··@spam.not writes:
> Why do Lisp programmers seems to always be comparing
> Lisp with C++, Java, Ada, etc., rather than with good
> languages such as Smalltalk and Eiffel?
Because goodness doesn't win the market.
If it did, Java, C++, and Ada would spend their time comparing themselves
to us.
Personally, I don't have a lot of patience for long discussions comparing
Lisp to even these other languages unless I'm in a frame where I know
the convesation is purely academic and will go on for bounded time.
The real reason to compare to these other languages is not to learn
what they did better, but what they did that is more appealing.
If it's computationally more useful to you, think of goodness as
multidimensional and think of having marketshare as a goodness because
it translates to capital which translates to resources needed to
invest in the future, to do outreach, to build infrastructure, to
indulge philanthropy. Money is no guarantee of goodness or success,
but lack of it is an impediment. It's good to keep your understanding
of what money can offer you in check, but it's also good not to think
money has no impact.
The world is a feedback loop. "Good thoughts" and "money" are not
intrinsically related, but good thoughts sometimes result from the
luxury of being able to afford to have and indulge them.
Another issue, of course, is that Smalltalk and Eiffel and Lisp people
are in many ways allies in that they share many of the same ideas,
even if differently rendered. To the extent that they differ,
exploiting those differences is not what is likely to stand between
Lisp and success. If I had my bet, and I haven't looked, Smalltalk
spends its time talking about Java, not Lisp since that is their
economic threat. (I'd also guess Eiffel spends its time comparing
itself to Haskell or ML, and vice versa.... detached. That community
has always seemed to me to be in a kind of cultural denial
about anything outside. Maybe that's good and they're just interested
in something very far out, not the current market... But if they are
interested in the current market, it seems quite a niche, and not at
all what the large part of the market seems to be seeking. JMO.)