1. Successful closed-source languages, if you define success as a lot of people using them and a lot of code out there:
   
   * VBScript, very common in ASP web applications
   
   * JavaScript / ECMAScript, very common in client scripting of zillions of web pages
   
   Of course there are open source implementations of JavaScript, but there are also closed source ones and if I recall right the closed source came first.
   
     posted by Kyle Cordes at 11:42:02 PM on September 01, 2004  
2. I left out the word "dynamic" in my first sentence above, but hopefully the point was clear anyway.
   
     posted by Kyle Cordes at 11:42:56 PM on September 01, 2004  
3. I think Paul Graham essay about Great hackers has something interesting to say about this(remember that he is a Lisp guru/zealot):
   http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html
   
   Great hackers also generally insist on using open source software. Not just because it's better, but because it gives them more control. Good hackers insist on control. This is part of what makes them good hackers: when something's broken, they need to fix it.
   
   Also very interesting is his "Python paradox":
   http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html
     posted by Uriel at 04:54:43 AM on September 02, 2004  
4. I guess you're reading the wrong way. It's not
   "I think a language is dynamic if.."
   it is
   "I define a dynamic language as.."
   
   He's basically telling yay for perl/python/ruby/php/tcl
   and boo for vbscript.
   In his vision he's correct.
   Proprietary language such as MS VBScript do not share much with the Dynamic language community, in the sense that they have a littler itch-scratching nature and don't have a huge pack of free available libraries.
   
   This does not mean that they can't succeed in a localized non-general way (such as VBSCript, ActionScript or mIRC script that well), they just don't fit the whole vision of general purpose glue language described in the paper.
   
   
     posted by verbat at 07:30:16 AM on September 02, 2004