6 ms·

The problem with the Blub paradox is that there's no total ordering. I do Common Lisp and C++ at my day job (ITA), and I do much of my personal hacking in Pyth

The problem with the Blub paradox is that there's no total ordering. I do Common Lisp and C++ at my day job (ITA), and I do much of my personal hacking in Python. In Python and C++ I miss macros; in Lisp and Python I miss RAII and strong typing; in Lisp and C++ I miss dictionary literals. And, in all of them, I miss algebraic datatypes.

pg 16y ago
I did mention in the original essay that it was only a partial order, in footnote [4].
- metageek 16y ago
  Sorry, I haven't read it in a while.
- tome 16y ago
  Ah, but metageek's point is that it's not an order at all. It contains cycles.
jcromartie 16y ago
I can't help you with strong typing, but I'm pretty sure a macro would go a long way towards implementing RAII in a Lisp.
- metageek 16y ago
  That's true; we've already got special cases like WITH-OPEN-FILE.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    Actually, you already have something better than RAII in unwind-protect. Just create whatever macro you need on top of that (I'm pretty sure with-open-file is just a macro on top of unwind-protect, Siebel seems to agree in his chapter on files) and you're done.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > I'm pretty sure a macro would go a long way towards implementing RAII in a Lisp. Well yeah, just build the macro you need on top of unwind-protect, that's pretty standard common lisp fare.
swannodette 16y ago
What about Qi? What about Typed Racket?
- djacobs 16y ago
  One question I've had about Typed Racket since I first saw it: why all the colons? Seems to mess with the elegance of Lisp, and especially Scheme. There has to be another friendlier syntax for typing, no?
  - manu3000 16y ago
    why not ? colons are used to denotes values type in ML
- namekuseijin 16y ago
  Typed Racket combines all the inconvenience of type declarations with all the performance provided by a dynamic language.
DanWeinreb 16y ago
Hello, my co-worker, whoever you are. Yes, Common Lisp should have dictionary literals. I don't know why there hasn't been a commonly-used reader macro for this. (Emacs Lisp mode and other tools would have to know about it, so it needs to be a widely-accepted convention.) Common Lisp does have strong typing. What it does not have is static typing. I am at the SPLASH conference, and the Dynamic Language Symposium is happening right now. There is controversy over whether we can find a way to have the benefits of both static and dynamic typing in the same language. The great advances in type inference make me hopeful. The keynote speaker, Allan Wirfs-Brock, replied to my question about this with more pessimism. It is not a simple question; for one thing, not everybody even agree about which factors are "pro" or "con" for either static or dynamic. I am not doing programming languages these days (I'm doing databases) but I continue to be hopeful.
- metageek 16y ago
  Hello, my co-worker, whoever you are. John Stracke. (I've been staying pseudonymous, but today I mentioned Adder, which is tied to my real identity.) Common Lisp does have strong typing. True. I need to remember to be more precise; "doesn't have strong typing" just means "doesn't have type feature Blub". Common Lisp has runtime type safety, and type hints for efficiency; what it does not have is the pervasive typing that I'm used to from C++, which has a separate set of benefits. The most obvious is that, in C++, I can change the interface to a class and be certain that the compiler will catch any caller that uses it incorrectly. (Although I suppose it may be possible to do something like that with CLOS. I haven't used much CLOS, since ITA avoids it.) There is controversy over whether we can find a way to have the benefits of both static and dynamic typing in the same language. I'd say that type inference already brings us nearly there: the convenience of dynamic typing, with the rigor of static typing. I may be wrong, though; I've used ML and Haskell, but not enough to really feel where the pain points of type inference are.
  - chaitanya 16y ago
    > I haven't used much CLOS, since ITA avoids it. Interesting. Is it for performance reasons?
lisper 16y ago
> in Lisp and C++ I miss dictionary literals So roll your own. Or use mine: http://flownet.com/ron/lisp/dictionary.lisp http://flownet.com/ron/lisp/dictionary.lisp
akkartik 16y ago
Why do you miss dictionary literals? Syntax similar to arc's seems to do it for me: (obj a 1 b 2 c 3)
- gruseom 16y ago
  We do the same thing: (make :a 1 :b 2 :c 3) which macroexpands into a plist in CL and {a:1, b:2, c:3} in JS. I've grown to like this idiom a lot. Yeah, you have to type OBJ or MAKE or whatever but in return you get something that integrates completely smoothly with the rest of the language.
- metageek 16y ago
  Y'know, I'm not sure. Next time I need to use a hash, I'll create something like that and see how it feels.
milesvp 16y ago
Forgive me, but I think you mean in python you miss static typing. Python is strongly typed. Also, just to jab at C/C++, pointers to void... really? It all but makes C/C++ a weakly typed language. http://wiki.python.org/moin/Why%20is%20Python%20a%20dynamic%20language%20and%20also%20a%20strongly%20typed%20language http://wiki.python.org/moin/Why%20is%20Python%20a%20dynamic%... http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=7590 http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=7590 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/typing-versus-dynamic-typing http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/typing-versus-dynamic-...

