# On programming languages and programmers


Very well written email message from Geoff Teale
on the [golang mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/) on programmers and
progamming languages
([thread](http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/browse_thread/thread/350bf027bd803af1#)).

> To summarise a long presentation I gave to non-programmers:
> 
> * There are 12 million programmers in the world
> * The majority of those programmers are scarcely qualified
> * Most technology decisions are made by a combination of following the crowd
> and a false understanding of risk.
> * The high cost and failure rate in software development is no coincidence.
> 
> Remember the Stevie Wonder rule - "When you believe in something you don't
> understand then you suffer".   In this case that means "Perhaps making
> programming language decisions based on what 12 million powerless idiots are
> doing isn't the golden road to glory and great hacks."
> 
> Go is a genuine attempt to improve the state of systems programing language
> beyond the point they reached in the early 1970s.  As a result the sort of
> people using it are mostly that small community of people who understand and
> care about the concerns that drive such a development.
> 
> You're not going to catch those 12 million people unless you can market heavily
> enough the idea that their future income depend on jobs/contacts built around
> go, but that goal just draws resources and energy away from making the language
> better.
> 
> Arguably Java also suffers from it's large community of corporate drones.   The
> slavish tendency to build baroque, mausoleums of intricate classes, dense with
> state and dripping with verbose XML is a reflection of the unthinking insanity
> of the 12 million.
> 
> I'd rather a tiny community use the language well, built successful
> applications and organically grew the user base whilst establishing a clean,
> sane library base that might later be used to improve the lives of a wider
> population of programmers.
> 
> I've said more than enough, I'll trundle back to the twelve million and take my
> punishment now.