6 ms·

"Clojure is what happens when a bunch of Java hackers write a lisp for the JVM"? That sounds "clever", but you should be aware that Hickey developed several Li

by KingMob 10y ago

"Clojure is what happens when a bunch of Java hackers write a lisp for the JVM"? That sounds "clever", but you should be aware that Hickey developed several Lisps before Clojure and was active in the Common Lisp community in the years leading up to it. Also, some of your statements about Clojure are just incorrect; e.g., Clojure is not wholly lazy.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
Well, the laziness yes, thanks for the correction, but much of it was from Clojure's own page about how it is different from other Lisps. And I am aware of Hickey's history. I was trying to provide a summary of the difference in outlook between Clojure and Kawa/ABCL: Clojure is decisively more "java-ey" than either of the others, and very much feels like a lisp for those already familiar with that language, with some FP on the side. I don't know if that's just my interpretation of Hickey's ideas, or if it was a deliberate design decision, or if it fell out of the Java interop. It could be any of them. But the language has a distinctly unlispy feel as a result, even though it IS a lisp, lack of cons cells not withstanding.
- aidenn0 10y ago
  I always read the history as Hickey wanting first-class Java interop after his experience with FOIL[1]. In addition he wanted Clojure to be specifically for functional programming (something Common Lisp doesn't excel at). IMO, most of the things that make early versions of Clojure different from previous Lisps do fall out from the requirement of first-class Java interop and being opinionated about pure data being the Right Way to do multithreaded. From that point on Clojure is its own thing, and will naturally diverge. 1: http://foil.sourceforge.net/ http://foil.sourceforge.net/
- lispm 10y ago
  I think we have to get rid of the idea that any language with parentheses is a Lisp. For all practical purposes languages like Scheme, Lisp, Clojure are fully incompatible on all levels: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. All they share are some distant ideas (some form of s-expression syntax, some form of macros, ...) provided in incompatible ways. They share no code, no libraries, no books, no community, ... that's a consequence of being different. Note that this says nothing about their usefulness for developing software.
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    ...And I think we need to get rid of the idea that those differences necessarily precludes them from being Lisps. Because make no mistake, they are all Lisps. You said that they didn't share code, libraries, books, or community. First off, they do share community to some degree: there's a good bit of overlap between all of them. It's not all overlap, but there's plenty there. Second off, you know what other languages don't share code, library, or books with the Common Lisp we know today? MACLisp. Interlisp. Portable Standard Lisp. Lisp 1.5. Emacs Lisp. AutoLisp. ISLISP. Eulisp. Arc. To say nothing of Hy, LFE, MDL, Newlisp, NIL, Picolisp, and yes, Clojure and Scheme. And there are countless others. Lisp has always been a language of many different dialects. Why should we pretend it's any different now?
    - gkya 10y ago
      Second tthis. The term Lisp in CS is like Romance in linguistics, it indicates a family of languages that belong to different similar but not identical cultures which contribute to them and yet still the languages come from a common ancestor and are more similar than not while at times not easily mutually comprehensible.
      - lispm 10y ago
        People who can speak German dialects can understand each other. Books written in some form of German can be understood by most readers. Same for English dialects. For Germanic languages this is not the case. English and German are both Germanic, but knowing German does not let me read English literature. Lisp is like English: a basic vocabulary, a basic syntax, basic semantics understood by all readers. I can look at some basic Lisp code and I will understand the program. A Lisp developer looking at Clojure code will understand very very little.
        qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Really? It's pretty easy to get, with a few pointers here and there.

by KingMob 10y ago

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

Well, the laziness yes, thanks for the correction, but much of it was from Clojure's own page about how it is different from other Lisps. And I am aware of Hickey's history. I was trying to provide a summary of the difference in outlook between Clojure and Kawa/ABCL: Clojure is decisively more "java-ey" than either of the others, and very much feels like a lisp for those already familiar with that language, with some FP on the side. I don't know if that's just my interpretation of Hickey's ideas, or if it was a deliberate design decision, or if it fell out of the Java interop. It could be any of them. But the language has a distinctly unlispy feel as a result, even though it IS a lisp, lack of cons cells not withstanding.

aidenn0 10y ago
I always read the history as Hickey wanting first-class Java interop after his experience with FOIL[1]. In addition he wanted Clojure to be specifically for functional programming (something Common Lisp doesn't excel at). IMO, most of the things that make early versions of Clojure different from previous Lisps do fall out from the requirement of first-class Java interop and being opinionated about pure data being the Right Way to do multithreaded. From that point on Clojure is its own thing, and will naturally diverge. 1: http://foil.sourceforge.net/ http://foil.sourceforge.net/
lispm 10y ago
I think we have to get rid of the idea that any language with parentheses is a Lisp. For all practical purposes languages like Scheme, Lisp, Clojure are fully incompatible on all levels: syntax, semantics and pragmatics. All they share are some distant ideas (some form of s-expression syntax, some form of macros, ...) provided in incompatible ways. They share no code, no libraries, no books, no community, ... that's a consequence of being different. Note that this says nothing about their usefulness for developing software.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  ...And I think we need to get rid of the idea that those differences necessarily precludes them from being Lisps. Because make no mistake, they are all Lisps. You said that they didn't share code, libraries, books, or community. First off, they do share community to some degree: there's a good bit of overlap between all of them. It's not all overlap, but there's plenty there. Second off, you know what other languages don't share code, library, or books with the Common Lisp we know today? MACLisp. Interlisp. Portable Standard Lisp. Lisp 1.5. Emacs Lisp. AutoLisp. ISLISP. Eulisp. Arc. To say nothing of Hy, LFE, MDL, Newlisp, NIL, Picolisp, and yes, Clojure and Scheme. And there are countless others. Lisp has always been a language of many different dialects. Why should we pretend it's any different now?
  - gkya 10y ago
    Second tthis. The term Lisp in CS is like Romance in linguistics, it indicates a family of languages that belong to different similar but not identical cultures which contribute to them and yet still the languages come from a common ancestor and are more similar than not while at times not easily mutually comprehensible.
    - lispm 10y ago
      People who can speak German dialects can understand each other. Books written in some form of German can be understood by most readers. Same for English dialects. For Germanic languages this is not the case. English and German are both Germanic, but knowing German does not let me read English literature. Lisp is like English: a basic vocabulary, a basic syntax, basic semantics understood by all readers. I can look at some basic Lisp code and I will understand the program. A Lisp developer looking at Clojure code will understand very very little.
      - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
        Really? It's pretty easy to get, with a few pointers here and there.