pg 16y ago

I did mention in the original essay that it was only a partial order, in footnote [4].

metageek 16y ago
Sorry, I haven't read it in a while.
tome 16y ago
Ah, but metageek's point is that it's not an order at all. It contains cycles.

jcromartie 16y ago

I can't help you with strong typing, but I'm pretty sure a macro would go a long way towards implementing RAII in a Lisp.

metageek 16y ago
That's true; we've already got special cases like WITH-OPEN-FILE.
- masklinn 16y ago
  Actually, you already have something better than RAII in unwind-protect. Just create whatever macro you need on top of that (I'm pretty sure with-open-file is just a macro on top of unwind-protect, Siebel seems to agree in his chapter on files) and you're done.
masklinn 16y ago
> I'm pretty sure a macro would go a long way towards implementing RAII in a Lisp. Well yeah, just build the macro you need on top of unwind-protect, that's pretty standard common lisp fare.

swannodette 16y ago

What about Qi? What about Typed Racket?

djacobs 16y ago
One question I've had about Typed Racket since I first saw it: why all the colons? Seems to mess with the elegance of Lisp, and especially Scheme. There has to be another friendlier syntax for typing, no?
- manu3000 16y ago
  why not ? colons are used to denotes values type in ML
namekuseijin 16y ago
Typed Racket combines all the inconvenience of type declarations with all the performance provided by a dynamic language.

DanWeinreb 16y ago

Hello, my co-worker, whoever you are. Yes, Common Lisp should have dictionary literals. I don't know why there hasn't been a commonly-used reader macro for this. (Emacs Lisp mode and other tools would have to know about it, so it needs to be a widely-accepted convention.) Common Lisp does have strong typing. What it does not have is static typing. I am at the SPLASH conference, and the Dynamic Language Symposium is happening right now. There is controversy over whether we can find a way to have the benefits of both static and dynamic typing in the same language. The great advances in type inference make me hopeful. The keynote speaker, Allan Wirfs-Brock, replied to my question about this with more pessimism. It is not a simple question; for one thing, not everybody even agree about which factors are "pro" or "con" for either static or dynamic. I am not doing programming languages these days (I'm doing databases) but I continue to be hopeful.

metageek 16y ago
Hello, my co-worker, whoever you are. John Stracke. (I've been staying pseudonymous, but today I mentioned Adder, which is tied to my real identity.) Common Lisp does have strong typing. True. I need to remember to be more precise; "doesn't have strong typing" just means "doesn't have type feature Blub". Common Lisp has runtime type safety, and type hints for efficiency; what it does not have is the pervasive typing that I'm used to from C++, which has a separate set of benefits. The most obvious is that, in C++, I can change the interface to a class and be certain that the compiler will catch any caller that uses it incorrectly. (Although I suppose it may be possible to do something like that with CLOS. I haven't used much CLOS, since ITA avoids it.) There is controversy over whether we can find a way to have the benefits of both static and dynamic typing in the same language. I'd say that type inference already brings us nearly there: the convenience of dynamic typing, with the rigor of static typing. I may be wrong, though; I've used ML and Haskell, but not enough to really feel where the pain points of type inference are.
- chaitanya 16y ago
  > I haven't used much CLOS, since ITA avoids it. Interesting. Is it for performance reasons?

lisper 16y ago

> in Lisp and C++ I miss dictionary literals So roll your own. Or use mine: http://flownet.com/ron/lisp/dictionary.lisp http://flownet.com/ron/lisp/dictionary.lisp

akkartik 16y ago

Why do you miss dictionary literals? Syntax similar to arc's seems to do it for me: (obj a 1 b 2 c 3)

gruseom 16y ago
We do the same thing: (make :a 1 :b 2 :c 3) which macroexpands into a plist in CL and {a:1, b:2, c:3} in JS. I've grown to like this idiom a lot. Yeah, you have to type OBJ or MAKE or whatever but in return you get something that integrates completely smoothly with the rest of the language.
metageek 16y ago
Y'know, I'm not sure. Next time I need to use a hash, I'll create something like that and see how it feels.

milesvp 16y ago

Forgive me, but I think you mean in python you miss static typing. Python is strongly typed. Also, just to jab at C/C++, pointers to void... really? It all but makes C/C++ a weakly typed language. http://wiki.python.org/moin/Why%20is%20Python%20a%20dynamic%20language%20and%20also%20a%20strongly%20typed%20language http://wiki.python.org/moin/Why%20is%20Python%20a%20dynamic%... http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=7590 http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=7590 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/typing-versus-dynamic-typing http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/typing-versus-dynamic-...