Beating the Averages

The article written by Paul Graham tells the story about the creation of the startup called Viaweb, which aimed to build online stores. This application was the first to be based on the web as it do not run on a desktop computer like the others applications. It should be noted that the success of the startup -created by Morris and Graham- was that it was written primarily in Lisp, which allowed them to have an advantage over their competitors.

The power that had Lisp was that they had the ability to implement modules quickly and efficiently, so the company grew faster than others, due the fact that it always was at the forefront.

What it aims to expose in the article is that programmers should have a wide view of programming languages and they can decide what used to develop high-level applications, as this can make a difference in the business world. As long as technology evolves so rapidly, programming languages are different. These are tools with which developers can express their ideas and communicate with the computer; thus, it does not matter if technology changes, the languages will not do that.

Something interesting that can be mentioned is that the article discusses the advantages of using Lisp and how that helped their succeed, however, it does not emphasize the fact that both (Morris and Graham) had experience programming in that language.

I believe that despite how attractive may be the idea of programming in Lisp or any other language that can give us a competitive advantage, it is always essential to take into account the personal experience that we have as developers in that language. As in the previous blog entry, we must take into account various elements to make a smart choice of the language we use and that it does not affect the development of the project, because without the experience required for Lisp, not only the time will harmed but also the costs that may incur a delay in system development.

The lesson that I learned is that in the world of IT business is always good be groundbreaking and not get stuck in a red sea where all competitors are.