A Lisp Startup | Hacker News Reader

A Lisp Startup

8 pointsCaiGengYang4 comments

I have decided that I am going to build a Lisp startup. I would like some suggestions for credible startup ideas ...

Perhaps instead of putting the focus in the language you should put a lot of effort and focus on which product or service you are going to develop. Many lispers like people in rethinkdb or the author of the favorite book for CL use other languages (C++ for rethinkdb, Ruby for the author of the book), so first is the product or service, the computer language and tools are a secondary tool. Premature choosing the language perhaps indicate you need to think again what you are going to do in your startup.

I hate to break it to you - but most of the time, the language chosen matters very little in terms of the idea turning into a success or not.

Lisp is honestly the best language you can choose assuming you know it well and have mastered the tooling. And it can be much faster than other dynamic languages like python or ruby.

But your focus on the language over the product is wrong. Google built their empire on crusty old boring C++. No fancy live interactive coding. Language only makes you happy. The product makes the user happy.

I am currently reading Paul Graham's book "Hackers and Painters" and on page 228, paragraph 15 --- it says that one thing that would help web-based applications, and help keep the next generation of software from being overshadowed by Microsoft, would be a good open source browser. A small, fast browser would be a great thing in itself, and would encourage companies to build little web appliances. He goes on to say that "If you want to change the world,write a new Mosaic. Think it's too late? In 1998 a lot of people thought it was too late to launch a new search engine, but Google proved them wrong. There is always room for something new if it is significantly better.

Is there room to create much better browsers than the current ones in existence?

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