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The guys that wrote this piece have drunk the kool aid of Lisp. To say that library support for bioinformatics is on the early stages is quite a misunderstandi

The guys that wrote this piece have drunk the kool aid of Lisp. To say that library support for bioinformatics is on the early stages is quite a misunderstanding. Lisp was one if not the first language to be used in everything, including bioinformatics. If it is not used anymore is because people have abandoned it. People have abandoned it once its flaws became evident. The main flaw of Lisp is using linear data for everything. It is obsolete, it was designed for linear memory like tapes or punched cards, not random access to memory like we have today. Languages like Clojure has not this limitation but they have others, like forcing you to use the java virtual machine, good if optional, terrible if mandatory. In current systems with huge amount of RAM, when you could have 128GBs on a developer system having to use a system that shoehorns everything to Lists is going backwards. It also maximizes verbosity as everything uses the same thing, pattern differentiation is hard for actual humans to read and understand. This was a serious flaw that even Lisp creators quickly identified and tried to solve, remember Lisp was considered a temporary solution while the good solution was(never) found. Not to talk about the absence of privileged instructions, everybody on the team changing whatever it wants, even basic instructions. Don't get me wrong, I love Lisp, it is one of the more interesting languages in the world. I am actually working on porting some of the features it has(introspection) to other languages. But from my point of view it is not that good for production for most projects. I have drunk the kool Aid myself before and have the scar tissue from that.

nabla9 8y ago
> The main flaw of Lisp is using linear data for everything. It This is just utter ignorance. Good example of not knowing that you don't know and interpolating from too little data. The name "Lisp" comes from List Processing, but Lisp programming has not been about list processing since 50's. All the old Lisps like Common Lisp and Scheme had full set of data structures, including vectors and arrays.
mbrock 8y ago
The main flaw of Lisp is using linear data for everything. Huh? Which Lisp are you talking about? That seems like a serious misconception! Certainly any Lisp after 1960 has great support for arrays, trees, graphs, hash tables, you name it.
sametmax 8y ago
Another problem is that lisp let you do anything. And so people do. So everytime you get on board on a project you hit your toes on the DSL du jour, of course badly documented and tested. It's like learning a new language everytime, except a beta version one with no resources.
- armitron 8y ago
  And yet another problem is people who talk about things they have no personal experience with, resulting in them parroting something they saw or heard and propagating blatant falsehoods. Which is what you and the person you replied to, are doing. Wouldn't it be better to actually inform yourselves first, by learning Lisp, rather than regurgitating somebody else's opinions?
StreamBright 8y ago
> It also maximizes verbosity as everything uses the same thing, pattern differentiation is hard for actual humans to read and understand. You could not be more wrong.
zeveb 8y ago
> The guys that wrote this piece have drunk the kool aid of Lisp. It seems to me that 'drunk the kool aid of Lisp' is just a rude way to say, 'I reject their experiences because they differ from my beliefs.'
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  No. It's a way to say "They (the author) have beliefs that don't match experience". Whether that's a valid claim in this case or not, I will not comment on. But that's what the expression means.

nabla9 8y ago

> The main flaw of Lisp is using linear data for everything. It This is just utter ignorance. Good example of not knowing that you don't know and interpolating from too little data. The name "Lisp" comes from List Processing, but Lisp programming has not been about list processing since 50's. All the old Lisps like Common Lisp and Scheme had full set of data structures, including vectors and arrays.

mbrock 8y ago

The main flaw of Lisp is using linear data for everything. Huh? Which Lisp are you talking about? That seems like a serious misconception! Certainly any Lisp after 1960 has great support for arrays, trees, graphs, hash tables, you name it.

sametmax 8y ago

Another problem is that lisp let you do anything. And so people do. So everytime you get on board on a project you hit your toes on the DSL du jour, of course badly documented and tested. It's like learning a new language everytime, except a beta version one with no resources.

armitron 8y ago
And yet another problem is people who talk about things they have no personal experience with, resulting in them parroting something they saw or heard and propagating blatant falsehoods. Which is what you and the person you replied to, are doing. Wouldn't it be better to actually inform yourselves first, by learning Lisp, rather than regurgitating somebody else's opinions?

StreamBright 8y ago

> It also maximizes verbosity as everything uses the same thing, pattern differentiation is hard for actual humans to read and understand. You could not be more wrong.

zeveb 8y ago

> The guys that wrote this piece have drunk the kool aid of Lisp. It seems to me that 'drunk the kool aid of Lisp' is just a rude way to say, 'I reject their experiences because they differ from my beliefs.'

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
No. It's a way to say "They (the author) have beliefs that don't match experience". Whether that's a valid claim in this case or not, I will not comment on. But that's what the expression means.