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I believe words and the concept they represent are important, Homoiconicity is very very important, but the concept is something subjective that you get after w

I believe words and the concept they represent are important, Homoiconicity is very very important, but the concept is something subjective that you get after working years on it. After programming for a long time in other languages, I had the intuition of wanting something like lisp, but I could not express those ideas with exactitude. They were diffuse, not clearly defined ideas. Then after having a master teach me lisp I got it. I also had the intuition of lisp limitations too and started working around those limitations and getting to know in specific terms what those limitations are, and the most important thing, working on solving it. You have people around the internet with very little programming experience discussing all day about concepts they hardly understand, because they have not programmed a lot to really grasp it. This is like discussing the sex of Angels. A lot of the problems that exist have lots to do with the limitation on the input technology of computers. Creating anything takes millions of time more energy and work that just thinking about it. I could think about computers talking to me and me talking with the computer. It takes lots of work(years) to actually do it. I could dream about the computer writing code for me, but it can take decades of actual work to do it. Spending your time just talking is so easy compared to actually going the distance working around it.

DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
> Homoiconicity is very very important Why is homoiconicity "very very important"? Nobody seems able to say. > You have people around the internet with very little programming experience discussing all day about concepts they hardly understand, because they have not programmed a lot to really grasp it. The people I quoted were all principal developers of arguably the most successful Lisp derivative in the past few decades. The annual Scheme Workshop is almost entirely Racket these days. I doubt you are in a place to claim that "they have not programmed a lot to really grasp [homoiconicity]". So I'm confused what your point is here.
- hhas01 6y ago
  “Why is homoiconicity "very very important"?” I’ll take “What is parsimony?” for twenty, Alex. That said, I think “very very advantageous” would be more correct. If your language is a sprawling inconsistent mess of non-essential complexity, what chance of the systems built with that language being any better? And what chance of the language itself growing and evolving in future? Complexity kills progress. Forward movement finally grinds to a halt under its own impossible weight; at which point some genius will pronounce “Let’s abandon all that and start over completely afresh”, only to make the exact same foundational mistakes as the last time. Rinse-and-repeat ad nauseum for the illusion of progress without actually ever progressing anywhere. And so it goes. The only way to a maintain sustainable growth is to eliminate all non-essential complexity constantly and ruthlessly. You can either climb that ladder and discover where it goes, or forever sit on its bottom rung playing with yourself.
  - DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
    You're actually proving my point. :) You never defined what it is that you mean by "homoiconicity", nor did you motivate why homoiconicity specifically is important or advantageous. You made, essentially, two points: - homoiconicity is "very very advantageous" - excessive, non-essential complexity will hinder progress eventually You did not argue that homoiconicity defeats complexity in any way, and you can't make such an argument without first defining what exactly you mean by "homoiconicity". Like I said, this has only proven my point: people like to argue in favor of homoiconicity without defining it sufficiently. Until someone comes up with an unambiguous definition that exactly fits all of their preconceived notions about the word, the word itself is absolutely useless. For further clarity: I was never arguing against any of the features that people often mean when they say "homoiconicity is important". Rather, I was arguing that the word "homoiconicity" is unimportant because nobody knows what it means. I have yet to find a truly great definition of the term that encompasses exactly all those languages people tend to feel are homoiconic and none of those that people feel aren't.
    - hhas01 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428602

DonaldPShimoda 6y ago

> Homoiconicity is very very important Why is homoiconicity "very very important"? Nobody seems able to say. > You have people around the internet with very little programming experience discussing all day about concepts they hardly understand, because they have not programmed a lot to really grasp it. The people I quoted were all principal developers of arguably the most successful Lisp derivative in the past few decades. The annual Scheme Workshop is almost entirely Racket these days. I doubt you are in a place to claim that "they have not programmed a lot to really grasp [homoiconicity]". So I'm confused what your point is here.

hhas01 6y ago
“Why is homoiconicity "very very important"?” I’ll take “What is parsimony?” for twenty, Alex. That said, I think “very very advantageous” would be more correct. If your language is a sprawling inconsistent mess of non-essential complexity, what chance of the systems built with that language being any better? And what chance of the language itself growing and evolving in future? Complexity kills progress. Forward movement finally grinds to a halt under its own impossible weight; at which point some genius will pronounce “Let’s abandon all that and start over completely afresh”, only to make the exact same foundational mistakes as the last time. Rinse-and-repeat ad nauseum for the illusion of progress without actually ever progressing anywhere. And so it goes. The only way to a maintain sustainable growth is to eliminate all non-essential complexity constantly and ruthlessly. You can either climb that ladder and discover where it goes, or forever sit on its bottom rung playing with yourself.
- DonaldPShimoda 6y ago
  You're actually proving my point. :) You never defined what it is that you mean by "homoiconicity", nor did you motivate why homoiconicity specifically is important or advantageous. You made, essentially, two points: - homoiconicity is "very very advantageous" - excessive, non-essential complexity will hinder progress eventually You did not argue that homoiconicity defeats complexity in any way, and you can't make such an argument without first defining what exactly you mean by "homoiconicity". Like I said, this has only proven my point: people like to argue in favor of homoiconicity without defining it sufficiently. Until someone comes up with an unambiguous definition that exactly fits all of their preconceived notions about the word, the word itself is absolutely useless. For further clarity: I was never arguing against any of the features that people often mean when they say "homoiconicity is important". Rather, I was arguing that the word "homoiconicity" is unimportant because nobody knows what it means. I have yet to find a truly great definition of the term that encompasses exactly all those languages people tend to feel are homoiconic and none of those that people feel aren't.
  - hhas01 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23428602