Re: [Chicken-users] other leading Schemes

[Brandon J. Van Every]

minh thu wrote:
> Hi Brandon,
>
> although you first start your mail with a question, what's the
> underlying intention ?
> I can't understand why there's so much discussion about 'community
> size' and 'growing' and  so on... it's the same on every mailing list
> I've read.
>
> Don't take my question offensively; it's really not the goal...

The underlying intention is for programming "not to suck."  That and to 
actually make money.  Programming pretty much sucks when it creates lots 
of busywork for you + doesn't pay the bills.  You get caught in a cycle 
of working on unprofitable trivia, suddenly wondering how you'll keep 
the roof over your head, and realizing the gruntwork has kept you from 
accomplishing any significant goal anyways.  When this goes on for a 
long time, you come to realize that the language you're using is not 
better than any other crap out there, no matter how sophisticated or 
advantageous it's supposed to be.  It's actually a big waste of time.  
You just waste your time in different ways than a mainstream language.  
At least with the mainstream languages, there's money in them, you can 
get paid for them.  If you accidentally become well versed in the trivia 
of C++, Java, or C#, you can make big $$$$$$ at that.  With a marginal 
language like Scheme, nobody cares.  You go hungry.

I'm not ready to give up on Chicken yet, or open source in general.  I 
think there must be a profitable business model in it somewhere.  But 
I'm quite aware of all the support and R&D jobs that must get done, to 
make a language that really is pleasant to use.  So I see community 
organization as key. 

Academics and students don't feel these issues.  They've got financial 
support for their work.  So they can work on languages like Scheme that 
don't make most people any money.

Some people actually use Scheme as part of their commercial business 
model.  But they are few and far between.  Their economic results are 
not easily reproduced by most people.  Whereas anyone can learn C++, 
Java, and C# and then go make money.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every