[om-list] Language Power

[Lee Howard]

At 03:21 PM 5/1/01 -0600, Mark Butler wrote:
>Hello everybody,
>
>  I just read an excellent talk about the relative power of languages and the
>advantages of ultra flexible languages like LISP.  Highly recommended:
>
>http://www.paulgraham.com/paulgraham/avg.html

Thanks for sharing that, Mark.  It was good reading.

I have to admit, however, that I know virtually nothing about LISP and that
among y'all I am probably the least-versed with in-depth programming - as I
tend to tinker with a smattering of languages and applications, developing
supporting utilities and fixes in anything from BASIC, sh, awk, perl, C++,
C, etc. more than anything else programming-wise.

I must say "amen", though, to the author's comments about suitability,
functionality, and ease of development for any particular purpose and
programming language.  And perhaps as a novice among y'all I'll be scoffed
at a bit for this, but I find that to be so true in our recent database
conversion.

I spent a month or so back last fall researching languages and applications
by which Deanox could migrate its existing database from FileMaker Pro
(which I inherited) to something browser-run, completely internet-ready,
customized, easily expandable, and which ran on Linux servers.  (I've
wanted to do this since '99.)  I chose MySQL (for the speed) and initially
had hired a perl programmer to write the CGI scripting.  But after he
dogged me, taking $400 in wasted pay with him, I determined to "do it
myself" and took another look at high-level languages for developing web
applications.  I found PHP instead of perl, and working with it has been
extremely wonderful and exciting.  With one employee here helping, we
completely migrated the database (invoicing, payroll, inventory,
purchasing, accounting, etc.) after about five months of part-time work -
both of us never having programmed SQL or PHP before.

After switching, the other employees moaned for a day or two as they
learned the new system, but after two months now, I think that they all see
the power in the new environment (I know that they love invoicing from the
customers' site) - and before the end of the year I expect the new system
to have saved me twice the amount of payroll hours as it cost me to make.
(My secretary's job went from a five-hour ordeal to a five-minute breeze,
as an example.)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I agree completely with this author's
perspective - even though I don't have a LISP. ;-)

Lee.