Golden Hammer Poll

How many on wiki believe there is one "pure" language or concept that would simplify almost everything if used industry-wide:

There is a GoldenHammer: 5

There is NOT a GoldenHammer: 3

Perhaps those who vote "Yes" could shed some light on what this GoldenHammer language is?

My vote is for lexical closures/higher order functions, or a close approximation, like the blocks in SmalltalkLanguage.

I'll second this one. However note that "simplifying almost everything" does not entail making anything trivial or being applicable to everything.

I think the GoldenHammer (or you might better call it GoldenClockmakerShop?) would be a language, that

provides meta-language capabilities in the sense of RethinkingCompilerDesign, i.e. ReflectiveProgramming or CompilerReflection?,
provides meta-language capabilities in the sense of definable syntax in such a way, that most or all of the state-of-the-art languages can be used in source form (syntax) while implementing all of their semantics (at least closely so) in the meta-language,
be closely integrate with (or be) the OperatingSystem (in the sense of LanguagesAreOperatingSystems and LanguageIsAnOs) and
provide a data model, that provides reflection, selection, mutation, versioning, access control on multiple persistent distributed views of data/objects on all levels of the system.

But with reservations about its use: One unified framework might/will not be used simply for social reasons (in a broad sense including law and business relations).

-- GunnarZarncke

There isn't IMHO a single GoldenHammer; however the GoldenToolbelt is wearable by anyone.

There isn't a GoldenHammer. Different Languages/tools are made for different uses, and therefore good to use in different situations. Nothing can be the ultimate programming language.

Outside of "system tools" and embedded systems, which need the speed and will sacrifice high abstraction techniques to get it, many do believe that one language or tool can and should be used for just about everything else. In fact, I bet some think that special language or tool-specific chips could allow even embedded systems to have both the power of the golden hammer AND speed. Possible examples: JavaChip?, EssExpressionChip?, sql-chip, etc. Further, there is little agreement about what paradigm/tool is best for what (WhenToUseWhatParadigm).

See: HowCanSomethingBeSuperGreatWithoutProducingExternalEvidence