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I feel like the Common Lisp and Erlang communities have produced writing about software that has really stood the test of time. From the CL spec, to Norvig's "
by mr_luc 7y ago
I feel like the Common Lisp and Erlang communities have produced writing about software that has really stood the test of time.
From the CL spec, to Norvig's "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp," to both of pg's CL books (this one and 'On Lisp') -- these all feel readable, even re-readable, and entertaining.
And of course the same can be said of the Erlang books -- I'll read anything I find by Joe Armstrong or Robert Virding.
In both cases, authors are able to joyously present the language's unique superpowers and ways of thinking (CL-style macros, OTP). But I think a crucial factor is that, since both languages are very practical -- in terms of their reason-to-exist, as well as what they provide 'out of the box' -- the writing tends to be imbued with the energy and possibility of actually building things.
- agumonkey 7y agoBoth came of academic roots (mit/ai, and prolog influences for erlang), to me it gave a very dry but highly structured conceptual foundations. I mean lisp is mostly tree recursion everywhere. Unlike simpler languages that were use-case driven, and iterated over the absorption of better concepts over time, waving between fads.
- dreamcompiler 7y ago> I mean lisp is mostly tree recursion everywhere. Two things: 1. This isn't true. Common Lisp style emphasizes looping; Scheme emphasizes recursion. 2. What's wrong with tree recursion anyway?
- zerr 7y agoMany think/prefer that it is a compiler's job to convert conveniently (Algol-style) written program into AST, even if this reduces the macros capabilities - even Norvig switched to Python long time ago :)
- dreamcompiler 7y agoSome of us find that writing ASTs directly with a smart editor is much more convenient than writing Algol-style languages. Norvig switched to Python when he left NASA and went to work for Google. He wasn't going to convert Google's culture to one that embraced Lisp.
- kesava 7y agoThis is potentially such a Annie Hall Marshall McLuhan moment. Here's hoping @norvig pops in and replies to this thread.
- agumonkey 7y ago1) well I may be cutting corners but to me lisp is vastly about sexp and encoding of interpretation in sexps. that commonlisp advocates for some linear looping constructs is one thing but, to me, it's only a thin part of the top of the iceberg 2) nothing wrong to me, but I suppose that to the mainstream, if you had to pick between sexps, lambdas and treerec idioms over perl regexes or php arrays/templating, or jQuery dom shenaningans .. it probably look too dry to bear any value (culture shock) Again, that's only my opinion :)
- zelly 7y agoLet Over Lambda is another classic. I heard HtDP is also good, but I haven't read it.
- nextos 7y agoAnd Lisp in Small Pieces, discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600048