I belive exceptional programmers can do exceptional work in any programming language (maybe not in COBOL ;) so the fact they beat the competition using LISP does not mean they could not do it with some other language that can fit the domain.

It's not a question of whether or not an exceptional programmer can program exceptionally in any language. It's a matter of which language provides them with the best tools to program exceptionally faster than the other exceptional programmers.

You mention COBOL. For writing complex applications on a modern OS, it's pretty much a given that certain languages are worse than others. COBOL vs. Java, for example. So, since certain languages are worse, then other languages must be better. Java vs. COBOL.

While it's not a given that there will be a winner, even in a specific realm like web applications, it's clear that there will probably only be 2 or 3 languages/toolsets that simply are better than the rest. And, that group will change over time. Ruby-on-Rails is an excellent example of this. When Viaweb was started, Ruby barely existed. Now, it's one of the top web languages for the cognoscenti, specifically because of ROR. One can churn out amazing applications with little effort on Rails, making it a very productive language to work in. (Perl has Mason, Catalyst (the successor to Maypole), OpenInteract2, CGI::Application, and others to do what Rails does.)

My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re^5: Business readiness of programming languages by dragonchild
in thread Business readiness of programming languages by szabgab

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.