"Cornucopia Complex": too much good stuff You know all about the "cornucopia complex": the fear of having too much good stuff :-)
Actually, I coined the phrase "cornucopia complex" years ago, but unless you are a friend, you probably have not heard it before.
My latest fear of having too much good stuff comes from the tools for my working environment (I am a software architect/programmer, and author).
The first problem comes with operating systems: Apple Mac OS X is just too good. However, SuSE Linux is just about perfect also for programming and getting work done. And, I must admit, that starting with Windows 2000, Microsoft provides a low friction work platform.
The "cornucopia complex" gets worse with programming languages. Starting with Java
(the "good enough" language and platform): for all its deficiencies, Java is a great language to get stuff done and working - and Java scales well for very large projects.
For fast scripting jobs, it is hard to beat Python - then, add compelling Python software stacks like Zope/CMF/Plone and the Python platform is compelling for
small and medium scale web projects. Then, we get to my favorite languages like
the dynamically typed Common Lisp (I wrote 2 Lisp books for Springer-Verlag) and
Smalltalk. For a narrower range of applications, it is difficult to beat Prolog (everyone
who wants to round out their computer science experience should work through
the book "The Art of Prolog" for a mind opening experience).
Anyway, it is better to have too many great tools for work than not enough :-)
9:19:24 AM
|