Re: Appreciation / Financial support

[Han-Wen Nienhuys]

On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 3:57 AM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>>> I'm wondering, do you think that learning a new language such as scheme
>>> would scare you away from hacking on LilyPond, if you discovered it?
>>
>> As long as you seek out new technologies, you'll always get new
>> perspectives on programming.
>>
>> I, like most people, have only a limited amount of time. Learning a
>> programming language well enough to write code that sticks to wall
>> when you throw it, is a significant investment, and if there is a
>> choice, I'd invest in something that will pay off beyond working on
>> LilyPond. Scheme has very use in any context, so it's not very
>> attractive.
>
> Emacs Lisp has very little use outside of Emacs.  TeX has very little
> use outside of TeX, and is total crap as a programming language (much
> less consistent and predictable than, say, m4, let alone Scheme).  Yet
> Emacs has created a blossoming package ecosystem, and LaTeX has sprouted
> an enormous package ecosystem, whereas plain TeX has remained a
> disconnected toy field for tinkerers.

It's interesting that you should note emacs and latex as successes.
To me, emacs-lisp yet another idiosyncratic language that I can't be
bothered to learn. Also, my experience of latex is not as rosy-colored
as yours. I've had to deal with plenty of packages that could only
work if \makeatletter was inserted in the correct random place.

Anyway, this discussion is veering off from my original point, which
was to not go overboard on Scheme, as there are fewer people that can
write it.

-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - address@hidden - http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen