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I like niche stuff. What language doesn't result in unmaintainable code, really? And let me just say... it's a bit rude to spread this rumor that Lisp is anti

by mbrock 10y ago

I like niche stuff. What language doesn't result in unmaintainable code, really? And let me just say... it's a bit rude to spread this rumor that Lisp is anti-social and bad for business when you've barely even tried it. Seriously. "Prove me wrong" is not a good way to discuss. See for yourself instead: learn Lisp and try to use it to write maintainable code.

tempodox 10y ago
I think you touch an interesting area. For me, figuring out how to make code maintainable (including error handling) is still an area of research, and I'm not a newbie. At least Lisp, with its metaprogramming facilities, gives you some good tools for experimenting. And I do think that the experimental character of the original problem space when Lisp was discovered plays an important role there.
- mbrock 10y ago
  Agreed. I think creating maintainable code is for various reasons very difficult, and I have barely seen any projects that succeed, especially not commercial software. Based on my experience, I could say that unmaintainable software results from using Java, JavaScript, Ruby, shell, and so on... but I don't like to blame the languages. Instead, I think it's simply that no language by itself can enforce properties that lead to maintainable software. For example, Java is very clean and simple, but that doesn't mean that typical Java code bases are clean or simple. Programmers will eventually always find a way to introduce strange complexity, inappropriate metaphors, incomprehensible abstractions, befuddling reuse, overly clever tricks, etc. If we really want to learn to make maintainable software, we should probably stop focusing on language features (and boring language wars) and think more about stuff like Eric Evans's concept of ubiquitous language... and, yeah, experiment with ways of writing clear code in whatever languages we use.

by mbrock 10y ago

tempodox 10y ago

I think you touch an interesting area. For me, figuring out how to make code maintainable (including error handling) is still an area of research, and I'm not a newbie. At least Lisp, with its metaprogramming facilities, gives you some good tools for experimenting. And I do think that the experimental character of the original problem space when Lisp was discovered plays an important role there.

mbrock 10y ago
Agreed. I think creating maintainable code is for various reasons very difficult, and I have barely seen any projects that succeed, especially not commercial software. Based on my experience, I could say that unmaintainable software results from using Java, JavaScript, Ruby, shell, and so on... but I don't like to blame the languages. Instead, I think it's simply that no language by itself can enforce properties that lead to maintainable software. For example, Java is very clean and simple, but that doesn't mean that typical Java code bases are clean or simple. Programmers will eventually always find a way to introduce strange complexity, inappropriate metaphors, incomprehensible abstractions, befuddling reuse, overly clever tricks, etc. If we really want to learn to make maintainable software, we should probably stop focusing on language features (and boring language wars) and think more about stuff like Eric Evans's concept of ubiquitous language... and, yeah, experiment with ways of writing clear code in whatever languages we use.