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>In reality, it's more likely that those 100 lines of boring Java are easily written in 10 lines of just as boring Lisp, the only difference being the removal o

>In reality, it's more likely that those 100 lines of boring Java are easily written in 10 lines of just as boring Lisp, the only difference being the removal of 90 lines of boilerplate getters and setters, iteration logic, exception declarations, class definitions and instantiation, and so on. I hear this sort of thing from Lisp advocates all the time, but have never seen it in practice. Understandable Lisp isn't that compact.

lispm 9y ago
The idea is that special constructs and a special machine in the problem domain will be used to write and execute dense code. This then tends to be VERY understandable in the domain, but brings the developer away from the low-level execution machine. Thus it is more understandable and less understandable, both at the same time, but on different levels. Much more understandable for the domain-level programmer. Much less understandable for the low-level execution-level programmer.
stouset 9y ago
I'm guessing you easily have 100x or more experience with Java than you do Lisp. Do you suspect that this might have something to do with it? Lisp has a very different syntax from C-style languages, and this seems to trip people up much much more than the functional components of it. Not being familiar with the idioms of another language doesn't mean those idioms are hard. It just means you aren't familiar with them.
stouset 9y ago
> [I] have never seen it in practice. Understandable Lisp isn't that compact. Also, you are literally replying to a comment chain provoked by a post that argues, with code, exactly this point. The Clojure (a Lisp dialect) version has the same core logic as the Java version. The core logic is virtually inarguably just as readable as the Java version. And it is just shy of an order of magnitude fewer lines of code than the Java version. So here's an example from a real, live code base of understandable Lisp, in practice, that is 10x more compact than the Java version.
deleted 9y ago
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lispm 9y ago

The idea is that special constructs and a special machine in the problem domain will be used to write and execute dense code. This then tends to be VERY understandable in the domain, but brings the developer away from the low-level execution machine. Thus it is more understandable and less understandable, both at the same time, but on different levels. Much more understandable for the domain-level programmer. Much less understandable for the low-level execution-level programmer.

stouset 9y ago

I'm guessing you easily have 100x or more experience with Java than you do Lisp. Do you suspect that this might have something to do with it? Lisp has a very different syntax from C-style languages, and this seems to trip people up much much more than the functional components of it. Not being familiar with the idioms of another language doesn't mean those idioms are hard. It just means you aren't familiar with them.

stouset 9y ago

> [I] have never seen it in practice. Understandable Lisp isn't that compact. Also, you are literally replying to a comment chain provoked by a post that argues, with code, exactly this point. The Clojure (a Lisp dialect) version has the same core logic as the Java version. The core logic is virtually inarguably just as readable as the Java version. And it is just shy of an order of magnitude fewer lines of code than the Java version. So here's an example from a real, live code base of understandable Lisp, in practice, that is 10x more compact than the Java version.

deleted 9y ago

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