" Beating the Averages " - Personnal comments


This article ‘Beating the Averages’ written by Paul Graham and published in April 2003 covers on one side the author’s experience about his start-up in the 1980’s and also his feeling about programming languages in particular Lisp. 

I found very interesting the way that he relates the competivity that took place at the time about the emergence of online shopping websites. In particular the impact that programming languages could have on the speed of the start-up’s growth. I would point out the importance to keep its initial strategy. It is true for every start-up whatever the business they are involved in. 

In this case, the two co-founders kept their language, Lisp, even though it was not as popular as the other languages at the time. The key is that they knew that Lisp is a powerful tool capable of deploying quickly new features on an existing code.

The second part of the article relates how good and powerful the programming language Lisp is. I would say that the author tries hardly to convince the audience that Lisp is the best language. And I think that he succeeded. I don’t have the knowledge and experience to contradict what he says. Let’s not forget that this article is written by a true Lisp lover. I am curious to read about what other programmers think of the language Lisp. Also I would like to know which language they think is the best and why. 

As mentionned in the article people often prefer and defend the language they are the most confortable with. I believe it is hard to hold a neutral position on this subject.

To conclude I would say that I liked this article especially the metaphore of the aikido with the language Lisp. Even though we use a tool that is not widely known and understood by others we should continue using it because our knowledge towards it is extremely powerful.

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