Comment by api

Re: the image concept.

A lot of great ideas are tried and tried and tried and eventually succeed, and what causes them to succeed is that someone finally creates an implementation that addresses the pragmatic and usability issues. Someone finally gets the details right.

Rust is a good example. We've had "safe" systems languages for a long time, but Rust was one of the first to address developer ergonomics well enough to catch on.

Another great example is HTTP and HTML. Hypertext systems existed before it, but none of them were flexible, deployable, open, interoperable, and simple enough to catch on.

IMHO we've never had a pure functional language that has taken off not because it's a terrible idea but because nobody's executed it well enough re: ergonomics and pragmatic concerns.