We hit the ACM mailing list!!!

[Bill Baxter]

Dave wrote:
> BCS wrote:
>>
>> The internetnews.com artical just went out on the ACM TechNews mailing 
>> list
>> ...
>> However, 
>> Forrester analyst Jeff Hammond questions the programming language's 
>> market potential. He says, "To make a technology viable, the 
>> technology has to be more than just good. You have to build a business 
>> model around it. What's the business model here?"
>>
> 
> Once again, Forrester shows its value as a contrary indicator...
> 
> There are quite a few successful languages out there that *don't* (or 
> didn't) have a "business model" wrapped around it. Perl, Ruby, Python, 
> C, C++ to name just a few. Those languages showed how they were useful 
> to programmers and _then_ business models developed around the language, 
> not the other way around.
> 
> As for the other languages that started with a business model... Well, 
> the business model for Java ended up changing (set-top devices to server 
> development), not Java itself. C# took a few years itself to become 
> really popular, and that was after massive spending and influence by MS, 
> and also basically because the alternative (VB.Net) wasn't palatable by 
> many.

To me it's a pretty encouraging sign that D is on the move if such 
analysts are even commenting (or being asked to comment) on the language 
and its potential.

--bb