I don't want to criticise the blub essay too much because there were some valid points in there. But in fairness as soon as I read it I thought of John Carmack. He uses C++. Given that the perspective of the essay is Lisp then if C++ isn't a blub I don't know what is.

But John Carmack is really productive.

Also he doesn't use vi or emacs. He uses an IDE! He used it even before it had any bells or whistles at all. (He also uses Windows!)

So is it because he's a genius and he does it in spite of using blub? Or is it because:

"Peter Norvig here. [....] In terms of programming-in-the-large, at Google and elsewhere, I think that language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you; if you don't have those things you're in trouble regardless of your language choice."

As for Notch. He uses Java and wait for it..

Eclipse!