madiathomas

Sorry. I thought it can also be used for an "insignificant person". I will avoid Latin terms next time.

Maybe he isn't talking about becoming a dollar billionaire at an early age at any community. Maybe he is talking top in the context of that community. If he was born in a remote village of a third world country, maybe he was going to rise to the top and have more cattle than anyone else, but globally, he was going to be a successful but an unknown herdman.

Edit: Removed confusing Latin terms.

I feel there must be a filter on Hacker News that allows us to hide all content behind paywalls. Or to block content from a certain domain from appearing on our feed. That will stop us from complaining. I don't live in the US and I am not about to subscribe to a US-based newspaper just to read one article per month. Telling us to just subscribe won't work. There are millions of newspapers around the world. We can't subscribe to all of them. Even to 10% of them.

Me: "I am selling this product that does X very well" Prospect: "Does it do Y and Z?. If it can do Y and Z, I will buy it"

Y and Z is different for each and every client. That's how products becomes bloated. It is demand from real world clients that demands features to be added before they can buy your product.

All groups of people found in South Africa were involved in building the infrastructure that I am using and paying for. Beside, that shouldn't even matter because it was state's resources which were used. Even now, it is state resources which are being used to build electricity infrastructure to replace the old.

What matters is that now the infrastructure is built for all group of people. In 5 years'time, the infrastructure will be completely new [1]. But still, no group of people should claim that they did us a favour by using state's resources to build the infrastructure. It is their job to provide electricity for all citizens.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Sout...

In the past, only privileged few used to have access to electricity in Southern Africa. Now almost everyone has access to electricity within two decades of ending of apartheid/colonisation. Having access to electricity is no longer a luxury for the privileged few. Electriticity infrastructure was built to provide electricity to privileged few. That's the biggest shift. By the way, I have access to electricity everyday and it isn't erratic.

Source -> I live in South Africa. Since 1982.

Thanks for the debate. I will try learning Lisp and see how it goes. Time for me to go to bed. It is 21h30 this side of the world -> South Africa.

> Java was originally developed by SUN together with its platform.

That's incorrect. Java programming language is part of the platform.

> Microsoft then mostly abandoned Java and is no longer relevant in the Java world.

Another incorrect statement. Microsoft didn't abandon Java, they were forced to abandon Java because of legal issues with Sun. That's why they created .NET. They are irrelevant because they decided to stop fighting Sun and created their own platform.

> Well, it's too easy to see, that you have no idea about actual data and it kind makes your arguments exposed to be on shaky grounds.

Lisp isn't even in the top 30. My exxageration were accurate.

> Kotlin is now their favorite language for Android development.

Google is only doing that because they were forced by Oracle. It is a forced choice.

> It's like saying flying is not something birds usually do, just because there are a few birds which don't fly.

That's not what I mean. All I am saying is that Gabrge collection isn't a feature of a programming language, it is a feature of the platform

> You didn't know where many of the features of the Java runtime come from or where they originated from.

You are making a mistake of talking about tools when we are discussing programming languages. I have seen most people make that mistake with .NET platform. Java programming language isn't Java platform. In fact, as a Lisper, you should know better to dissociate the tools from the platform because Lisp is so fragmentated.

> Historically there is no independent invention of the Java language.

J++ was a Microsoft independent implementation of Java programming language. Also Java used by Android is an independent implementation of Java programming language. It doesn't contain tools which are shown on the Java platform architecture diagram I pasted on my previous comment.

GC isn't part of Lisp. Never was. Never will. It was invented as a tool to be used with Lisp. In fact, some Lisp dialects don't even have garbage collection.

> I have no idea where you get your numbers from.

I was exxagerating to emphasize my point.

Curly braces, for loops, while loops, if statements, case statements, variable declaration and initialisation etc. All those things were carbon copied from C/C++, not Lisp.

The features you mentioned aren't part of the Java language, they are tools used by Java language. JVM isn't part of Java as a language, they are part of the Java platform. Most people confuse the language with the platform. JVM is a tool used by the language. Even Javac isn't part of Java. It is a tool used to compile Java [1].

I doubt any Java Programmer was dragged halfway to Lisp. If it was the case, we were going to see at least 10% of those Developers finishing the trip to Lisp but we didn't. That's why Lisp remains an obscure language used by 100 people on a good day.

[1] http://sheikyerbouti.developpez.com/tmp/j2se5.gif

Then we should relegate LISP to an academic programming language and stop pretending that it is a major player when all the data proves the contrary. LISP failed for half a century because it isn't the best tool for the job, not because we are just stupid and only the select few have the brains for it. It is not the case. It is just not good for the job at hand -> delivering solutions.

I have used 80% of those programming languages you listed in a professional environment and I didn't require to learn LISP. I didn't see any resemblence of LISP on any of them. To correct you, Java was heavily influenced by C/C++, not LISP. In such a way that my transition fron C++ to Java only took me few hours.

