[E-Lang] on what does popularity hinge? (was: down with `defi ne' (was: newbie syntax: picayune points from a prejudiced programmer))

[Karp, Alan]

Tyler wrote:
> 
> "word-of-mouth" isn't a "big-bang" phenomenon. It doesn't
> spontaneously come into existence of its own accord. "word-of-mouth"
> is built on positive stories. In programming, positive stories come
> productivity. "It was really easy to do this really cool thing!"
> 

One of e-speak's open source developers told us we were sending the wrong
message.  Instead of saying that "E-speak makes doing difficult things
easier.",  we should have been saying "E-speak makes easy things trivial".
He felt the latter would attract many more early adopters.

_________________________
Alan Karp
Principal Scientist
Decision Technology Department
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories MS 1U-2
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(650) 857-3967, fax (650) 857-6278
https://ecardfile.com/id/Alan_Karp
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Alan_Karp/
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tyler Close [mailto:tclose@oilspace.com]
> Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 1:44 AM
> To: zooko@zooko.com
> Cc: Marc Stiegler; Ka-Ping Yee; Mark S. Miller; e-lang@eros-os.org
> Subject: RE: [E-Lang] on what does popularity hinge? (was: down with
> `define' (was: newbie syntax: picayune points from a prejudiced
> programmer))
> 
> 
> Zooko wrote:
> >  Tyler wrote:
> >
> > > E's popularity hinges on how quickly people can become
> > productive with
> > > it.
> >
> >
> > Heh heh heh.  I wish I could agree, but I think that this is the
> > _third_ hurdle after the "word-of-mouth" and the
> > "_EiaWalnut_" hurdles.
> From an earlier message of yours:
> > The second hurdle is when someone is reading _EiaWalnut_.  What they
> > think at that time about "how easy it is to define classes, create
> > objects of that class, and create subclasses which re-use
> > the code from
> > other classes" will be a major factor in determing whether they
> > continue, as well as what information about E leaks back
> > from them to
> > the mass of chatterers described in the paragraph above.
> 
> I think the backwards leaking of information that you mention is
> actually the key to developing strong word-of-mouth. Every time I've
> learned a new language (voluntarily) it's because someone I respect
> has said that it's a really useful language. Ping has gotten me to
> learn a succession of languages in this way, including E.
> 
> > If E doesn't get a very wide community past those first two hurdles
> > then no matter how productive it is, it can join a very long list of
> > other delightfully elegant languages that nobody really uses.
> 
> Elegance and productivity may be related, but that's not the issue.
> The issue is "What did Ping tell me about E?" If Ping had found it too
> difficult to do anything in E, he either wouldn't have referred me to
> it, or said "don't bother".
> 
> > Hm.  So in fact, I have to relegate "effective coding with
> > delegation
> > and object-based models" to a *fourth* hurdle:
> >
> > 1.  Word-of-mouth
> >
> > 2.  _E_in_a_Walnut_
> >
> > 3.  Being able to code something small (in my case a personal radio
> >     station to play random mp3s and to generate a web page
> > showing what
> >     I was listening to) within a few hours of learning.
> >
> > 4.  Being able to code big projects effectively.
> >
> >
> > I think for #3 you want to support the traditional
> > class-based mental
> > model as seamlessly as possible so that not until the programmer
> > reaches step 4 (which is weeks or months later) do they
> > start wondering
> > what's under the hood or start using delegation instead of
> > inheritance.
> 
> When I talk about "productive use", I mean both #3 and #4.
> 
> Tyler
> 
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