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I wouldn't characterize Pharo/Mathematica/Dyalog APL as newly emergent, they've been around for a long time. I can't say anything about J and K since I've never

I wouldn't characterize Pharo/Mathematica/Dyalog APL as newly emergent, they've been around for a long time. I can't say anything about J and K since I've never used them but my superficial impression is that they are focused on a specific niche, not as general purpose as most Lisps. They've also been around for a long time. 8th I have actually looked at and it's both _not_ particularly interactive (certainly nowhere near as interactive as Factor) and has a very strange license [1] to boot which makes it a total nop for me. It has been criticized before [2]. [1] https://8th-dev.com/com-license.html https://8th-dev.com/com-license.html [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15672361

7thaccount 6y ago
New is pretty relative, but yeah they've definitely been around for a while. I'd say the array languages (APL/J/K) can be used in far more areas than most people think, but I understand your point and am on the fence myself. What is wrong with 8th's license? It is basically a Forth, so extremely interactive...mostly just messing with a stack...not sure about metaprogramming. I think a production license costs you $200 as a one time fee and you have to pay no royalties or anything for apps (better than many tools out there). Upgrading to a later version comes at a discount too. Most of the runtime is proprietary/closed-source if that is what you were saying (def understandable if you had a problem with that). Also, being a 1-developer project, progress is rapid, but I'd be worried about what happens if the maintainer wins the lottery.
- metroholografix 6y ago
  The second link I included goes over some of the issues but regarding interactivity, just look at the videos its author produced to show it off. He's writing code in either VIM or the shell. That's a long way from Factor's image-based interactivity and a long long way from Smalltalk and Lisp Machine-paradigm Lisps. Any language with a REPL can be described as "interactive" but that's not what having a strong focus on interactive development means. As Mikel Evins wrote, it's really about the entirety of a language being geared around interactive development.
  - mikelevins 6y ago
    It's "mikel evins". I can't blame you for parsing it the other way; it's a more likely spelling. You can blame my eccentric father for the odd spelling of my first name, but he inherited the surname fair and square. It's pronounced exactly the same way as "Michael Evans."
    - metroholografix 6y ago
      I'm always grateful when the map-territory distinction comes along and slaps me in the face. It's a signal that I should re-calibrate. It's been a while, thanks for making it happen!
  - 7thaccount 6y ago
    I actually take that as a positive item. He's able to effectively write code using just the terminal and vim. It doesn't get simpler than that. I really hate having to use something like Visual Studio or even VSCode. They're bloated and use a ton of resources. Playing around in Pharo is fun for a bit, but same problem. I 100% agree that it seems like you can't unwind the stack the same way you can in Common Lisp or Smalltalk though.
    - metroholografix 6y ago
      Pharo is moving down strange pathways and some questionable recent implementation choices made me lose my faith (for now). Squeak has always been and remains my Smalltalk of choice, and if you can look past some -probable- superficial ugliness (e.g. Morphic) it remains relevant and extremely iconoclastic.
      - 7thaccount 6y ago
        It seems like Pharo has all the action going on. Is Squeak still maintained.

7thaccount 6y ago

New is pretty relative, but yeah they've definitely been around for a while. I'd say the array languages (APL/J/K) can be used in far more areas than most people think, but I understand your point and am on the fence myself. What is wrong with 8th's license? It is basically a Forth, so extremely interactive...mostly just messing with a stack...not sure about metaprogramming. I think a production license costs you $200 as a one time fee and you have to pay no royalties or anything for apps (better than many tools out there). Upgrading to a later version comes at a discount too. Most of the runtime is proprietary/closed-source if that is what you were saying (def understandable if you had a problem with that). Also, being a 1-developer project, progress is rapid, but I'd be worried about what happens if the maintainer wins the lottery.

metroholografix 6y ago
The second link I included goes over some of the issues but regarding interactivity, just look at the videos its author produced to show it off. He's writing code in either VIM or the shell. That's a long way from Factor's image-based interactivity and a long long way from Smalltalk and Lisp Machine-paradigm Lisps. Any language with a REPL can be described as "interactive" but that's not what having a strong focus on interactive development means. As Mikel Evins wrote, it's really about the entirety of a language being geared around interactive development.
- mikelevins 6y ago
  It's "mikel evins". I can't blame you for parsing it the other way; it's a more likely spelling. You can blame my eccentric father for the odd spelling of my first name, but he inherited the surname fair and square. It's pronounced exactly the same way as "Michael Evans."
  - metroholografix 6y ago
    I'm always grateful when the map-territory distinction comes along and slaps me in the face. It's a signal that I should re-calibrate. It's been a while, thanks for making it happen!
- 7thaccount 6y ago
  I actually take that as a positive item. He's able to effectively write code using just the terminal and vim. It doesn't get simpler than that. I really hate having to use something like Visual Studio or even VSCode. They're bloated and use a ton of resources. Playing around in Pharo is fun for a bit, but same problem. I 100% agree that it seems like you can't unwind the stack the same way you can in Common Lisp or Smalltalk though.
  - metroholografix 6y ago
    Pharo is moving down strange pathways and some questionable recent implementation choices made me lose my faith (for now). Squeak has always been and remains my Smalltalk of choice, and if you can look past some -probable- superficial ugliness (e.g. Morphic) it remains relevant and extremely iconoclastic.
    - 7thaccount 6y ago
      It seems like Pharo has all the action going on. Is Squeak still maintained.