Geoffrey King wrote:
> Nice little article:
> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060118.html
The article is a bit biased. Why is the current Yahoo Store inferior to the
Lisp product? And according to a Yahoo employee, which I've met at
O'Reilly's European Open Source Conference, one main reason they rewrote it
was that it was too complicated for the end-customers, because if they
wanted to customize their shops, they had to use a Lisp like syntax,
instead of something already known like PHP, which is used today for parts
of the Yahoo Store frontend.
--
Frank Buss, ยทยท@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de
I suspect P. Graham would say the maintainers/developers of the C++
Yahoo Store are prevented from being as agile at ViaWeb was.
Part of the problem seems to be related to PG's discussion of
"languages for smart people" (LFSP) vs "languages for the masses"
(LFTM). PHP is "language for the masses". Given that Yahoo is a large
dominant company and ViaWeb was a startup it is not surprising that
ViaWeb chose a LFSP while Yahoo prefers a LFTM. Of course their might
have been a middle road -- Yahoo could have hired expert lisp hackers
and tried to graft PHP (or some other LFTM) onto the Lisp based web
store for use as a customer UI while keeping Lisp as the core of the
product. I find it easy to believe that Lisp phobia played a part in
Yahoo's decision to go to C++.
I agree that saying "the C++/PHP Yahoo Store is inferior to the Lisp
product" is oversimplifying the issue. ViaWeb needed to be agile.
Yahoo, as a large powerful corporation, has different needs.
All in all I thought the blog posting was decent analysis.
--jfc
Geoffrey King wrote:
> Nice little article:
> http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060118.html
Wow, that sounds like such a winning plan doesn't it? Let's get this
straight.
1. Identify a company with some great technological value.
2. Acquire company.
3. Throw away that IP, replace the original people, and re-do it from
scratch.
So you don't want their code, and probably not their people either.
Hmm, so what exactly are you buying then? What could be the reasons for
acquisition?
- Squashing competition.
- Buying the intangibles (good-will, branding).
Hmm.
Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> Geoffrey King wrote:
>
>>Nice little article:
>>http://bc.tech.coop/blog/060118.html
>
>
> Wow, that sounds like such a winning plan doesn't it? Let's get this
> straight.
>
> 1. Identify a company with some great technological value.
> 2. Acquire company.
> 3. Throw away that IP, replace the original people, and re-do it from
> scratch.
>
> So you don't want their code, and probably not their people either.
> Hmm, so what exactly are you buying then? What could be the reasons for
> acquisition?
>
> - Squashing competition.
> - Buying the intangibles (good-will, branding).
>
> Hmm.
>
The lesson is: Don't sell to a major corporation that uses a codebase
not written in your language.
On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:26:58 +0000, Eli Gottlieb wrote:
> The lesson is: Don't sell to a major corporation that uses a codebase
> not written in your language.
Kinda depends what your goals are. Some people would say that once you've
sold your company you've already won and whatever happens after that
doesn't matter.
Cheers,
Bill.