4 ms·

Usually real-world code has a lot of context and references such that stand-alone expression evaluation is often of limited value. Maybe there are tricks of the

by tabtab 7y ago

Usually real-world code has a lot of context and references such that stand-alone expression evaluation is often of limited value. Maybe there are tricks of the trade to solve this, but they are not obvious to newbies. It sounds like one has to throw away years of "imperative habits" and just do everything different: reading, debugging, structuring, etc. For us non-Sheldons, it's hard to overhaul our head in a month.

lokedhs 7y ago
This may be a meme, but it's also very true (like all good comedy). It's truly represents how you start to look at Lisp code after a while: https://www.thejach.com/imgs/lisp_parens.png https://www.thejach.com/imgs/lisp_parens.png
iLemming 7y ago
> they are not obvious to newbies Modern Lisps like Racket and Clojure are not that difficult to pick up. I think Clojure might be easier to learn than Python or Javascript. I'm serious. Look, I understand the sentiment because I was on the same side relatively not too long ago. I never had a formal introduction into a Lisp. I thought Lisp is a dying language, something like Fortran, COBOL, or Pascal. On a whim, out of the blue, I tried learning it. I don't remember exactly why. I was bored or something. I started reading a book on Clojure. Then I found a conference that supposed to happen in a week. It was the first Clojure/Remote conf. I thought: "Well, it's remote. It's cheap. Let me try it out. What do I have to lose?" That conference has changed my life. Quite literally. I was fascinated by seeing awesome things people building. After the conf, I sat in my chair, staring into the void of my blank screen for several minutes. The next day, I went to the office and told them that I'm leaving. Without writing a single program in a language I did not know, I decided to find a job with a tech stack focused on Clojure. There are lots of misconceptions circling Lisp. People look at Lisp code, and it just doesn't look "sexy" to them. And they immediately dismiss it, claiming it is hard to read. That's not true. They say - it's dynamically typed mess. Without ever knowing that Clojure has a type system called Spec, which can do things, most other type systems cannot. There's a ton of research happening around type systems in Racket. "Little Typer" book teaches dependent types using a Lisp. They say Lisp codebases don't scale - that's not true at all. The truth is - programming in Lisp makes people so productive, you don't need large teams to maintain a massive amount of work. And there are companies with large Lisp ecosystems, one example: NuBank in Brazil has over 400 engineers, and their primary language is Clojure. People say Lisp is not popular. Sure, Clojure's popularity might look dwarfed in comparison with massively popular Python, Javascript, C++, Java, etc. However, Clojure, compared to other "esoteric" languages, is quite popular - today, it has more books, podcasts, conferences, and meetups. More than languages like Haskell, OCaml, Rust, Elm, Purescript, ReasonML, F#. Learning Clojure has opened a world of possibilities for me personally. My only regret that I haven't gotten into Lisps earlier. Please, don't negatively take my advice. My intentions are sincere. I wish someone would've convinced me to try Lisp early in my career. Please, do sometimes try to get your head out of your shell and give it a try. I promise, if you give Lisp an honest and heartfelt try, you will find something unique. Even if you end up not using it, you will never regret learning it.
- lispm 7y ago
  You should stop oversellling things. Spec is not a type system.
  - iLemming 7y ago
    Just because you can't do a rigorous static analysis (which to certain degree is possible, check out Spectrum) it doesn't mean that Spec is not a type system.
    - lispm 7y ago
      That's misleading. Spec is a contract system. Read the page on the spec rationale: https://clojure.org/about/spec https://clojure.org/about/spec . It even mentions that spec is not a type system and that spec is similar to contracts in Racket, etc. If we look at programming languages like Java, Typescript, C++, Haskell, etc., then we see that their type systems are completely different and have an entirely different purpose. Claiming to those users that spec is a type system, is just misleading them.
      - iLemming 7y ago
        Semantics. Spec is very close to dependent types. "Entirely different purpose" is kinda vague. If the end result is the correctness of the program, the purpose is the same. If someone can perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons on Ukelele, it's cool. It doesn't make Ukelele less of an instrument.
        lispm 7y ago
        So, spec is the ukulele in the vast domain of Type Systems?

