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I used to work at an AI firm that used it. Large Lisp codebases are a minefield with near impossible security and debugging issues. I still love it as a program

I used to work at an AI firm that used it. Large Lisp codebases are a minefield with near impossible security and debugging issues. I still love it as a programming language tho.

medo-bear 5y ago
There are a number of large companies that use CL quite effectively for safety critial purposes. Can you please give more details about your experience?
- exdsq 5y ago
  Out of interest can you give some examples?
  - medo-bear 5y ago
    siscog in portugal is one example but there are others, historical and current. it is also used in quantum computing and financial markets. gramarly and google flights are perhaps the most famous current users of the software. edit: i adjusted my answer because i thought i was answering to parent
abhinav22 5y ago
I would love to hear more on the security challenges and debugging issues, if you have time. It’s not used as much in industry, so any insights are really very valuable. Also so cool that you worked in AI! That’s my dream field :)
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  I saw a fun debugging issue the other day on r/lisp that almost made me want to walk away from lisp for good. You have a function (defun my-val () "a string") Referentially transparent, easy to reason about right? Wrong. Lisp strings are mutable, and everything is a reference. So if you do something like this (replace (my-val) "b" :start1 0 :end1 1) (my-val) => "b string" I appreciate that CL doesn't force everything to be immutable, but it seems like at least strings would benefit from being treated as immutable values.
  - abhinav22 5y ago
    Interesting example. Yes, it’s not a perfect language by any means :-) Some things are better in Lisp, some things are better in other languages as well for sure!
  - kagevf 5y ago
    I remember that ... it was pretty surprising! I thought I could do (string "a string") to prevent it, but that didn't work. (concatenate 'string "a string") worked, though ...
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    Destructive modification of literal objects is one of those things you're not supposed to do because the consequences are undefined [0]. Some CL implementations might let you get away with it; others might not. I agree that it would be better if immutability was required for literals. [0] http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_abac.htm http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_aba...
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      Nice link. I'd be happy if an implementation just turned that into a compiler error. I can see use cases for reaching in and mutating like that, but also seems like dynamic scope is a better solution for when you want that kind of action at a distance.
ska 5y ago
> Large Lisp codebases are a minefield with near impossible security and debugging issues. Sounds about like most large codebases. Languages can't save you from this, it seems, only discipline can.

I used to work at an AI firm that used it. Large Lisp codebases are a minefield with near impossible security and debugging issues. I still love it as a programming language tho.

medo-bear 5y ago

There are a number of large companies that use CL quite effectively for safety critial purposes. Can you please give more details about your experience?

exdsq 5y ago
Out of interest can you give some examples?
- medo-bear 5y ago
  siscog in portugal is one example but there are others, historical and current. it is also used in quantum computing and financial markets. gramarly and google flights are perhaps the most famous current users of the software. edit: i adjusted my answer because i thought i was answering to parent

abhinav22 5y ago

I would love to hear more on the security challenges and debugging issues, if you have time. It’s not used as much in industry, so any insights are really very valuable. Also so cool that you worked in AI! That’s my dream field :)

blacktriangle 5y ago
I saw a fun debugging issue the other day on r/lisp that almost made me want to walk away from lisp for good. You have a function (defun my-val () "a string") Referentially transparent, easy to reason about right? Wrong. Lisp strings are mutable, and everything is a reference. So if you do something like this (replace (my-val) "b" :start1 0 :end1 1) (my-val) => "b string" I appreciate that CL doesn't force everything to be immutable, but it seems like at least strings would benefit from being treated as immutable values.
- abhinav22 5y ago
  Interesting example. Yes, it’s not a perfect language by any means :-) Some things are better in Lisp, some things are better in other languages as well for sure!
- kagevf 5y ago
  I remember that ... it was pretty surprising! I thought I could do (string "a string") to prevent it, but that didn't work. (concatenate 'string "a string") worked, though ...
- dreamcompiler 5y ago
  Destructive modification of literal objects is one of those things you're not supposed to do because the consequences are undefined [0]. Some CL implementations might let you get away with it; others might not. I agree that it would be better if immutability was required for literals. [0] http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_abac.htm http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/03_aba...
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    Nice link. I'd be happy if an implementation just turned that into a compiler error. I can see use cases for reaching in and mutating like that, but also seems like dynamic scope is a better solution for when you want that kind of action at a distance.

ska 5y ago

> Large Lisp codebases are a minefield with near impossible security and debugging issues. Sounds about like most large codebases. Languages can't save you from this, it seems, only discipline can.