3 ms·

I'll just leave two of my old comments here... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10207199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10207199 and https://news.ycom

by Jach 10y ago

I'll just leave two of my old comments here... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10207199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10207199 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3423646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3423646 Short summary: I do think on HN it's reasonable to assume "Lisp" without further qualification to refer to the lisp family. The usefulness of the lisp family idea (which afaict is having sexps and maybe something like defmacro) is questionable. Among Lisp and lisp-family practitioners outside of HN and maybe even on HN itself (it'd be interesting to see a poll result) Lisp means Common Lisp, as it has basically since Common Lisp was created, and the distinction with other lisps usually made by saying things like "Clojure is a Lisp", that article "a" being important here to say x is a member of the y family and would be nice to have in the slide title. I agree with your argument about common usage but I'm not sure what the common usage on HN really is and what's a vocal minority using it incorrectly until it becomes common. But we've already lost several wars like that, in the wider culture ('literally' for one..) and in tech (a recent one that bugs me being 'isomorphic' JavaScript) so it's probably best to sigh in resignation and maybe think/complain about the lisp/lisp family stuff once every few years at most. ;)

imagist 10y ago
> I agree with your argument about common usage but I'm not sure what the common usage on HN really is and what's a vocal minority using it incorrectly until it becomes common. I just don't think "correctly" and "incorrectly" are words that have meaning when it comes to semantics. I care more about your goals. If your goal is to have "Lisp" mean "Common Lisp", then you can try to enforce that, but it's a strange goal to fight for, and probably not an achievable one. Personally, my goal is to understand what people are saying and communicate my own ideas effectively. Toward that end, I just say "Common Lisp" or "CL" when I mean Common Lisp, and Lisp-family languages or Lisp-like languages when I'm talking about the larger group. And when reading, I use context clues to figure out which the person is talking about. Certainly in the OP, it's clear that "Lisp" refers to the s-expression-y languages.
- junke 10y ago
  An article that would title "Lisp beyond Clojure" would indeed talk about the Lisp family of languages. What is a very bad in that title is that it focuses on Racket, just as if the title was: "Racket - this is how Lisp looks like beyond Clojure". And that is the main problem I have with the title. The ideal title would be IMO "What could Clojure learn from Racket".
  - imagist 10y ago
    If you understand what the title means well enough to object to its usage, that's solid proof that the title has communicated effectively. > What is a very bad in that title is that it focuses on Racket, just as if the title was: "Racket - this is how Lisp looks like beyond Clojure". That's your own interpretation--you could easily have interpreted it as "Racket--an example of a Lisp beyond Clojure".
    - junke 10y ago
      I can understand and consider the choice of words to be bad.
      - imagist 10y ago
        But on what basis would you consider them to be bad?
- Jach 10y ago
  Here are some ways words can be incorrect: http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ In the end it's not a very fulfilling battle even if won, to preserve the meaning of a word. I always liked the line "In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess" as a guide to be more explicit and ask for clarification in general communication.
  - imagist 10y ago
    Yeah, 17-20 in that link do a better job of expressing what I wanted to express than I did. :)

by Jach 10y ago

imagist 10y ago

> I agree with your argument about common usage but I'm not sure what the common usage on HN really is and what's a vocal minority using it incorrectly until it becomes common. I just don't think "correctly" and "incorrectly" are words that have meaning when it comes to semantics. I care more about your goals. If your goal is to have "Lisp" mean "Common Lisp", then you can try to enforce that, but it's a strange goal to fight for, and probably not an achievable one. Personally, my goal is to understand what people are saying and communicate my own ideas effectively. Toward that end, I just say "Common Lisp" or "CL" when I mean Common Lisp, and Lisp-family languages or Lisp-like languages when I'm talking about the larger group. And when reading, I use context clues to figure out which the person is talking about. Certainly in the OP, it's clear that "Lisp" refers to the s-expression-y languages.

junke 10y ago
An article that would title "Lisp beyond Clojure" would indeed talk about the Lisp family of languages. What is a very bad in that title is that it focuses on Racket, just as if the title was: "Racket - this is how Lisp looks like beyond Clojure". And that is the main problem I have with the title. The ideal title would be IMO "What could Clojure learn from Racket".
- imagist 10y ago
  If you understand what the title means well enough to object to its usage, that's solid proof that the title has communicated effectively. > What is a very bad in that title is that it focuses on Racket, just as if the title was: "Racket - this is how Lisp looks like beyond Clojure". That's your own interpretation--you could easily have interpreted it as "Racket--an example of a Lisp beyond Clojure".
  - junke 10y ago
    I can understand and consider the choice of words to be bad.
    - imagist 10y ago
      But on what basis would you consider them to be bad?
Jach 10y ago
Here are some ways words can be incorrect: http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/ In the end it's not a very fulfilling battle even if won, to preserve the meaning of a word. I always liked the line "In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess" as a guide to be more explicit and ask for clarification in general communication.
- imagist 10y ago
  Yeah, 17-20 in that link do a better job of expressing what I wanted to express than I did. :)