5 ms·

Emacs just used a full blown programming language right from the start. And one of the very best: Lisp.

by cup-of-tea 9y ago

oblio 9y ago
> And one of the very best: Lisp. Got any hard numbers to back up that bold claim?
- cup-of-tea 9y ago
  I rate it 10/10. What kind of numbers are you expecting exactly?
  - oblio 9y ago
    Anything which can support the grandiose Lisper claims such as the one above :) By which measurable metric is Lisp "one of the best"? I'm genuinely curious, since I keep hearing propaganda about it.
    - cup-of-tea 9y ago
      What programming languages do you use? What numbers made you choose those ones? Maybe if you show me an example of some numbers I could help more. I don't have the time to write up why I think Lisp is great, but you can find essays by many greater (and more famous) programmers than me such as Richard Stallman, Peter Norvig, Steve Yegge, Paul Graham et al. But really the only way is to learn it for yourself. There is a kind of enlightenment that comes with learning Lisp and I would recommend it to every programmer.
- willtim 9y ago
  What numbers do you require? If there was a metric measuring simplicity then Lisp (or perhaps a modern variant, Scheme) would probably win - it is a local optimum of language design, essentially just lambda calculus exposed via a very simple grammar (which aids meta-programming).
  - oblio 9y ago
    Any kind of serious study will do :)
    - willtim 9y ago
      Such studies are very hard to do, it is almost impossible to factor out social preferences. For me personally, I am most productive in languages like Haskell and OCaml.
- zeveb 9y ago
  https://academic.oup.com/bib/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bib/bbw130/2769437 https://academic.oup.com/bib/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bib... I also seem to recall a paper from the 90s or early 2000s which compared speed of development & program execution between Lisp & other languages. Maybe it was somewhere on Ron Garrett's site? IIRC, Lisp programs were developed consistently more quickly than C/C++/Java/SmallTalk, and were normally faster than all but the very fastest C/C++ programs — but I could misremember. I remember that it had some interesting-looking charts.
PurpleRamen 9y ago
Then again, while Emacs Lisp is based on Lisp, it's not really the best lisp. Some could say it's not even good, because of how old and crafty and lacking in features it is/was. But thing is, it slowly evolves, and maybe in a decade or two it closed the gap.

Emacs just used a full blown programming language right from the start. And one of the very best: Lisp.

oblio 9y ago

> And one of the very best: Lisp. Got any hard numbers to back up that bold claim?

cup-of-tea 9y ago
I rate it 10/10. What kind of numbers are you expecting exactly?
- oblio 9y ago
  Anything which can support the grandiose Lisper claims such as the one above :) By which measurable metric is Lisp "one of the best"? I'm genuinely curious, since I keep hearing propaganda about it.
  - cup-of-tea 9y ago
    What programming languages do you use? What numbers made you choose those ones? Maybe if you show me an example of some numbers I could help more. I don't have the time to write up why I think Lisp is great, but you can find essays by many greater (and more famous) programmers than me such as Richard Stallman, Peter Norvig, Steve Yegge, Paul Graham et al. But really the only way is to learn it for yourself. There is a kind of enlightenment that comes with learning Lisp and I would recommend it to every programmer.
willtim 9y ago
What numbers do you require? If there was a metric measuring simplicity then Lisp (or perhaps a modern variant, Scheme) would probably win - it is a local optimum of language design, essentially just lambda calculus exposed via a very simple grammar (which aids meta-programming).
- oblio 9y ago
  Any kind of serious study will do :)
  - willtim 9y ago
    Such studies are very hard to do, it is almost impossible to factor out social preferences. For me personally, I am most productive in languages like Haskell and OCaml.
zeveb 9y ago
https://academic.oup.com/bib/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bib/bbw130/2769437 https://academic.oup.com/bib/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bib... I also seem to recall a paper from the 90s or early 2000s which compared speed of development & program execution between Lisp & other languages. Maybe it was somewhere on Ron Garrett's site? IIRC, Lisp programs were developed consistently more quickly than C/C++/Java/SmallTalk, and were normally faster than all but the very fastest C/C++ programs — but I could misremember. I remember that it had some interesting-looking charts.

PurpleRamen 9y ago

Then again, while Emacs Lisp is based on Lisp, it's not really the best lisp. Some could say it's not even good, because of how old and crafty and lacking in features it is/was. But thing is, it slowly evolves, and maybe in a decade or two it closed the gap.