Comment by IshKebab
21 hours ago
You missed his point. He's not saying "why bother why a new language if this one is fine", he's saying "why bother with a very similar language if this one is fine".
I think that's fair. Even if you are just doing a hobby language there are plenty of unexplored niches, e.g. that compile-to-shell language I've forgotten the name of.
I didn’t miss his point. Back in the 70s, many of the new languages were just a subtle variation on the previous one. It’s only later they evolved into something distinctive.
Which is why I said we’d still be using FORTRAN.
Languages that start out radically different don’t tend to gain momentum. Whereas languages that are familiar tend to grow and introduce new ideas.
Nothing is invented in a vacuum.
Also I completely disagree that one shouldn’t create a hobby project need to be innovative. Sometimes people do create things just because they can. And it’s a good thing too because otherwise we wouldn’t have half the open source software available to us today. Many of which was originally intended for personal use, including Linux.
The problem these days is we’re so brainwashed by stories of unicorn start ups pumped with VC money that now everyone thinks every hobby needs to has a viable business plan underneath. It’s like people have forgotten how to play for fun.
So people should go out and create new programming languages. The worst that would happen is they learn to be a better programmer in their day to day language.