Beating the Averages

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After reading the article "Beating the Averages" I can say that this text really caught my attention. Getting to know more about Viaweb and its creators was something very interesting to me. It doesn't matter if many people have the same idea as you, you must be the first one to carry out that idea and that's what Viaweb's creators did.

But this article's main topic is not about Viaweb's creation and its developers, it is about LISP and why it is considered, according to the article, as the best programming language which is something that I differ from the author because for naming a programming language as the best you must know all the programming languages in the world for comparing LISP with others and name it the best one.

Tools are helpful and here is where I agree with the author, programming languages are tools too, but not every tool works on every job and the same thing goes for programming languages. You have to choose whether to use LISP or not, choosing the correct programming language will determine how difficult the job will be.

Even though LISP allows you to do a rapid development and good for server-based applications, this could be an advantage but also a disadvantage. With LISP, you can make features to a software in a quick way and release them as soon as they are finished, that's what made this programming language as a secret weapon. LISP was a secret weapon for the time it was developed but nowadays there are many programming languages that can make the same process than LISP in a more efficient way.

One more thing that was really interesting for me was a thing called the Blub Paradox, according to the text this can be seen when a programmer is very attached to his favorite language. Even though he knows that there are less and more powerful programming languages than his, he would develop in that "Blub" language because that is the one he is really attached to. Nowadays, many programmers can be stuck in that Paradox, that's why it is good to know many languages and their implementations.

To conclude, I can say that I agree with many terms of the reading, I agree with the Blub Paradox and by calling tools to programming languages but I don't agree with the fact of naming LISP as the best programming language because the perfect or the best language doesn't exist. And always remember to use the correct tools for the job you are assigned to do

References:

- Graham, P. April 2001. "Beating the Averages". Author. Retrieved August 24th, 2018 from: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

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