need More Programming Languages

Posted by Soulskill on from the use-once-then-discard dept.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister writes in favor of new programming languages, given the difficulty of upgrading existing, popular languages. 'Whenever a new programming language is announced, a certain segment of the developer population always rolls its eyes and groans that we have quite enough to choose from already,' McAllister writes. 'But once a language reaches a certain tipping point of popularity, overhauling it to include support for new features, paradigms, and patterns is easier said than done.' PHP 6, Perl 6, Python 3, ECMAScript 4 — 'the lesson from all of these examples is clear: Programming languages move slowly, and the more popular a language is, the slower it moves. It is far, far easier to create a new language from whole cloth than it is to convince the existing user base of a popular language to accept radical changes.'"

2 of 421 comments (clear)

  1. Pffft. by epiphani · · Score: 5, Funny

    Only language we ever needed was C. You putzes just aren't using it right.
     
    /flamebait friday!

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  2. No, we don't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obligatory XKCD. http://xkcd.com/927/