5 ms·

Heh, yeah. Lisp has powerful features, I'm sure, but something that's always stumped me is, if that power mattered for delivering better code, would we have to

by Frondo 10y ago

Heh, yeah. Lisp has powerful features, I'm sure, but something that's always stumped me is, if that power mattered for delivering better code, would we have to strain so hard to find examples of why it's better? Paul Graham's viaweb story, well, that's great, but why wasn't there a whole cohort of super-powered startups winning the day with lisp in the original dot com boom? Why are there so few big wins with lisp? The "lisp is powerful" story just doesn't seem like the whole story, when there are so few successes on the ground compared to C, C++, Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, VB, you name it.

gkya 10y ago
You confuse powerful with popular. Many startups don't need powerful tools, other than a CRUD framework and JQuery. Also, existence and abundance of libraries is a factor, and Lisp didn't get much love from the OSS web folks til recently.
- Frondo 10y ago
  Well, no, I'm not confusing powerful and popular. I'm asking why, for all lisp's power, there's almost no examples of that power actually doing anyone any good. Is it because most projects don't need something powerful? The benefits of that power aren't actually that great compared to the rest of the lisp baggage? We have this trope of the smug lisp weenie and there's definitely a whiff of high wizardry around lisp, but who's actually shipping anything with it?
  - snaky 10y ago
    > doing anyone any good There's a difference between doing and talking about. Compare an amount of noise from Rust crowd to anything useful being done in Rust. Let's look at only one product implemented in Lisp, by only one vendor, and it's users in only one industry - http://allegrograph.com/healthcare/ http://allegrograph.com/healthcare/. Pfizer, Mayo Clinic, GSK, Novartis - should we stop with that 'doing anyone any good' mantra?
    - mark_l_watson 10y ago
      AllegroGraph is a great example. I wrote a book (actually 2 books, with Java and Common Lisp editions) using AllegroGraph. A free PDFs of both editions are available on the book page on my website.
    - Frondo 10y ago
      The thing is, I'm trying to ask, if lisp is super-powerful and a secret weapon (the general sense of the claims) why isn't the real world littered with examples of companies who seriously out-competed using Lisp? So far all people can do is say "no, SOMEONE is using Lisp!" Well, great, but that's not the claim from the Lisp community. The claim is that Lisp is powerful, so powerful that it's a secret weapon. Why is there so little evidence of that power being meaningful in actual competition?
      - ruste 10y ago
        The website of the company that became amazon was written in lisp.
      - gkya 10y ago
        The competition you're referring to is an economical one that's based on the product. For any product which is a software application (whatever UI should it sport, native, web based, remotely hosted, etc.), it's commercial success is tied to its features and UX. For something like Amazon or Google, it's not all that important if it's written in Lisp or BCPL or Prolog or whatnot, that's irrelevant in the competition among products. Lisp's competition is on a technical level with other programming languages, and it's target audience is programmers. It can only help allowing easier development of technology, more fluid continuity from idea to product, robust and helpful debugging tools. So writing a search engine in Lisp won't necessarily mean that you'll be one step ahead of Google in search business in terms of end product, you still need to come up with a better idea or better UX if you want to compete them, and other factors like advertising, conversion etc are in the play too. But with Lisp you may need less development resources to produce the product than you'd need with C++ or Java.
  - astrange 10y ago
    You've probably played a Naughty Dog game. They use Scheme as the scripting language, but their PS1 games were written entirely in a Lisp. …except it didn't have garbage collection. Lisp weenies are all GC weenies too, right? Is that acceptable?
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Nah, GC weenies would probably be the Java guys ;). GC is an important and helpful part of a working Lisp system, but it's not the core of the magic.
      - snaky 10y ago
        It is actually. Without GC it's almost impossible to have a productive "image-based model" that accelerate development so much.
  - gkya 10y ago
    Emacs's been shipping for three decades. It's the eldest of the living open source software.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Compared to bsd userland?
      - gkya 10y ago
        Well if current BSDs are counted as direct continuations thereof (instead of descendants), maybe it's older. But Emacs directly continues since day one.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Well for a long time the only proper Lisp environments were commercial. Still people get by with Emacs + SLIME + whatever open source version, as making use of those environments.
  - greggyb 10y ago
    I'm not trying to sound smug or dismissive, but I don't have much time for deep discussion right now. The question that pops into my mind is this: How many unsuccessful languages have multiple long-lived commercial offerings?[0][1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_Common_Lisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_Common_Lisp [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LispWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LispWorks
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    http://franz.com/success/ http://franz.com/success/ http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories There are plenty more.
jfoutz 10y ago
Eh, i think pg's strategy is sound for a startup. If you know lisp inside and out, absolutely use it to build your MVP. but once you get traction, you need a plan to transition to something you can actually hire for, just like reddit. wasn't orbitz lisp? there are a few that kicked around. On the other hand, if you don't know lisp, you should use what you know instead. it's just not worth learning a language and solving your startup's problems at the same time.
- felideon 10y ago
  > wasn't orbitz lisp? Yes and still is, as far as I know. The pricing engine is written by ITA Software which was acquired by Google a while back.
lispm 10y ago
DWAVE uses Lisp / SBCL. http://www.dwavesys.com http://www.dwavesys.com Some company doing mobile satellite-based Internet streaming used Lisp / Clozure CL.

by Frondo 10y ago

gkya 10y ago

You confuse powerful with popular. Many startups don't need powerful tools, other than a CRUD framework and JQuery. Also, existence and abundance of libraries is a factor, and Lisp didn't get much love from the OSS web folks til recently.

