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Expected Value of A Programming Language Startup

3 points by MrMan ↗ HN
How do we estimate the value of "owning" a new programming language? Treating the project of inventing and implementing a de novo programming language + IDE support + standard libraries as a startup, what might we expect to gain?

Is the value of inventing a language like Go greater for Google than it would be for a lone developer with only his blog and HN to increase his mindshare?

If you go back and look at the generative programming movement, a la Czarnecki, the idea was that language-based programming was going to become an industrial standard. Paul Graham also espouses a form of language-based programming when enumerating the virtues of Lisp.

How to classifity a DSL embedded in Lisp compared to a full-fledged language + ecosystem like Scala, which also borrowed much of its foundations from Java?

10 comments

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nddrylliog
Hum, as far as I know, developing a programming language means burning cash. Except if you can find a way to use it as an advantage to develop something else way more efficiently which, then, generates a revenue (which is really, really hard), you're in for a really fun round of "'
nddrylliog
"losing money while nobody cares"

tl;dr it's really hard to come up with a technology that justifies the investment in that domai

MrMan
nobody cared about Clojure? Scala? Go? D? the macros that PG used to build his storefront generator? I am asking about a general framework for valuing the creation of a new language and it's attendant components, considered alone. The network effects required to popularize a language are not truly, in my opinion, to be considered "costs" because such a network peforce is a considerable asset. In other words, if you own a network that can make a new language valuable, then that in iteself is one valuable metric for the worth of your network.
evangineer
Rich Hickey is probably getting more consulting and training gigs as Clojure gains traction.

Martin Odersky is still a professor at EPFL but has founded Scala Solutions which does training, consulting, and will eventually provide Scala development tools besides the existing Eclipse support.

The potential use value of Go as a replacement for Java and/or C++ for in-house production systems is more than sufficient to justify Google's investment in the related R&D.

Walter Bright already had a pretty formidable track record before developing D so it might have kicked up his consulting practice a notch. The more significant financial impact for him from developing D seems to be more demand for seminars on compiler construction which he is unquestionably a master of.

nddrylliog
Yes, a thousand yeses. For having tried that (and relatively succeeded), I know the benefits of having personally developed a language and made it (relatively) popular.

It's an amazing thing to have on your CV, a great experience if you've got lots of free time and/or are very productive, but I really wouldn't base a business on it. It might be affordable as an investment if it's a very small part of an existing company based on another business, but that's about it.

evangineer
We saw something similar to this with AppJet, which was a Javascript Platform as a Service. They used the AppJet technology to build EtherPad which got so much traction, they pivoted and focused on EtherPad as their revenue generator. They later got acquired by Google, so that the AppJet/Etherpad team could work on Wave.
saurabh
Well the Asana guys did write their own programming language.

http://asana.com/luna/

evangineer
Which they then abandoned. They are still using the underlying libraries they created for Luna, but from straight Javascript.
seanwoods
It seems to be extremely difficult to create enough value in the programming language space to justify a startup. Most of the new languages we're seeing today were bootstrapped by volunteer or hobbyist efforts. Even after these languages gain a "critical mass" in the hobbyist community, the language can still be unproven for some time (maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Clojure [for example] has much "in the wild" use yet).

Programming language development is valuable because it exposes programmers to new ways of thinking about problems, but it's tough to translate that into monetary value in a world full of stable, time-tested alternatives.

MrMan
Ok then go back to Java. What value accrued to Sun by creating and marketing Java? Sorry to use the word "startup" as I suppose it is easily misunderstood. The creation of the language and its libraries and tools was to a certain extent an entrepreneurial act, in my opinion, whether it was understood this way by Sun at the time. I am trying to ask assistance in thinking about the origination of whole languages or even just major language features within existing features in a coherent way, economically. I am attempting to ask the right questions about language development as a way to leverage capital and add value, not just to look at programming languages from the end-user's point of view.