4 ms·

Everything you say is true. CL via a REPL really does make you feel like there is no barrier between your code and your brain. With regard to programming in CL

by mruts 8y ago

Everything you say is true. CL via a REPL really does make you feel like there is no barrier between your code and your brain. With regard to programming in CL, yes, if you cause a stacktrace in your code, you can easily debug and fix it on the fly. But most of the problems (atleast with me) could have been caught with a static type checker in the first place. I just feel like my brain is stupid, imperfect, and error prone. I want and need something that can offload a lot of thinking to the computer. It’s not like static typing and the immediate feedback CL has are mutually exclusive. With the right language you could definately have both. Like imagine a CL with static typing (a hindley milner system), would it be worse or better? I would say it must be objectively better: What do you think? (You’ve made some good and reasonable points, so I would genuinely be interested in your opinion)

dragonwriter 8y ago
> It’s not like static typing and the immediate feedback CL has are mutually exclusive. While it's from the Scheme side of the Lisp family tree rather than the CL side, there is Typed Racket.
armitron 8y ago
Alan Kay has talked about what he calls "extreme late binding of all things" [1], where he feels that Lisp and Smalltalk do it particularly well. I'm in full agreement with his point of view but to answer your question I had to do some thinking to figure out exactly why that is the case. First let me say that these days most of the code that I write, I'm doing it in a dynamic language (CL, Emacs Lisp, Erlang, Lua). But I've also spent decades working with statically typed languages (mostly C and Java) usually for profit. And I do enjoy Haskell and OCaml, but I get a different sort of enjoyment from them that is not linked to the short feedback loop and cybernetic modeling process I've described for CL. It's kind of like the fun one has when laying down a mathematical proof, or working out a mathematical problem. Now you made it clear in your last post that you do understand pretty much everything I talked about. So it's interesting for me to contemplate why you prefer statically typed languages and the most probable explanation is that you've spent a lot more time with them. Programming languages shape the thoughts that you think after all. Second order cybernetics tells us that the emergent metasystem composed of subject-object [mind-program] interaction can begin to model itself in a new round of cybernetics. After decades of doing exploratory programming in Lisp-like languages, "extreme late binding of all things" is exactly how my mind thinks about the process of modeling but also about itself. Maybe this is why most of the simple programming errors you've talked about seldom arise with me (or pretty much every hardcore Lisper I would say). Maybe this is also why when you switch to a Lisp-like language with your mind being wired to a statically typed system, these sort of errors are very frequent. It's your mind going through the modeling process in the way that it's used to. Fascinating if you think about it. So to end with, I can see the benefits of a statically typed language. I would never pick Common Lisp when working with groups of people of different skill levels on a shared vision. I will probably pick OCaml when working out problems in compiler theory. But I will pick a Common Lisp-like language _every single time_ when I'm working on manifesting a singular vision - my own - and I want this process to take place via cybernetic emergence of something greater than myself. In a similar way to Steve Jobs instantly knowing what the future will look like during his trip at PARC, it's obvious to me that "programming" has nothing to do with type systems or computers. These constitute only the medium and the medium will eventually disappear.. [1] https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/46592/so-what-did-alan-kay-really-mean-by-the-term-object-oriented https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4659...

by mruts 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> It’s not like static typing and the immediate feedback CL has are mutually exclusive. While it's from the Scheme side of the Lisp family tree rather than the CL side, there is Typed Racket.

armitron 8y ago

Alan Kay has talked about what he calls "extreme late binding of all things" [1], where he feels that Lisp and Smalltalk do it particularly well. I'm in full agreement with his point of view but to answer your question I had to do some thinking to figure out exactly why that is the case. First let me say that these days most of the code that I write, I'm doing it in a dynamic language (CL, Emacs Lisp, Erlang, Lua). But I've also spent decades working with statically typed languages (mostly C and Java) usually for profit. And I do enjoy Haskell and OCaml, but I get a different sort of enjoyment from them that is not linked to the short feedback loop and cybernetic modeling process I've described for CL. It's kind of like the fun one has when laying down a mathematical proof, or working out a mathematical problem. Now you made it clear in your last post that you do understand pretty much everything I talked about. So it's interesting for me to contemplate why you prefer statically typed languages and the most probable explanation is that you've spent a lot more time with them. Programming languages shape the thoughts that you think after all. Second order cybernetics tells us that the emergent metasystem composed of subject-object [mind-program] interaction can begin to model itself in a new round of cybernetics. After decades of doing exploratory programming in Lisp-like languages, "extreme late binding of all things" is exactly how my mind thinks about the process of modeling but also about itself. Maybe this is why most of the simple programming errors you've talked about seldom arise with me (or pretty much every hardcore Lisper I would say). Maybe this is also why when you switch to a Lisp-like language with your mind being wired to a statically typed system, these sort of errors are very frequent. It's your mind going through the modeling process in the way that it's used to. Fascinating if you think about it. So to end with, I can see the benefits of a statically typed language. I would never pick Common Lisp when working with groups of people of different skill levels on a shared vision. I will probably pick OCaml when working out problems in compiler theory. But I will pick a Common Lisp-like language _every single time_ when I'm working on manifesting a singular vision - my own - and I want this process to take place via cybernetic emergence of something greater than myself. In a similar way to Steve Jobs instantly knowing what the future will look like during his trip at PARC, it's obvious to me that "programming" has nothing to do with type systems or computers. These constitute only the medium and the medium will eventually disappear.. [1] https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/46592/so-what-did-alan-kay-really-mean-by-the-term-object-oriented https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4659...