by tabtab 7y ago

lokedhs 7y ago

This may be a meme, but it's also very true (like all good comedy). It's truly represents how you start to look at Lisp code after a while: https://www.thejach.com/imgs/lisp_parens.png https://www.thejach.com/imgs/lisp_parens.png

iLemming 7y ago

> they are not obvious to newbies Modern Lisps like Racket and Clojure are not that difficult to pick up. I think Clojure might be easier to learn than Python or Javascript. I'm serious. Look, I understand the sentiment because I was on the same side relatively not too long ago. I never had a formal introduction into a Lisp. I thought Lisp is a dying language, something like Fortran, COBOL, or Pascal. On a whim, out of the blue, I tried learning it. I don't remember exactly why. I was bored or something. I started reading a book on Clojure. Then I found a conference that supposed to happen in a week. It was the first Clojure/Remote conf. I thought: "Well, it's remote. It's cheap. Let me try it out. What do I have to lose?" That conference has changed my life. Quite literally. I was fascinated by seeing awesome things people building. After the conf, I sat in my chair, staring into the void of my blank screen for several minutes. The next day, I went to the office and told them that I'm leaving. Without writing a single program in a language I did not know, I decided to find a job with a tech stack focused on Clojure. There are lots of misconceptions circling Lisp. People look at Lisp code, and it just doesn't look "sexy" to them. And they immediately dismiss it, claiming it is hard to read. That's not true. They say - it's dynamically typed mess. Without ever knowing that Clojure has a type system called Spec, which can do things, most other type systems cannot. There's a ton of research happening around type systems in Racket. "Little Typer" book teaches dependent types using a Lisp. They say Lisp codebases don't scale - that's not true at all. The truth is - programming in Lisp makes people so productive, you don't need large teams to maintain a massive amount of work. And there are companies with large Lisp ecosystems, one example: NuBank in Brazil has over 400 engineers, and their primary language is Clojure. People say Lisp is not popular. Sure, Clojure's popularity might look dwarfed in comparison with massively popular Python, Javascript, C++, Java, etc. However, Clojure, compared to other "esoteric" languages, is quite popular - today, it has more books, podcasts, conferences, and meetups. More than languages like Haskell, OCaml, Rust, Elm, Purescript, ReasonML, F#. Learning Clojure has opened a world of possibilities for me personally. My only regret that I haven't gotten into Lisps earlier. Please, don't negatively take my advice. My intentions are sincere. I wish someone would've convinced me to try Lisp early in my career. Please, do sometimes try to get your head out of your shell and give it a try. I promise, if you give Lisp an honest and heartfelt try, you will find something unique. Even if you end up not using it, you will never regret learning it.

lispm 7y ago
You should stop oversellling things. Spec is not a type system.
- iLemming 7y ago
  Just because you can't do a rigorous static analysis (which to certain degree is possible, check out Spectrum) it doesn't mean that Spec is not a type system.
  - lispm 7y ago
    That's misleading. Spec is a contract system. Read the page on the spec rationale: https://clojure.org/about/spec https://clojure.org/about/spec . It even mentions that spec is not a type system and that spec is similar to contracts in Racket, etc. If we look at programming languages like Java, Typescript, C++, Haskell, etc., then we see that their type systems are completely different and have an entirely different purpose. Claiming to those users that spec is a type system, is just misleading them.
    - iLemming 7y ago
      Semantics. Spec is very close to dependent types. "Entirely different purpose" is kinda vague. If the end result is the correctness of the program, the purpose is the same. If someone can perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons on Ukelele, it's cool. It doesn't make Ukelele less of an instrument.
      - lispm 7y ago
        So, spec is the ukulele in the vast domain of Type Systems?