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I say this with a perspective of watching it happen over forty years. I'll get all kinds of heck if I start saying this or that language has faded. But many l

I say this with a perspective of watching it happen over forty years. I'll get all kinds of heck if I start saying this or that language has faded. But many languages have changed over time, sometimes in breaking ways, as their developers work to make them more expressive and add features. Code that is written one year often doesn't work a few years later - that's a kind of fading as specific reference implementations fade away and code written in them needs to be updated or it rots. Common Lisp doesn't have this problem - and it has many features that other languages have added over time, often in less comprehensive ways. For example C++11 lambdas are not as expressive and powerful as Common Lisp first class functions, and I joke that C++ template programming is to Common Lisp macros what IRS tax forms are to poetry. Note: Clasp includes a lot of C++ template programming and C++ lambda code that I enjoyed writing and I am so grateful that C++11 added variadic templates. New language features can be added to Common Lisp by the programmer with macros, and for the really adventurous, they can be made efficient by augmenting the Common Lisp compiler. Common Lisp compilers are almost always written in Common Lisp and available and accessible. This is why Clasp uses a new and understandable Common Lisp compiler "Cleavir" (developed by Robert Strandh) and LLVM, which is a great C++ library for generating native code on a variety of processors. Cleavir will be an excellent platform for efficiently implementing new dynamic programming language features.

oblio 8y ago
Thing is, except for CS theory evolving, the programming language environment from 30 years ago is in my opinion irrelevant from a maturity perspective. The number of practitioners was probably 1 million or so worldwide, now there’s probably 20-40+ million programmers worldwide. We didn’t have widespread internet access, barely a handful of Open Source communities, compilers were generally commercial and extremely expensive, companies behind technologies were extremely volatile, etc. While that made for very nice war stories, it also meant that you’d have the “ship” sinking under you completely. Now a tech still stays around to some degree. A C developer from 1990 could still be a C dev in 2018. A Java dev from 1998 could still be a C dev in 2018. And a programmer in your average mainstream language in 2018 could reasonably expect to be working in the same language in 2018. Especially if that language has enterprise traction (Cobol, Java, C#, Javascript, SQL, etc.). Also, languages are a lot more similar to each other than they used to be, in terms of expressiveness and power. Lisp was a “lightsaber” to the “stones” of the 80’s, now it’s at most a slightly more powerful “machine-gun”, at best. And regarding language evolution itself, everything evolves. Or did Common Lisp programmers generally write unit tests, have integration test harnesses, use package repos, etc. back in 1995? I somehow doubt that :)
- drmeister 8y ago
  Common Lisp has: generic functions, homo-iconic macros written in Common Lisp, reflection, multiple dispatch, closures, optional typing, correct implementation of lexical scope, dynamically scoped variables, a metaobject protocol, conditions & restarts, and a compiler that is available for customization. One or a few of these have made it into other languages in some form or another - but not all together. Common Lisp also has an excellent package manager (quicklisp/ASDF) a programmers IDE (emacs/slime vim/vlime), interoperation with C libraries (CFFI) and lots and lots of libraries that don't need to be constantly updated to keep them working because the underlying language changes. I wouldn't call it just a slightly more powerful weapon. Just the macros - my goodness - in Common Lisp you can write programs that write programs! It's easy and organic and elegant because they are written in the same language as everything else. Macros let you write code that customizes itself and optimizes itself at compile time for specific use cases. You can escape the drudgery of writing similar code over and over again. You kind of need s-expression syntax for macros to be easy to write - so no other language with complex syntax will ever have them like Common Lisp does. Languages are all Turing complete - we can do everything in every language - but for the kind of hard problems that I want to solve, only Common Lisp has helped me out of the Turing tarpit. Also, C++ is a great domain specific language for creating tables of cache friendly compact data structures and it has great compilers.
  - flavio81 8y ago
    >Just the macros - my goodness - in Common Lisp you can write programs that write programs!! ... and at runtime OR compile-time (your choice!) ... and by using plain, simple Common Lisp; no special, cumbersome AST-transformation libraries needed!
  - oblio 8y ago
    At least optional typing and macros are not considered to be universal benefits for programming. Having a ton of features has been proven in many occasions to be counterproductive. Paradox of choice, higher learning curve, etc.
    - 8y ago
jimbokun 8y ago
"C++ template programming is to Common Lisp macros what IRS tax forms are to poetry." I will definitely be stealing this quote in the future! Well put.

oblio 8y ago

Thing is, except for CS theory evolving, the programming language environment from 30 years ago is in my opinion irrelevant from a maturity perspective. The number of practitioners was probably 1 million or so worldwide, now there’s probably 20-40+ million programmers worldwide. We didn’t have widespread internet access, barely a handful of Open Source communities, compilers were generally commercial and extremely expensive, companies behind technologies were extremely volatile, etc. While that made for very nice war stories, it also meant that you’d have the “ship” sinking under you completely. Now a tech still stays around to some degree. A C developer from 1990 could still be a C dev in 2018. A Java dev from 1998 could still be a C dev in 2018. And a programmer in your average mainstream language in 2018 could reasonably expect to be working in the same language in 2018. Especially if that language has enterprise traction (Cobol, Java, C#, Javascript, SQL, etc.). Also, languages are a lot more similar to each other than they used to be, in terms of expressiveness and power. Lisp was a “lightsaber” to the “stones” of the 80’s, now it’s at most a slightly more powerful “machine-gun”, at best. And regarding language evolution itself, everything evolves. Or did Common Lisp programmers generally write unit tests, have integration test harnesses, use package repos, etc. back in 1995? I somehow doubt that :)

drmeister 8y ago
Common Lisp has: generic functions, homo-iconic macros written in Common Lisp, reflection, multiple dispatch, closures, optional typing, correct implementation of lexical scope, dynamically scoped variables, a metaobject protocol, conditions & restarts, and a compiler that is available for customization. One or a few of these have made it into other languages in some form or another - but not all together. Common Lisp also has an excellent package manager (quicklisp/ASDF) a programmers IDE (emacs/slime vim/vlime), interoperation with C libraries (CFFI) and lots and lots of libraries that don't need to be constantly updated to keep them working because the underlying language changes. I wouldn't call it just a slightly more powerful weapon. Just the macros - my goodness - in Common Lisp you can write programs that write programs! It's easy and organic and elegant because they are written in the same language as everything else. Macros let you write code that customizes itself and optimizes itself at compile time for specific use cases. You can escape the drudgery of writing similar code over and over again. You kind of need s-expression syntax for macros to be easy to write - so no other language with complex syntax will ever have them like Common Lisp does. Languages are all Turing complete - we can do everything in every language - but for the kind of hard problems that I want to solve, only Common Lisp has helped me out of the Turing tarpit. Also, C++ is a great domain specific language for creating tables of cache friendly compact data structures and it has great compilers.
- flavio81 8y ago
  >Just the macros - my goodness - in Common Lisp you can write programs that write programs!! ... and at runtime OR compile-time (your choice!) ... and by using plain, simple Common Lisp; no special, cumbersome AST-transformation libraries needed!
- oblio 8y ago
  At least optional typing and macros are not considered to be universal benefits for programming. Having a ton of features has been proven in many occasions to be counterproductive. Paradox of choice, higher learning curve, etc.
  - 8y ago

jimbokun 8y ago

"C++ template programming is to Common Lisp macros what IRS tax forms are to poetry." I will definitely be stealing this quote in the future! Well put.