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0 pointsfreshhawk15y ago0 comments

Fair enough, in that case it's certainly not a "theory", the correct term would be "hypothesis" or "conjecture".

I understood what you meant by "free" but you seem to be discounting the high cost of making that choice.

You can examine the language ecosystem as a market but if you do you see immediately that it is inherently a lock in market.

Once you choose a language it's very high cost to change languages.

It's also high cost to choose a language that's not already popular, recruiting is more difficult and you will not have as much 3rd party library support.

So you have both "lock in" and large advantages for existing large players. Sure, it's technically still a "free market" because it's not regulated by the state but this kind of market doesn't have the behavior you are assuming.

What evidence do you have that these kinds of markets optimize for "better" languages?

0 pointsfreshhawk15y ago0 comments

Fair enough, in that case it's certainly not a "theory", the correct term would be "hypothesis" or "conjecture".

I understood what you meant by "free" but you seem to be discounting the high cost of making that choice.

You can examine the language ecosystem as a market but if you do you see immediately that it is inherently a lock in market.

Once you choose a language it's very high cost to change languages.

It's also high cost to choose a language that's not already popular, recruiting is more difficult and you will not have as much 3rd party library support.

What evidence do you have that these kinds of markets optimize for "better" languages?

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3 comments · 1 top-level

andrewcurioso15y ago· 2 in thread

My biggest mistake: using the word "good" What I should of said is "has value"

I have since conceded that point and removed the word "good" (which is subjective) from the post.

Also, the only evidence I have is observation. Which is why I posted the idea. To get good constructive input from people like you!

You make some good points. It is an expensive proposition to switch languages, which is why I excluded that explicitly in the post.

It is also expensive to train people. So that alone may disprove the theory. I'm not sure yet.

On a side note, as far as I know, being based on observation only does not preclude the use of the word theory. It is technically correct (at least according to the dictionary definition of theory). Although, I agree hypothesis may be better.

freshhawkOP15y ago

You need to define "has value" right away though, because defining "value" as "whatever the market measures" is tautological and just plain useless. "PHP has value because people find that PHP has value" is not contributing anything new.

It's also the go to "moving the goalpost" logical fallacy used by free market ideological cranks who you don't want to be compared to.

andrewcurioso15y ago

Agreed. I don't want to ask you to complete my thought, but how would you define value in a way that makes sense in that context? Or is it hopeless?

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