Paradigms Without Progress: Kuhnian Reflections on Programming Practice [video]

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22 points·BadInformatics··3 comments

I think this is linked to a question I raised some months ago: http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5590

After reflecting a bit about the answers I got, I've come to the conclusion that these languages and paradigms don't matter. No paradigm wins because none is substantially better. The tools/libraries etc are much more important.

There might be a time where we see a new paradigm emerge victorious (like in the transition from machine code/assembly to procedural). Or maybe programming will stop existing and we'll just have A.I.

Back in the late 90's I worked as a programmer. There was a minibus that took us from the train station to headquarters. One guy on the minibus said: you know what the best language to program in is? It's the one you want you program in.

It's like the advice someone gave about whether to choose Python or Ruby. He said: toss a coin, and then choose the language that you wished that the coin had landed on.

An interesting YouTube vid I saw some time ago was by Jerry Sussman: "We do not know how to compute".

My first thought: How nice it is to hear someone speak as if they were standing in a large hall, even if in reality it is just their living room.

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