A language that supported a platform for almost twenty years in the modern era? I can't call this anything but a wild success. Sure, it had issues, as discussed on the article, but they solved the business problem at the moment in time. No software decision is without costs, but running a major site for almost two decades indicates that they chose well.
Bravo!
I do wish they'd throw the source code up on GitHub, as it would be an interesting historical artifact.
This is the sort of programming language that I would love to read a detailed retrospective of in an ACM journal. It's a programming language designed to solve a particular problem, grew over time for that problem, and it successfully did so for almost 20 years. A programming language that is useful that long is interesting to me.
I'm not second-guessing the technical that the Times made here (I'm sure it made sense given their constraints), but I do wonder if these kinds of in-house general-purpose languages will die out eventually. Some of the comments indicating that this sort of project is a "red flag" seem to miss that 20 years ago the language landscape was a lot more proprietary/closed.
But these days, a big open source/community ecosystem is a really really strong reasons to invest in an existing language (or at least open-source your in-house language, a la Hack or Go). It's hard for in-house general-purpose languages to compete.
> Recruiting new engineers was sometimes a challenge because candidates had to accept that they were joining an organization with a homegrown programming language and build system.
I got an offer from NYT in 2009, but rejected it because of the custom language thing. My interview was conducted entirely using this custom language, and the interviewers were uninterested in discussing any other technology. Even architectural questions, which I attempted to answer in terms of industry standards, were steered towards Context.
> My interview was conducted entirely using this custom language, and the interviewers were uninterested in discussing any other technology.
Bizarre!
Writing their system in a custom programming language isn't _that_ unusual, I think. But why on earth during an interview wouldn't they let candidates program (entirely or mostly) in a language they'd heard of before that morning? Couldn't they assume that if someone has achieved a working knowledge of one or more similar languages, they can learn another in some reasonable time (days, weeks, months)?
I'd love to see an example of the language, I kept reading (the story is great) but it felt like we got left hanging without any code snippets to put it all in, uh, context I guess.
I think it was this site where I remember Context from: https://www.mangaupdates.com/
Back then in my school years I remember not being able to find anything about this language. Mystery solved now. Thank you.
> “We probably over-engineered it, I guess,” Damens said.
Exactly. Also, creating a programming language for something as simple as a newspaper is pretty much a nightmare. Worrying about scalability when most of their content is static.
This is nearly 20 years ago. Were CGI and PHP really up for the tasks of serving up the type of dynamic pages at scale 2 decades ago? The "content" (articles) might be largely static but the pages are not, with dynamic ads, weather reports, showtimes etc. Not to mention getting non-technical people to adopt the language easily, transitioning from print publishing workflows. Do you not believe them when they say existing language and solutions weren't working?
[+] [-] mooreds|7 years ago|reply
Bravo!
I do wish they'd throw the source code up on GitHub, as it would be an interesting historical artifact.
[+] [-] CaliforniaKarl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mpweiher|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scott_s|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shafte|7 years ago|reply
But these days, a big open source/community ecosystem is a really really strong reasons to invest in an existing language (or at least open-source your in-house language, a la Hack or Go). It's hard for in-house general-purpose languages to compete.
[+] [-] sigfubar|7 years ago|reply
I got an offer from NYT in 2009, but rejected it because of the custom language thing. My interview was conducted entirely using this custom language, and the interviewers were uninterested in discussing any other technology. Even architectural questions, which I attempted to answer in terms of industry standards, were steered towards Context.
[+] [-] scottlamb|7 years ago|reply
Bizarre!
Writing their system in a custom programming language isn't _that_ unusual, I think. But why on earth during an interview wouldn't they let candidates program (entirely or mostly) in a language they'd heard of before that morning? Couldn't they assume that if someone has achieved a working knowledge of one or more similar languages, they can learn another in some reasonable time (days, weeks, months)?
[+] [-] cryptonector|7 years ago|reply
So what? Are you a specialist, or can you specialize as needed?
But you can't focus an interview on a proprietary language that the interviewee is bound to not know.
[+] [-] weeksie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oraphalous|7 years ago|reply
How on Earth did they get permission to invent a whole new language for a user name feature?
Jealous...
[+] [-] v8engine|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egypturnash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kwccoin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] williamstein|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fouc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scegit|7 years ago|reply
Exactly. Also, creating a programming language for something as simple as a newspaper is pretty much a nightmare. Worrying about scalability when most of their content is static.
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] ndespres|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batter|7 years ago|reply