Beating the Averages

For this article I think we all already have notions of Lisp, at least about its capacity to play with the lists, and to bend a little the concepts that we traditionally have learn about the way of programming, but the author here goes way further. He tells us a story about a success case, but not any success case, his own startup. In this context he shows us how the use of Lisp gave him and his associated a market advantage over all the other startups.

Okay, I think in this case this whole article may be easy to misinterpret because of the way he is telling us everything, even when there is explain that the case isn’t the only reason for considering Lisp as a viable option (and even a better option), It felt weird. Even with this fact, the article just gave me a new case to investigate for getting even a better impression of this language.

One of the points that is repeated in the article several times is about the strategy in the startups, specially having as a reference point the ignorance of other programmers, unknowing Lisp, and the competitive advantage that this represents; but the author doesn’t stops there, he gives us even more reasons to believe on Lisp, not only for not being widely understood by the competitors, but also for the capacity of Lisp for making macros. This might not be that impactful until is explained that this was one of the main reasons for the success of Viaweb.

Just with this little article, the author leaves in a great position the concept of his favorite language, and encourages even more people, that had doubt about the power that Lisp can offer, to learn, to improve and to develop with this incredible tool that might not appear that attractive at first term.

The Semicolon Wars

This is an interesting article that aboard the topic of programming languages and the development of this “war” for having the most powerful, easiest, more useful, the best language. Here Brian Hayes exposes one of the truths that anyone spoke, but every programmer knows and is concern about, and the question that at least I’ve done for myself: Am I using the right programming language?

I haven’t use Clojure that much to affirm that is my favorite language, or if it’s even between the top 10, but at least has a different perspective, as is stated in the article. New perspectives always help for improving and that makes me wonder how far I can get using the functional Lisp’s evolution. 

One of my favorite part of this article is when the author says that your way of expressing anything is based on the language you’re thinking of, and going even further, I think that the language itself defines the way you think. This statement becomes even more tangible at the programming matters, just like a joke, if you have a reunion with 10 programmers that dominate 10 different languages, all of them will have a totally different idea for solving the same problem, even the simpler ones.

For me, the opinion of my mate Max Castillo is very realistic, at least in this part where he thinks it’s useful to have the variety of languages because of the practicality this can provide for creating of solving, but always having in mind that the idea of having that many languages are for improvement not for specializing. Some people develop programming languages for being specialized in some certain disciplines, but in a world like ours, being multiplatform, thinking on hybrids, a world that interacts constantly between every technology, the most variety of tools, the more effort we’ll need to do for communicating between them.

At least for me it’s useful to know that in 2006 there were at least 2,500 languages, but makes me wonder, what have happened with the last 12 years? How many options do I have now that I ignore? For me this article can be a way of getting myself out of my comfort zone, maybe I’m complicating my own life by using the tools that I’ve been using this far just for ignoring the hole programming world and I may not realize since now.

References:

- Hayes, B. (2006) The Semicolon Wars. American Scientist. Recovered from WEB at August 18th, 2018. http://webcem01.cem.itesm.mx:8005/s201813/tc2006/semicolon_wars.pdf

Introduction

In order to introduce myself I'm telling you some fast information for you to know me a little better. My full name is Natanael Pérez Bucio and I'm currently studying the Computer Science major at Monterrey Institute of Technology, the Mexico's State Campus. I've been studying at this campus for 5 years and I've been enjoying everyone of this years. Even when I've decided to study an TI focused major I had several options based in my interests, having as options a Film Major, a Mathematics Major and even a Philosophy Major. Finally I decided to study Computer Science because I felt more secure in my programming and understanding skills, also is one of the topics that few people understand and it may be a really important advantage for my professional life.

About my hobbies and my topics of interest I can tell you that I love movies, specially the cult, the independent, the social criticism, the mockumentary and the superhero movies; but I enjoy looking at any movie. I also love music, to sing is one of my secret passions, even when I don't consider myself actually a good singer, and the music genre that I listen to most is ska and trova, this two are strongly represented into the latin community and simply makes me feel really great.

For this course I expect to be challenged at a knowledge level, to change my vision of the programming languages and to understand in a most accurate way the basis for programming. This is one of the courses that interest me more because I think is one of the deepest programming courses in the hole major. In addition we're reading one of my favorite books, 1984, and that motivates myself even more for giving my best in this course.