> If you were a language designer of some renown, you might convince a large and wealthy technology company to fund your work on a new language which isn’t so beholden to C runtime, especially if you had a sterling reputation as a systems engineer with a deep knowledge of C and UNIX and could leverage that (and the reputation of the company) to get rapid adoption of your language. Having achieved such an influential position, you might introduce a new paradigm, like stackful coroutines or effect handlers, liberating programmers from the false choice between threads and futures. If Liebniz is right that we live in the best of all possible worlds, surely this is what you would do with that once in a generation opportunity.
This seems... a bit specific? Was it a reference to a specific new language or was that more of a poignant wish?
Eh bien! mon cher Pangloss, lui dit Candide, quand vous avez été pendu, disséqué, roué de coups, et que vous avez ramé aux galères, avez-vous toujours pensé que tout allait le mieux du monde? Je suis toujours de mon premier sentiment, répondit Pangloss; car enfin je suis philosophe; il ne me convient pas de me dédire, Leibnitz ne pouvant pas avoir tort, et l’harmonie préétablie étant d’ailleurs la plus belle chose du monde, aussi bien que le plein et la matière subtile.
Thank you. It’s been a while since I read Candide and while I say “All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” somewhat regularly, that detail has since fled my mind.
"Well, my dear Pangloss," said Candide to him, "when You were hanged, dissected, whipped, and tugging at the oar, did you continue to think that everything in this world happens for the best?"
"I have always abided by my first opinion," answered Pangloss; "for, after all, I am a philosopher, and it would not become me to retract my sentiments; especially as Leibnitz could not be in the wrong: and that preestablished harmony is the finest thing in the world, as well as a plenum and the materia subtilis."
This seems... a bit specific? Was it a reference to a specific new language or was that more of a poignant wish?