The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 3 (of 5)

Lisp company IPOs

Orbitz (who use Lisp for their software) IPOed today http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9615-2003Dec17.html

Take *that* anyone who claims no commerical applications use lisp ;)

Matthew Lock
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Yeah, but their share prices fell a bit below the offer price. Incontrovertible proof that Lisp applications can never be successful.

As Philo would say, running, ducking... <g>

Robert Jacobson
Thursday, December 18, 2003

I read they're still above their offer price of $22-24 because of a surprise 3rd quarter profit. They also upped the number of shares to be sold.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=4004349

burningman
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Looks like they're primarily a Java shop:

http://www.orbitz.com/App/about/jobs/sr_software_engineer.jsp?c=7di5&r=35

/:-|
Thursday, December 18, 2003

I beg to differ: http://www.paulgraham.com/carl.html

Matthew Lock
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Also this http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2286/new1015626014044/index3.html

"The high-level algorithms are almost entirely in Lisp, one of the oldest programming languages. You're excused for chuckling, or saying "Why Lisp?" Although the language can be inefficient if used without extreme caution, it has a reputation for compactness. One line of Lisp can replace 20 lines of C. ITA's programmers, who learned the language inside and out while at MIT, note that LISP is highly effective if you ditch the prefabricated data structures. "We're something of a poster child for LISP these days," says Wertheimer. "Lisp vendors love us."

The downside of using a sometimes-maligned language is that it's hard to find good Lisp programmers. Today, only half of ITA's coders are Lisp gurus. For its own Web site, ITA relies on server-side Java, partly because of the availability of capable Java programmers.

In addition to being Lisp fans, ITA's employees have a more modern love. Wertheimer describes himself and his colleagues as "serious XML bigots," using the language to communicate with airlines about flight schedules, delays, and gate numbers. "

Matthew Lock
Thursday, December 18, 2003

They are not a commercial software company. They are a travel service company. A commercial software company sells software. They sell plane tixs.

pdq
Thursday, December 18, 2003

I remember a lot of ballyhoo about orbitz's superior price finding service from the LISP crowd here in boston, but I've compared results to expedia and travelocity at least 10 times, and every time orbitz produced worse results... much worse results. It was also noticably slower. This could just be my particular routing preferences. Anyone actually had good luck with orbitz?

expedia ho
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Worse is better :)

K
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Orbitz's much-hyped software isn't really a big deal. It was a improvement over Sabre for its particular small niche, but it's not rocket science.

h
Thursday, December 18, 2003

"One line of Lisp can replace 20 lines of C"

So what - one call to an API can replace n (where n is a large number) lines of code in language X. This is a Hubie Brownism/Bill Waltonism (I remembering Hubie saying something like "That's a high percentage difficult shot").

If Lisp works for Orbitz good for them.

Walter Rumsby
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Of course, one can argue that a single example of success only proves that it is possible to succeed using LISP, but that it is not necessarily the best choice. You might even to go so far as to say they were able to succeed inspite of using LISP. =)

m8v316
Thursday, December 18, 2003

expedia ho:

The search results from Orbitz and other online travel services are not unbiased. There are some airlines that don't have their fares listed with Orbitz at all, or won't make their lowest fares be available thru Orbitz. Airlines have various deals and restrictions with different travel services, and those conditions can and will affect your results.

If the destination you are interested in isn't served by airlines who have a good arrangement with Orbitz, you aren't going to find very good fares via their service.

T. Norman
Thursday, December 18, 2003

"You might even to go so far as to say they were able to succeed inspite of using LISP. =)"

Or they were able to thuctheed in thpite of lithp.

T. Norman
Thursday, December 18, 2003

( I ( can't ( believe ( it ))))

car(cdr)
cdr(car)

Bella
Thursday, December 18, 2003

Mind your back-quotes, Bella.

K
Friday, December 19, 2003