I'm not as dismissive to jblow, but I am frustrated with his model of development and the inflated expectations that come with it. It's quite likely that Jai will be a great language but it won't be the silver bullet some seem to think that it is. There's nothing more annoying than talking about the tradeoffs between compile time and static analysis only for someone to say "but Jai solved it" (and yes, I have conversations with people who do say this).
Imagine I had a startup and kept on posting about how amazing my product was and how everybody was going to find it revolutionary, and maybe I even shared a few streams of me using it, but I didn't release. And this continued for like, 6 years. Wouldn't you get a little suspicious? Even if I was running a closed beta. Even if I had a proven track record.
Writing a language and keeping it locked up while you perfect it just isn't a great model of development. Languages are not just the compiler and the corresponding features. They're tooling and infrastructure. They're libraries. They're communities. It may be wonderful to work sans the usual politics of open source, but you're not gonna end up making a language that people use.
And maybe that's not jblow's goal. Maybe he just wants a language for himself. Well, good for him. But that seems a little sad. Programming languages are some of the most generous, wonderful gifts to the CS world. If I were him, I'd hate to see my language die with me.
Imagine I had a startup and kept on posting about how amazing my product was and how everybody was going to find it revolutionary, and maybe I even shared a few streams of me using it, but I didn't release. And this continued for like, 6 years. Wouldn't you get a little suspicious? Even if I was running a closed beta. Even if I had a proven track record.
Writing a language and keeping it locked up while you perfect it just isn't a great model of development. Languages are not just the compiler and the corresponding features. They're tooling and infrastructure. They're libraries. They're communities. It may be wonderful to work sans the usual politics of open source, but you're not gonna end up making a language that people use.
And maybe that's not jblow's goal. Maybe he just wants a language for himself. Well, good for him. But that seems a little sad. Programming languages are some of the most generous, wonderful gifts to the CS world. If I were him, I'd hate to see my language die with me.