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Hy: A Dialect of Clojure Embedded in Python

42 points by asimjalis 8y ago

djhaskin987 8y ago
Misleading title. In the first place the proper title is "Hy: Quickstart". In the second, Hy is nothing like clojure. It is a LISP like clojure is, true, but it doesn't have any of the libraries or even syntactic constructs of clojure, such as built-in maps. It is a LISP built on CPython. That's cool, but it feels more like you're writing homoiconic python than clojure, down to the mutation-centric control flow and keywords.
js2 8y ago
This has shown up on HN a few times but the only significant discussion seems to be from 2014. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696975
- js2 8y ago
  Actually https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14909786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14909786 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hy%20lisp%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hy%20lisp%20points%3E10&sort=b...
S4M 8y ago
I like the concept of Hy, but has anyone used it for something "serious"?
- HelloNurse 8y ago
  In other words, apart from parenthetical syntax, what value does it add over just writing Python? For example, what macros are useful "in the wild"?
  - S4M 8y ago
    The canonical example of macro that is useful "in the wild" is embedding SQL in your code. See for example http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-an-mp3-database.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-an-mp3-database.ht... (Disclosure: I am just an occasional LISP dabbler)
foobar_ 8y ago
Hy is beautifully imperative. For people put off by functional programming Hy is absolutely awesome. The return/if/while/break/continue actually work without making you jump through hoops.
polityagent 8y ago
This is not a dialect of clojure, please fix the title.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  The following function is valid in hy and clojure. (defn fact [x] (if (< x 2) 1 (* x (fact (- x 1))))) Yes, hy and clojure don't have access to the same libraries, but then neither do clojure and clojurescript, yet you'd agree that clojurescript is a dialect of clojure, yes?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - polityagent 8y ago
    It is a lisp, with visual similarities to clojure. Library access is irrelevant. The features that differentiate clojure are not there. - Immutable and persistent data structures as the default - Functional programming (no early returns or mutable bindings) as the default - Reader literals for those data structures - Concurrency primitives (including core.async) - Protocols for polymorphism From the hy docs: "Hy derives a lot from Clojure & Common Lisp, while always maintaining Python interoperability". Borrowing nice features where you find them is great, but it doesn't make it either a common lisp dialect or a clojure dialect. It just makes it a lisp with some similar stuff.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - DannyB2 8y ago
    Clojure and Clojurescript DO have access to a lot of the same libraries. There are also conditional reader constructs so that a library can, when necessary, offer different implementation details between Clojure and Clojurescript. Ignoring libraries completely, Hy doesn't have the most important things that set Clojure apart. (As another poster points out.) Especially immutability. This is nothing against Hy. I'm sure I would like it when I want a Lisp in a Python environment. But there's no good reason, and it is even misleading, to try to conflate it with clojure. It seems like it stands on its own strengths well enough.
asimjalis 8y ago
It “feels” like Clojure for whatever that is worth. I find myself more naturally doing functional programming in Hy than in Python. The threading operators encourage this.
ivan_ah 8y ago
This is very nice. I wonder if all the examples from SICP will run in Hy? The tutorial is very well written and show all the language features: http://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/tutorial.html http://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/tutorial.html Funny quote from the quickstart: #! /usr/bin/env hy (print "I was going to code in Python syntax, but then I got Hy.")

42 points by asimjalis 8y ago

Misleading title. In the first place the proper title is "Hy: Quickstart". In the second, Hy is nothing like clojure. It is a LISP like clojure is, true, but it doesn't have any of the libraries or even syntactic constructs of clojure, such as built-in maps. It is a LISP built on CPython. That's cool, but it feels more like you're writing homoiconic python than clojure, down to the mutation-centric control flow and keywords.

js2 8y ago

This has shown up on HN a few times but the only significant discussion seems to be from 2014. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8696975

js2 8y ago
Actually https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14909786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14909786 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hy%20lisp%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Hy%20lisp%20points%3E10&sort=b...

S4M 8y ago

I like the concept of Hy, but has anyone used it for something "serious"?

HelloNurse 8y ago
In other words, apart from parenthetical syntax, what value does it add over just writing Python? For example, what macros are useful "in the wild"?
- S4M 8y ago
  The canonical example of macro that is useful "in the wild" is embedding SQL in your code. See for example http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-an-mp3-database.html http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-an-mp3-database.ht... (Disclosure: I am just an occasional LISP dabbler)

foobar_ 8y ago

Hy is beautifully imperative. For people put off by functional programming Hy is absolutely awesome. The return/if/while/break/continue actually work without making you jump through hoops.

polityagent 8y ago

This is not a dialect of clojure, please fix the title.

jhbadger 8y ago
The following function is valid in hy and clojure. (defn fact [x] (if (< x 2) 1 (* x (fact (- x 1))))) Yes, hy and clojure don't have access to the same libraries, but then neither do clojure and clojurescript, yet you'd agree that clojurescript is a dialect of clojure, yes?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- polityagent 8y ago
  It is a lisp, with visual similarities to clojure. Library access is irrelevant. The features that differentiate clojure are not there. - Immutable and persistent data structures as the default - Functional programming (no early returns or mutable bindings) as the default - Reader literals for those data structures - Concurrency primitives (including core.async) - Protocols for polymorphism From the hy docs: "Hy derives a lot from Clojure & Common Lisp, while always maintaining Python interoperability". Borrowing nice features where you find them is great, but it doesn't make it either a common lisp dialect or a clojure dialect. It just makes it a lisp with some similar stuff.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- DannyB2 8y ago
  Clojure and Clojurescript DO have access to a lot of the same libraries. There are also conditional reader constructs so that a library can, when necessary, offer different implementation details between Clojure and Clojurescript. Ignoring libraries completely, Hy doesn't have the most important things that set Clojure apart. (As another poster points out.) Especially immutability. This is nothing against Hy. I'm sure I would like it when I want a Lisp in a Python environment. But there's no good reason, and it is even misleading, to try to conflate it with clojure. It seems like it stands on its own strengths well enough.

asimjalis 8y ago

It “feels” like Clojure for whatever that is worth. I find myself more naturally doing functional programming in Hy than in Python. The threading operators encourage this.

ivan_ah 8y ago

This is very nice. I wonder if all the examples from SICP will run in Hy? The tutorial is very well written and show all the language features: http://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/tutorial.html http://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/tutorial.html Funny quote from the quickstart: #! /usr/bin/env hy (print "I was going to code in Python syntax, but then I got Hy.")