3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2010–2012
27:26 · 47K views · Feb 25, 2010
Peter Norvig answers the top questions submitted by reddit users in a 27-minute interview. Topics include programming language choice, AI, and workplace design.
HN mostly quotes it for specific Norvig remarks, such as language choice mattering less and the open-space versus cubicle trade-off.
3 comments from Hacker News
The following are taken from: [LINK] ----norvig 449 days ago------ Peter Norvig here. [....] In terms of programming-in-the-large, at Google and elsewhere, I think that language choice is not as important as all the other choices: if you have the right overall architecture, the right team of programmers, the right development process that allows for rapid development with continuous improvement, then many languages will work for you; if you don't have those things you're in trouble regardless of your language choice. ----edw519 448 days ago---- [....] Someone should write a program that automatically posts this paragraph [Norvig's] at the top of every language war thread. I think they should write that program in php :-) ----poet 449 days ago----- An approximation of some of Norvig's recent thoughts (Feb 2010): "(1) It just turned out that when Google was started, the core programmers were C++ programmers and they were very effective. Part of it is a little bit of culture. (2) Early Lisp programmers (Erann Gat) at Google actually noticed that other programmers were equally or more productive. It has more to do with the programmer; we're getting to the point where language choice is less important (as opposed to 20 years ago). (3) Lisp is optimized for a single programmer or a small group of programmers doing exploratory work... If I want to make a change in a weekend I'd rather do it in Lisp than anything else, but by the time you get up to hundreds of programers making chang
An approximation of some of Norvig's recent thoughts (Feb 2010): "(1) It just turned out that when Google was started, the core programmers were C++ programmers and they were very effective. Part of it is a little bit of culture. (2) Early Lisp programmers (Erann Gat) at Google actually noticed that other programmers were equally or more productive. It has more to do with the programmer; we're getting to the point where language choice is less important (as opposed to 20 years ago). (3) Lisp is optimized for a single programmer or a small group of programmers doing exploratory work... If I want to make a change in a weekend I'd rather do it in Lisp than anything else, but by the time you get up to hundreds of programers making changes are not a language problem but a social one. (4) Libraries." Paraphrased from: this video .
To put into perspective check this fragment of interview ( this video ) by Peter Norvig. What he is saying is there is a trade-off between using open space vs. cubicles.