4 ms·

Immutability is something I'm still exploring in Common Lisp. Any pointer, anyone?

TurboHaskal 7y ago
What I do: Write pure functions, but don't shy away from mutating lexically scoped state in order to improve performance. For global stuff, wrap it with classes since objects are a commonly understood way to reason about state.
- Ambrevar 7y ago
  For immutable data structures, there is this helper library which can help: http://quickdocs.org/immutable-struct/ http://quickdocs.org/immutable-struct/
pfdietz 7y ago
It's a matter of not modifying things once constructed. CL has hooks to help do that, although a user can always get around them. A package I've been involved with lately is fset, which is available through quicklisp, or at https://github.com/slburson/fset https://github.com/slburson/fset It has some interesting features, including "functional setf expansion". This would turn something like (setf (fcar x) y) into something equivalent to (setf x (cons y (fcdr x))) (where "fcar" and "fcdr" are the same as "car" and "cdr", except when they are in a setf-able place form.) (fcar and fcdr are not in fset; I used those names just for exposition here.) It could work with nested accessors, but only if it bottoms out in a variable.
- thsealienbstrds 7y ago
  Are you aware of any memory-leak issues with fset? I once used it in a game where I updated an fset sequence in real-time. I let it run for a while, after coming back I noticed my computer was completely frozen (out of RAM).
  - TurboHaskal 7y ago
    It's inspired by Clojure after all. The language of choice for users that don't care about performance.
    - mikelevins 7y ago
      It probably isn't. The initial public release of Clojure was in the fall of 2007. Scott Burson has been working on FSet since at least 2004. He himself says it's inspired by Refine.
      - TurboHaskal 7y ago
        I stand corrected. I still maintain my point about (idiomatic) Clojure being terribly slow though.
        Scarbutt 7y ago
        And terribly beautiful ;) Just personal preference and enjoy programming in it. Programmers give too much importance to programming languages. Clojure can be made to run very fast (it compiles to the same bytecode as Java after all) for the hot paths at the cost at writing less idiomatic Clojure.
- Ambrevar 7y ago
  Didn't know about this, it looks very cool indeed! Thanks for sharing!
armitron 7y ago
https://common-lisp.net/project/fset/ https://common-lisp.net/project/fset/ By the way, I found a lot of your best practices questionable to say the least. Since it's obvious that you are a newcomer to CL, I would refrain from producing "best practices" type blog posts until I had a few years of experience under my belt. For that reason, I also found your post confusing and I'm inclined to categorize it as "mostly rehashing stuff that is already there" rather than strong signal. There is ample, good, introductory material for CL on the net, we should strive to think before we dilute it with derivative posts.
- Ambrevar 7y ago
  Thanks for the fset link. I understand your comment as a bit judgmental, if not rude. Please keep the tone friendly, it helps if we want to have constructive discussions. I'd be happy (as well as everyone around here I'm sure) to discuss what you find questionable.
  - Jach 7y ago
    I agree with GP about refraining from "best practices" type advice -- at most leave it as "I prefer doing it this way". (Example: There was no mention of qlot for a form of version pinning, which would be considered a "best" or at least "standard" practice in other ecosystems, but while I use it I'm not going to insist other Lispers I don't work with do so too. They can keep doing things how they like. Common Lisp is not for the strongly opinionated.) Apart from that though I do think it's useful to have the occasional new posts showcasing rebuttals to a few "myths" that won't die, so I appreciated your post. Some gifs of editor interactivity (like in https://malisper.me/debugging-lisp-part-1-recompilation/ https://malisper.me/debugging-lisp-part-1-recompilation/) would make it better. Though ironically (one myth has been "it has no libraries") perhaps some people might be turned off by the mention of so many libraries ("ok such-and-such is there after all but I have to type a quickload, why can't it come without any work?" -- programmers are often lazy in the worst ways). Before using every utility library under the sun and then some, I'd encourage people to get to know the base language... It's typically quite sufficient for many tasks. But hey, libraries are cool too. Two other persistent data structure libs that came up in a thread the other day (though fset seems to be the most popular): https://github.com/danshapero/cl-hamt/ https://github.com/danshapero/cl-hamt/ and https://github.com/ndantam/sycamore https://github.com/ndantam/sycamore
mikelevins 7y ago
I recommend Fset, which other commetners have mentioned. I wrote a wrapper for it and SERIES, called folio, followed by a revised version called folio2. If your requirements resemble mine when I wrote it, you might findit useful. You can find it here: https://github.com/mikelevins/folio2/
- Ambrevar 7y ago
  Thanks for sharing!
vindarel 7y ago
https://github.com/smithzvk/modf https://github.com/smithzvk/modf like setf, but doesn't mutate the data (didn't try).

