> I wouldn't pick a language that's under control of a company Hmm... TypeScript...

shawn_w · 2026-02-01T00:48:45 1769906925

>... under control of a company I don't use.

You left out an important part of the GP's comment.

>By your logic we should be programming in Common Lisp.

I wish. (Scheme is acceptable too)

tialaramex · 2026-02-01T01:33:04 1769909584

I was talking about this at a party this afternoon (yes, I do go to the most interesting parties, thanks) and while Scheme is acceptable the Common Lisp is not because it's not OK to go without boolean primitives. Types are a good idea, if you have types the simplest is clearly the boolean, so start there.

I believe firmly that there should be a single true value, which we might reasonably name true, and a single false value, false, other values aren't booleans, so it's no more reasonable to ask whether an empty string is false, than to just forget to close the quote marks on a string. What we wrote isn't a correct program.

shawn_w · 2026-02-01T01:43:22 1769910202

Scheme has a single false value (#f) but everything else is considered true...

behnamoh · 2026-02-01T01:56:47 1769911007

Any Lisp w/o image support is no true Lisp in my book. That leaves us with only Common Lisp and Janet.

The others (Scheme, Clojure, etc.) are just Lispy syntax but lack the true "soul" of Lisp-style development.

int_19h · 2026-02-02T01:17:49 1769995069

Racket?

stackghost · 2026-02-01T04:13:16 1769919196

Common Lisp is actually a great language. The SBCL implementation has a good compiler that produce reasonably fast code, and it's under active development.

The only real drawback to common lisp is the fact that the library ecosystem is practically non-existent.

scns · 2026-02-01T00:40:56 1769906456

> Rust: Mozilla

Nope. Not anymore, several years maybe?

WD-42 · 2026-02-01T00:47:10 1769906830

You forgot the most popular language in the world right now:

Python: The Python Software Foundation

Turns out two of the best languages don't need corporate overlords to steer their development.

geysersam · 2026-02-01T03:21:21 1769916081

Not to mention C, C++, JS, PHP, bash. Hell there are so many great languages not controlled by big companies.

tayo42 · 2026-02-01T03:50:25 1769917825

Could that happen today though? I think python started in a very different world then today.

Alot of its current popularity is becasue big companies developed the libraries that make up the foundation of Ai with it.