I have a theory, that I call "of the equivalence of modern software systems" that tells a lot about how unimportant Redis and other technologies are, that is: modern computing is so developed that pick any random language, kernel, and database, any of the top ones available, and I can create every project without too much troubles. PHP / Win32 / SQLite? Ok, I can make it work. Ruby / Linux / Redis? Well, fine as well.
I've noticed that too, LAMP stack vs MEAN stack etc.
Part of it seems to be that software languages have "flavors" like natural spoken language does, so that one seems natural to one person and foreign to another, much like how DHH took TypeScript out of Rails, and I can't read Rails code or live without static types.
Also college kids are always learning what the last generation already knew (like Lisp) and reinvent everything in it with the vigor of their youth and it gets popular, which I imagine is how Rails and Redis both started and caught on.
But sometimes there are genuine innovations, and we can't build on them until someone comes up with them, much like how we couldn't invent machines until someone figured out that we could just use the lever to make gears to transport energy, which Archimedes didn't think of. And the more we learn collectively, the more these things spread.
I wonder if this means it'll all stabilize into a JavaScript-like toolchain one day. Maybe Gary Bernhardt was right all along.
I still use CFML / MySQL (more specifically Lucee / MariaDB). Aside from not being one of the cool kids, I haven’t seen anything sufficiently compelling to justify changing my stack.
One of my CS professors told the story about when MCSFT demonstrated their implementation of the Korn shell at a USENIX conference. Gasbag on stage tells the guy in the question line that he (questioner) has misinterpreted something in the software's original intention. Gasbag figures out something is up when half the room cracked up. The guy at the mic was David Korn, author of the Korn shell.
Software engineers have known for decades that the choice of implementation language is one of the smaller costs in a large project. Also, I personally never use a language that is less than 20 years old. Life cycle costs:
I think u/messe was punning. I used "PG" to mean PostgreSQL, and u/messe probably knew that and probably meant PG as in Paul Graham, who is a huge fan of Lisp. I thought it was funny.
Yeh. Data driven model syncing machines will be what kills languages, software stacks.
All the chip world talk of single function machines and how tech is now energy constrained industry, means pruning the state we store; most software is software to deliver software.
Single function pipeline hardware platforms will act as little more than sync engines from models.
I mean it’s is 2025. Still write software like it’s the 1970s. So high tech.
From LLMs to energy models that transform electromagnetic geometry. Saving what’s needed to recreate cat pics and emails to mom. Pruning the tail as interest dips with generational churn.
