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Reading the comments to Philip Greenspun's latest "epiphany" reminds me of my own humble opinions on the subject matter. Broad subject being here the question of how and why people adopt programming languages and why certain languages prosper while others don't.

My first humble opinion is that there are no easy answers. And since no one really knows the answers, everyone is free to throw in ideas whether or not they hold water, so to speak. Therefore you are, of course, also free to discard the other opinions I might have, because they are, too, hopelessly simplified.

So, my two real opinions of why the so-called technically inferior languages, be it VBScript, PHP, Perl, Java or even Python, have been popular, are these: most of us programmers aren't superheros; rather, our foremost goals in working lives are simply just to not to get too embarrassed, bothered or sacked. Second, most of us programmers don't even have the competence to evaluate complicated technologies such as programming languages and their environments as whole.

Side note: I am not sure about the technical inferiority either. I haven't seen many even remotely sound comparisons of programming languages regarding programmer productivity and such. And, be that as it may, larger software projects consist of somewhat language-independent phases therefore making the choice of the language more irrelevant.

My first real point — that most of us are just basically trying to cope in our jobs — is a crucial viewpoint in general user interface design, or at least it should be. You see, the most important user interface design criteria, according to some people, is goal-orientation. User inteface is good when it makes it easy for the user to accomplish his goal. In this context goals mean the concrete goals of the user, like for example a goal to travel to some (specific) place or say, get information on butterflies. No one's goal is to point-and-click computer applications; users want to accomplish something by using computers. (OK, I digress a bit. Try to stay with me.)

Now, say you are designing a program that is used by workers in a call center wherein the workers take calls from users and try to help them. The user who you are designing the user inteface for is the worker. You might be deluded to think that this the goal of this hypothetical worker is to do his job efficiently and accurately. Wrong. That's how the owners of the firm would like to think, but that's not the truth. His goals is just to cope in his work, that is, to not to get sacked, embarrassed or bothered too much. His goal is not to earn money for the firm, be assured. And you must design the interface to these goals or you are fooling yourself and the firm that contracted you.

I think this mostly applies to programmers too. Most programmers are not trying to do their job as efficiently and accurately as possible. Just enough efficiently and accurately to not to get sacked, too embarrassed or too bothered. The average programmer doesn't give a shit if he is not using the most sophisticated programming language out there (assuming he even had the choice) because his position as a programmer does not depend on the choice of the programming language. He just has to cope with the tools he is given. He is not going to be fired because he didn't use Lisp in his project. (If he had used Lisp, he might indeed have been sacked.)

Furthermore, the average programmer (such as myself) does not have the competence to evaluate the complex and difficult issues regarding the choice of a programming language. We might have strong opinions on languages, but we don't have the necessary capability to study and evaluate technologies. We might not realize that we are not competent enough, but by the miracles of hierarchy and authority someone will decide, and he usually opts for the safer choice, which is, usually, one of the more popular languages. I am not saying the criteria for the choice is the popularity (which it might too be) but the defining factors that make them popular in the first place. And more importantly, the criterias themselves tend to be really simple, which puts more weight to matters that are not relevant techically.

Or something.