Python is now Blub! Run!

http://arvindn.livejournal.com/91103.html

by prakash • 18 years ago

23 47 18 years ago

arvindn.livejournal.com

rglullis• 18 years ago

False premise. Google chose Python as the first language for GAE because it would be the most appealing language among the programming languages already used at Google. It has nothing to do with "being a language widely used and understood by the masses".

Javascript/Rhino would be also a cool choice, but I think that is what Steve Yegge is working on.

pdubroy• 18 years ago

Oh no, the [programming language I favour | band I like] is now mainstream. Well, I [use the more obscure features | prefer their older albums].

I [am a much better coder | have way better taste] than those other people anyways.

IsaacSchlueter• 18 years ago

I liked [band I like | programming language I favor | dinosaurs] when they were still underground.

http://xkcd.com/460/

utx009• 18 years ago

could lisp be blub for something else? if yes, what is that something. if you think not, why not?

rplevy2• 18 years ago

I think (today's) Lisp could be blub, but only if Lisps were to become the standard category of programming languages. Then some other more advanced meta-lisp that is a few layers of abstraction up, and applying some yet-undiscovered principles of computer science in its high-level semantics would be at the cutting edge, and the vanilla lisps would be mundane and practical-seeming.

olavk5• 18 years ago

For some some Lisp-developers Lisp is blub relative to Haskell.

inklesspen2• 18 years ago

X is blub if there is a language which is more powerful than X and you can't understand that the "extra stuff" in that language is actually power, as opposed to meaningless stuff.

For example, an argument could be made that Lisp is a blub, because of the libraries problem. I'm not a lisp user myself, though I'm learning Scheme, so I don't know for sure if the libraries problem is an actual problem. But if it is, you could say that Lisp is a blub for Python, because while Lisp users are spending their time inventing a DSL that's incompatible with everything else, Python users type 'import awesomelibrary' and get the job done.

So, really, it depends on your notion of power. In pg's original Blub essay, power is Lisp-y-ness (or macros, perhaps), so by definition Lisp can't be a blub. But if your notion of power is something else, maybe it can be.

emmett2• 18 years ago

Specifically, the Blub idea applies to language power. You could build python's libraries in Lisp, but you can't build a macro in Python without changing the language.

On the other hand, Lisp isn't at the top of the theoretical Blub hierarchy. Users of erlang can to some degree look at lisp as a Blub - what do you mean there's no lightweight concurrency, and you can't start millions of threads and have the messaging just managed? Lisp is broken! A language with Lisp's (lack of) syntax and erlang's concurrency might be able to look down on both.

tptacek• 18 years ago

"Because if you want to do a startup, you should have some reason to believe that you are several times more productive than the average programmer, an order of magnitude even."

Uhh... what? Who said that?

mrtron• 18 years ago

I would hope my organization was several times more productive per employee of an average company. I wouldn't put all my faith in it being the direct result of a specific programming language.

tesseract• 18 years ago

That sounds to me like a (poor) paraphrase of part of the Blub essay (http://paulgraham.com/avg.html).

stcredzero4• 18 years ago

There's a lot more to programmer productivity than language. There are a lot of organizational factors.

The programmer's aptitude is probably the biggest factor, and in the case of the most talented coders, probably swamps the choice of language by a large factor.

Being several times more productive is not going to benefit you so much if you are working on the wrong things.

Also, there is a lot of really bad code and really bad practices out there in different niches. There are still plenty of places where you can bring in test driven development and a language like Python and kick ass. In fact, I bet some of those niches will even have competitors who are backwards Python coders ripe for takedown.

mtts• 18 years ago

If it were true, Guido at least would be happy (how much more "blub" can you get than "programming for everyone"?)

Unfortunately, it isn't true at all. As it stands, no one but hardcore web app enthousiasts use Google Apps. That hardly makes it mainstream, I should think.

stcredzero4• 18 years ago

Is OOP a Blub-level paradigm now? I suspect that it has been for awhile now.

globalrev• 18 years ago

I didn't understand if the article is ironic or not.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

"This doesn't mean that I'm going to start programming exclusively in Lisp from now on—the libraries just aren't there."

What libraries does he need that "just aren't there"?

MoeDrippins• 18 years ago

Python became blub the second the "one true way to do it" mantra was conceived.

olavk5• 18 years ago

Blubbiness is not a property of the language per se. Is it the phenomenon that you don't recognize if an unfamiliar language is more powerful than the currently most powerful language you know. The more powerful languages just seem bizarre are annoying. But you immediately recognize when a language is less powerful than one you know.

Therefore many developers think they are using the most powerful language in the world ("Blub").

So if Python is the most powerful language you know and you don't understand the power of eg. Lisp macros or the Haskell type system, then Python is Blub for you.

If Lisp is you favorite language and you don't understand the power of the Python readability, the concept of "one obvious way" and so on, then Lisp is Blub for you.

utx009• 18 years ago

the assumption is that languages vary in power, and furthermore that lisp sits pretty high on this power ladder. let us assume further that lisp is more powerful than python (i think that's safe. in this forum anyways). so to say that python readability makes lisp blub sort of implies python is blub to you. unless, of course, you think python is more powerful than lisp.

my question is, what leads people to believe lisp is so high up on the language power scale?

ps: incidentally, macros are all about readability. if you took all the macros out of your program and substituted them by their macro expansion (by copying and pasting) you would end up with exactly the same program. exactly. it would just be less readable ;)

paul• 18 years ago

Even worse, he's writing blog posts in English! (the same language used by millions of semi-literate people)

gills• 18 years ago

"millions." "semi-literate." haha...you made my day.

kajecounterhack• 18 years ago

There are more people learning English in china than we have English speakers here in the US.

Maybe thats why, haha.

utx009• 18 years ago

now. now.

pavelludiq2• 18 years ago

What about Bluby..err Ruby? :D

well, if i look on the situation more seriously, python is more popular than ruby, and ruby has some features that make it a tiny bit more powerful in some situations so if the author if such an underground freak, he can use ruby for a few months until it becomes Bluby too.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

Python more popular than Ruby? To me it always seemed that Ruby and Rails are more popular.

BrandonM• 18 years ago

I would say that RoR is more popular than, say, Django, but that Python the language is more popular than Ruby the language.

parbo• 18 years ago

You can't say that a language is Blub. It becomes Blub only if the programmer using the language fails to realize that there are more powerful languages. It has nothing to do with mainstream or not.

gaius• 18 years ago

Every language is Blub to someone. What do Haskell types think about Lisp?

eru3• 18 years ago

Common Lisp is ugly to look at. (Compared to Haskell or Scheme.)

maxklein• 18 years ago

Wait a minute. How did he come to this realisation? Did he just suddenly INVENT it? Did he just MAKE UP that graph? Because to me, it sure seems that way. He does not backup his assertion that python is now in the middle of the programmer world.

Python is now Blub! Run!

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