Re: Correction

From: Henrik Motakef (usenet-reply_at_henrik-motakef.de)
Date: 02/06/04 

Date: 06 Feb 2004 23:35:57 +0100

kaz@ashi.footprints.net (Kaz Kylheku) writes:

> > Some are, some aren't, and there seems to be some difference of
> > opinion about what constitutes better behavior. Not to mention some
> > angst about why python is more popular than Common Lisp, even though
> > the answer to that question is obvious.
>
> Python is popular because it is new.

GvR started developing Python seriously in late 1989, the first public
release was in 1991 - three years before the release of ANSI common
Lisp, 4 years before the first public announcement of Java.

> If Lisp didn't exist a few years ago and you introduced it today,
> you'd see exactly the same effect. From the point of view of someone
> who is scared of nested parentheses, XML is even worse. Yet XML is
> popular simply because it's new.

XML is not new, it is a crippled variant of SGML, simple enough that
even Microsoft or Oracle could manage to write a mostly conforming
parser for it, not only small corporations and free software projects
(which, admittedly, tended to be called "James Clark" in case of SGML,
but that hasn't really changed). The general ideas, and a lot of the
thinks that can only be explained as historical arifacts, have their
roots in markup languages decades old.

> If you want to be a socially popular person, again, you have to look
> and behave in such a way that diverse cateogries of people don't have
> immediate excuse not to get to know you or like you. This doesn't
> imply having a good character, merely a nice appearance (face, body,
> clothes, grooming) and a consummately faked pleasant personality.

That I have to agree with.

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