4 ms·

Genuine questions that probably most here want to put but seem to be afraid of: Why Bel? What are the problems that Bel wants to solve? Is this an hobby projec

Genuine questions that probably most here want to put but seem to be afraid of: Why Bel? What are the problems that Bel wants to solve? Is this an hobby project or something more serious?

pmarin 7y ago
The kind of questions that don't make sense in a forum where 'Hacker' is in the title.
- galfarragem 7y ago
  I believe that when somebody makes a "Show HN" post, this person wants feedback. You can't give it without understanding the project.
  - netcan 7y ago
    Critical questions have a tendency to be loaded, one way or another. Yours is (unintentionally, I assume) loaded with the assumption that projects are either hobby/toy projects or "serious" ones. The "ethos" OP alludes to is that this is a severely limiting fallacy and a criticism you should actively ignore.
neonate 7y ago
https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bellanguage.txt?t=1570864329& https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bellanguage.txt?t=157... explains the purpose of the project. It's an attempt to axiomatize a complete programming language the way that McCarthy's Lisp did for computability. Sounds serious to me. Why can't it be both?
netcan 7y ago
I can't answer the main question, but my guess from pg's other work is that there is no dichotomy between hobby and serious. Frivolous seeming starting points can be powerful in unexplored ways. The www, most everything in it, and the stuff it's built out of are all rich with examples.
- lioeters 7y ago
  This seems relevant here, in his own words: > Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest. --- Related: https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-toys/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-toys/
blondin 7y ago
answer is in the guide and is quite interesting. so, lisp development came in two phases: formal phase -- that's where original 1960 paper described lisp from simple axioms and built on them -- and implementation phase -- formal step is of no use for us because it didn't have numbers, error handling, i/o, etc. argument here is that the formal phase might be the most important phase, but that the second phase usually takes longer and is more practical. so what if one delays the second phase for as long as possible? what could be discovered and be useful for the implementation phase? that's the raison d'etre of bel i think. i very much like it :)

Genuine questions that probably most here want to put but seem to be afraid of: Why Bel? What are the problems that Bel wants to solve? Is this an hobby project or something more serious?

pmarin 7y ago

The kind of questions that don't make sense in a forum where 'Hacker' is in the title.

galfarragem 7y ago
I believe that when somebody makes a "Show HN" post, this person wants feedback. You can't give it without understanding the project.
- netcan 7y ago
  Critical questions have a tendency to be loaded, one way or another. Yours is (unintentionally, I assume) loaded with the assumption that projects are either hobby/toy projects or "serious" ones. The "ethos" OP alludes to is that this is a severely limiting fallacy and a criticism you should actively ignore.

neonate 7y ago

https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bellanguage.txt?t=1570864329& https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/bellanguage.txt?t=157... explains the purpose of the project. It's an attempt to axiomatize a complete programming language the way that McCarthy's Lisp did for computability. Sounds serious to me. Why can't it be both?

netcan 7y ago

I can't answer the main question, but my guess from pg's other work is that there is no dichotomy between hobby and serious. Frivolous seeming starting points can be powerful in unexplored ways. The www, most everything in it, and the stuff it's built out of are all rich with examples.

lioeters 7y ago
This seems relevant here, in his own words: > Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest. --- Related: https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-toys/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/why-toys/

blondin 7y ago

answer is in the guide and is quite interesting. so, lisp development came in two phases: formal phase -- that's where original 1960 paper described lisp from simple axioms and built on them -- and implementation phase -- formal step is of no use for us because it didn't have numbers, error handling, i/o, etc. argument here is that the formal phase might be the most important phase, but that the second phase usually takes longer and is more practical. so what if one delays the second phase for as long as possible? what could be discovered and be useful for the implementation phase? that's the raison d'etre of bel i think. i very much like it :)