A further thought: PG talks about Blub languages and Blub programmers (in both cases, those at level X can look down at level X-3 and see what it's missing, but those at level X-3 look up at level X and just thing "WT*?").
I think that there's an aspect to software engineering that is not captured under the word "programmer", and there are Blub people in this as well: people who know how to get projects finished, maintainable, and deployed understand how the Blub folks fail, but the Blub folks don't understand everything the old farts do, and think that most of it just looks stupid or stick-in-the-mud-ish.
>A further thought: PG talks about Blub languages and Blub programmers (in both cases, those at level X can look down at level X-3 and see what it's missing, but those at level X-3 look up at level X and just thing "WT?").*
Which I find mostly a Blub observation. Yes, some languages have some more features than others. In any case the benefits are marginal compared to: their libraries, the general ecosystem (programmers, jobs, books, etc), stable, fitness for the job etc.
It's not like anybody will be more proficient writing a kernel or a 3D FPS in Lisp, just because it has garbage collection and C lacks it. Actually, C will be better suited for the kernel job PRECISELY because it lacks garbage collection.
And if you are in rural Romania, you'd be better of with CodeIgniter for your brochure-style web design firm, than with Snap, that is if you want to have a team with more than one programmer in it.
I think that there's an aspect to software engineering that is not captured under the word "programmer", and there are Blub people in this as well: people who know how to get projects finished, maintainable, and deployed understand how the Blub folks fail, but the Blub folks don't understand everything the old farts do, and think that most of it just looks stupid or stick-in-the-mud-ish.