"Lisp isn’t a language, it’s a building material." - Alan Kay

They talk about what they are interested in on a daily basis. You don't even need to ask them. They will tell you.

There are millions of development tools in this world. No-one has time to learn all the tools. Even if they want to. I don't understand why LISP have to be the only exception when coming to tools a Developer can ignore. I doubt Linus Torvalds has time to learn every obscure technology out there. He focuses on delivering kick-ass solutions using C. Same as other great Programmers. It is the book writers and consultants who are busy learning each and every tool.

Out of those 100s of Developers that I know, none is interested in learning LISP. Not even as a hobby. Experienced Developers have already chosen their tools and they focus on improving on those skills.

Thank you. I went through the article and comments. It will be easier for me going forward because I will know that LISP is hyped because of HN's history. I didn't understand why an obscure language has so many fans here but close to non-existent in other places.

I understand the PG part but I don't agree with the experienced Programmers part. I know hundreds of experienced Programmers and zero of them are using LISP. I am one of them. They are using C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Python etc. Anything but LISP.

I won't even be surprised if LISP has a market share of less than 0.01%. Even in the US. Do you have examples of popular system built using LISP?

Each time I see a LISP related article on Hacker News, I always ask myself why LISP is so popular only on HN. This is the only website where I hear about LISP. Is LISP popular on HN because it brings advantages to the table or is it popular because it looks cool to say you use it, or something else?

Please help me understand. I am tempted to learn it but needs justification.

That's the beauty of it. I am left with real friends, not those who were hanging around me because I used to throw cool parties.

I eliminated TV 4 years ago and noticed these benefits:

- Finished 3 years qualification in record time - Doubled my salary - Managed to complete 3 profitable side projects - Improved my software development skills tenfold - and more...

In the process, I lost friends. I used to host 300+ people parties. I doubt I can be able to bring together 20 people in one place for a party.

For Google, there is no money to be made when people know how to enter URL in a browser's address bar. Money is on users searching for a company using a name each time they want to visit a company website. That way Google can bombard users with adverts. When they click on those adverts, Google get paid. Now companies will be forced to advertise using Google AdWords. So that they can appear on top of the search list. Otherwise Google will show ads of their competitors first.

A blanket banning of autoplay will be the only solution then. While at it, they must ban autoplaying of suggested videos. Autoplaying of suggested videos is the video site equivalent of autoscrolling.

Banning autoplay altogether will be the only solution to the problem. Then an opt-in setting can be baked into browsers to allow certain sites to use audio/video features. That way all sites will be treated the same. News sites can always claim to be video playing sites like YouTube, just to be included in the exceptin list.

Not sure what is the benefit of that video that follows you. If I wanted to watch the video, I was going stop scrolling and watch it. In most cases, those videos don't even allow you to pause them. They disable the pause button.

I don't like sites with autoplay. I only expect autoplay when the page I am about to visit is in a video site like YouTube. I hate it when I am reading a news article and a video autoplays.

Autoscrolling also can be irritating. If I click a TechCrunch article on HN, I don't want TC to load more articles at the end of the article I was reading without my consent. It is better to suggest related articles and give me an option to click on them if I am interested.

Yes. I meant Windows Server 2016. Thanks for the correction.

Compiled code is faster than interpreted code. C#.NET is a compiled lamguage and doesn't need to be interpreted at runtime. Making is faster than interpreted languages like PHP, Rails, Python etc. These days, some interpreted languages are now cheating and interpret only at first run. Then skip interpret step on subsequent runs.

C#.NET performance is up there with C++. C#.NET is only slower than C++ during garbage collection. When garbage collection is done, it is back in business and running at the same speed.

Windows 10 was designed for desktops, not as a server software. Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2014/2019 etc is for servers and they don't subscribe to Windows 10 rolling release. They have their release and support cycles. People rarely upgrade.

I have upgraded a website from Windows 2003, to Windows 2008, to Windows 2012 and now it is running on Windows 2019. I jumped 2014 and 2016 because upgrades weren't necessary for my needs. Each time, I only spent 1 hour maximum to migrate the system. I am not even a server guy.

That was my first reaction when I saw this comment. Why should everything be in Linux? Also considering that SO does the job and does it very well.

Nothing ironic here. Stackoverflow wasn't designed for open source software. It is a Q and A system for all Developers. People who develop in proprietary technologies also need help when developing. They also share code. A lot. Not sure what gave you an impressiopn that SO is a Linux community because it is not.

I want to try F# on my next side project and see how it goes. I hope I will get help from F# online community when I get stuck.

Focus on delivering solutions using what you know best. If OOP is doing the job for you, by all means stick to it. Code is a means to an end. In fact, these days, if I can be able to deliver a software solution to my clients without writing a single line of code, I will go for it.