What I do: Write pure functions, but don't shy away from mutating lexically scoped state in order to improve performance. For global stuff, wrap it with classes since objects are a commonly understood way to reason about state.

Ambrevar 7y ago
For immutable data structures, there is this helper library which can help: http://quickdocs.org/immutable-struct/ http://quickdocs.org/immutable-struct/

pfdietz 7y ago

It's a matter of not modifying things once constructed. CL has hooks to help do that, although a user can always get around them. A package I've been involved with lately is fset, which is available through quicklisp, or at https://github.com/slburson/fset https://github.com/slburson/fset It has some interesting features, including "functional setf expansion". This would turn something like (setf (fcar x) y) into something equivalent to (setf x (cons y (fcdr x))) (where "fcar" and "fcdr" are the same as "car" and "cdr", except when they are in a setf-able place form.) (fcar and fcdr are not in fset; I used those names just for exposition here.) It could work with nested accessors, but only if it bottoms out in a variable.

thsealienbstrds 7y ago
Are you aware of any memory-leak issues with fset? I once used it in a game where I updated an fset sequence in real-time. I let it run for a while, after coming back I noticed my computer was completely frozen (out of RAM).
- TurboHaskal 7y ago
  It's inspired by Clojure after all. The language of choice for users that don't care about performance.
  - mikelevins 7y ago
    It probably isn't. The initial public release of Clojure was in the fall of 2007. Scott Burson has been working on FSet since at least 2004. He himself says it's inspired by Refine.
    - TurboHaskal 7y ago
      I stand corrected. I still maintain my point about (idiomatic) Clojure being terribly slow though.
      - Scarbutt 7y ago
        And terribly beautiful ;) Just personal preference and enjoy programming in it. Programmers give too much importance to programming languages. Clojure can be made to run very fast (it compiles to the same bytecode as Java after all) for the hot paths at the cost at writing less idiomatic Clojure.
Ambrevar 7y ago
Didn't know about this, it looks very cool indeed! Thanks for sharing!

armitron 7y ago

https://common-lisp.net/project/fset/ https://common-lisp.net/project/fset/ By the way, I found a lot of your best practices questionable to say the least. Since it's obvious that you are a newcomer to CL, I would refrain from producing "best practices" type blog posts until I had a few years of experience under my belt. For that reason, I also found your post confusing and I'm inclined to categorize it as "mostly rehashing stuff that is already there" rather than strong signal. There is ample, good, introductory material for CL on the net, we should strive to think before we dilute it with derivative posts.

Ambrevar 7y ago
Thanks for the fset link. I understand your comment as a bit judgmental, if not rude. Please keep the tone friendly, it helps if we want to have constructive discussions. I'd be happy (as well as everyone around here I'm sure) to discuss what you find questionable.
- Jach 7y ago
  I agree with GP about refraining from "best practices" type advice -- at most leave it as "I prefer doing it this way". (Example: There was no mention of qlot for a form of version pinning, which would be considered a "best" or at least "standard" practice in other ecosystems, but while I use it I'm not going to insist other Lispers I don't work with do so too. They can keep doing things how they like. Common Lisp is not for the strongly opinionated.) Apart from that though I do think it's useful to have the occasional new posts showcasing rebuttals to a few "myths" that won't die, so I appreciated your post. Some gifs of editor interactivity (like in https://malisper.me/debugging-lisp-part-1-recompilation/ https://malisper.me/debugging-lisp-part-1-recompilation/) would make it better. Though ironically (one myth has been "it has no libraries") perhaps some people might be turned off by the mention of so many libraries ("ok such-and-such is there after all but I have to type a quickload, why can't it come without any work?" -- programmers are often lazy in the worst ways). Before using every utility library under the sun and then some, I'd encourage people to get to know the base language... It's typically quite sufficient for many tasks. But hey, libraries are cool too. Two other persistent data structure libs that came up in a thread the other day (though fset seems to be the most popular): https://github.com/danshapero/cl-hamt/ https://github.com/danshapero/cl-hamt/ and https://github.com/ndantam/sycamore https://github.com/ndantam/sycamore

mikelevins 7y ago

I recommend Fset, which other commetners have mentioned. I wrote a wrapper for it and SERIES, called folio, followed by a revised version called folio2. If your requirements resemble mine when I wrote it, you might findit useful. You can find it here: https://github.com/mikelevins/folio2/

Ambrevar 7y ago
Thanks for sharing!

vindarel 7y ago

https://github.com/smithzvk/modf https://github.com/smithzvk/modf like setf, but doesn't mutate the data (didn't try).