Frondo 10y ago
Well, no, I'm not confusing powerful and popular. I'm asking why, for all lisp's power, there's almost no examples of that power actually doing anyone any good. Is it because most projects don't need something powerful? The benefits of that power aren't actually that great compared to the rest of the lisp baggage? We have this trope of the smug lisp weenie and there's definitely a whiff of high wizardry around lisp, but who's actually shipping anything with it?
- snaky 10y ago
  > doing anyone any good There's a difference between doing and talking about. Compare an amount of noise from Rust crowd to anything useful being done in Rust. Let's look at only one product implemented in Lisp, by only one vendor, and it's users in only one industry - http://allegrograph.com/healthcare/ http://allegrograph.com/healthcare/. Pfizer, Mayo Clinic, GSK, Novartis - should we stop with that 'doing anyone any good' mantra?
  - mark_l_watson 10y ago
    AllegroGraph is a great example. I wrote a book (actually 2 books, with Java and Common Lisp editions) using AllegroGraph. A free PDFs of both editions are available on the book page on my website.
  - Frondo 10y ago
    The thing is, I'm trying to ask, if lisp is super-powerful and a secret weapon (the general sense of the claims) why isn't the real world littered with examples of companies who seriously out-competed using Lisp? So far all people can do is say "no, SOMEONE is using Lisp!" Well, great, but that's not the claim from the Lisp community. The claim is that Lisp is powerful, so powerful that it's a secret weapon. Why is there so little evidence of that power being meaningful in actual competition?
    - ruste 10y ago
      The website of the company that became amazon was written in lisp.
    - gkya 10y ago
      The competition you're referring to is an economical one that's based on the product. For any product which is a software application (whatever UI should it sport, native, web based, remotely hosted, etc.), it's commercial success is tied to its features and UX. For something like Amazon or Google, it's not all that important if it's written in Lisp or BCPL or Prolog or whatnot, that's irrelevant in the competition among products. Lisp's competition is on a technical level with other programming languages, and it's target audience is programmers. It can only help allowing easier development of technology, more fluid continuity from idea to product, robust and helpful debugging tools. So writing a search engine in Lisp won't necessarily mean that you'll be one step ahead of Google in search business in terms of end product, you still need to come up with a better idea or better UX if you want to compete them, and other factors like advertising, conversion etc are in the play too. But with Lisp you may need less development resources to produce the product than you'd need with C++ or Java.
- astrange 10y ago
  You've probably played a Naughty Dog game. They use Scheme as the scripting language, but their PS1 games were written entirely in a Lisp. …except it didn't have garbage collection. Lisp weenies are all GC weenies too, right? Is that acceptable?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Nah, GC weenies would probably be the Java guys ;). GC is an important and helpful part of a working Lisp system, but it's not the core of the magic.
    - snaky 10y ago
      It is actually. Without GC it's almost impossible to have a productive "image-based model" that accelerate development so much.
- gkya 10y ago
  Emacs's been shipping for three decades. It's the eldest of the living open source software.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Compared to bsd userland?
    - gkya 10y ago
      Well if current BSDs are counted as direct continuations thereof (instead of descendants), maybe it's older. But Emacs directly continues since day one.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Well for a long time the only proper Lisp environments were commercial. Still people get by with Emacs + SLIME + whatever open source version, as making use of those environments.
- greggyb 10y ago
  I'm not trying to sound smug or dismissive, but I don't have much time for deep discussion right now. The question that pops into my mind is this: How many unsuccessful languages have multiple long-lived commercial offerings?[0][1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_Common_Lisp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegro_Common_Lisp [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LispWorks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LispWorks
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  http://franz.com/success/ http://franz.com/success/ http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://www.lispworks.com/success-stories/index.html http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories http://cognitect.com/clojure#successstories There are plenty more.

jfoutz 10y ago

Eh, i think pg's strategy is sound for a startup. If you know lisp inside and out, absolutely use it to build your MVP. but once you get traction, you need a plan to transition to something you can actually hire for, just like reddit. wasn't orbitz lisp? there are a few that kicked around. On the other hand, if you don't know lisp, you should use what you know instead. it's just not worth learning a language and solving your startup's problems at the same time.

felideon 10y ago
> wasn't orbitz lisp? Yes and still is, as far as I know. The pricing engine is written by ITA Software which was acquired by Google a while back.

lispm 10y ago

DWAVE uses Lisp / SBCL. http://www.dwavesys.com http://www.dwavesys.com Some company doing mobile satellite-based Internet streaming used Lisp / Clozure CL.