The Semicolon Wars

The article written by Brian Hayes, The Semicolon Wars, gives us a look into the deep yet short history that programming languages have had as a whole. The simple fact that by the time the article was written, it could be argued that there were between 2500 programming languages up to the astounding number of 8500 languages, shows us how quickly we as programmers are never satisfied with whatever language we are using, and even if we are, we can always find something that bothers us or that there is something we can do to make a language more powerful or better in our own terms.

In the article, it explains how simple things like the use of a semicolon, be it to separate or to end a statement, to the way comments are formatted, can cause friction between the different users of a language. But not only are aesthetic matters the thing that differentiate between two languages but also their function at the time to implement them, Fortran for its computing power, COBOL for its business application, others for their teaching applications, and so on. People chose their preferred language they prefer, based on what they need it for.

And yet, after discussing how many argue about their preferred language, Hayes ends the article giving us his opinion on his favorite language, Lisp. Explaining its simplicity and the fact that its one of the oldest languages still used today, with its many improvements since its creation of course. And also the fact that even its creator, John McCarthy, saw that the language had to improve and to change, in order to meet the demands of the current time. Everyone has their, preferred language, the one they feel most comfortable with, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be open to the idea of using a different one if the need arrives.