Actually Windows is a very interesting example of my point about the market being wiser than we give it credit for. ...

Actually, without Windows, there would be no WWW, and thus no explosion in the use of Perl. So, frankly, we all owe our livelihood (at least, I do) to Microsoft and Bill Gates.

Here's why: the Mac was decently successful, as were a lot of the other computer manufacturers in the 1980's. But, there was a need for an (relatively) cheap machine that would be compatible with most of the software out there. Otherwise, there would not have been widespread acceptance of this tool into medium-sized businesses and the home. (Large and huge businesses would do whatever they wanted to, anyways.)

The platform had to be cheap because there is a certain point beyond which there will never be consumer acceptance. For computers, that point was $1000 (or so). Beyond that, it wouldn't be accepted easily into the home or the small business. Under that, everyone loves it. Wintel brought the price of the machine down.

The machine had to be compatible with all the software because that brings down the cost of writing software. Those of you who support more than one platform know exactly what I'm saying. Even with Perl and its ease of transition between Unix and Windows, it's expensive to support both. Just imagine the difference between writing assembler for Intel and Motorola chips, at the same time.

Without home use, most companies would not have seen the need to have large and elaborate business sites. Also, the idea of buying everything off the WWW would not have happened this far. Thus, less Perl.

Kinda sucks for the dogma, doesn't it?

------
We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.

Please remember that I'm crufty and crochety. All opinions are purely mine and all code is untested, unless otherwise specified.

In reply to Re6: "There are some stunningly novel ideas in Perl" -- Paul Graham by dragonchild
in thread "There are some stunningly novel ideas in Perl" -- Paul Graham by grinder

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