Eric Lippert on why Programming Languages Turn Out The Way They Do

​If you don’t know Eric Lippert, he was a member of the C# team for many years (And JScript– Remember JScript?) and Adam Rackis posed the following question on twitter:


Here’s Eric’s answer (it’s a tweet thread – so click the link to read the entire thread)

It’s a wonderful answer that dives into those small little decisions we make that have outsized impacts.  As an example, he cites consultants changing course curriculum(s) yearly as a reason why some teams may get pressure not to add new features to their programming language!

To bring it back to what we talk about here:  Those little decisions combined with your company’s contexts — the business, technical, social, cultural, and financial states of mind your company is in – will have more of an impact on the ability for your systems to scale than any other factors. That’s why it’s crucial to fully understand these contexts before trying to make change in your system and company.

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