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Don't Build Your Own Lisp provides some harsh—and IMO totally justified—criticism: https://gist.github.com/no-defun-allowed/7e3e238c959e27d4919bb4272487d7ad htt

Don't Build Your Own Lisp provides some harsh—and IMO totally justified—criticism: https://gist.github.com/no-defun-allowed/7e3e238c959e27d4919bb4272487d7ad https://gist.github.com/no-defun-allowed/7e3e238c959e27d4919...

phlalexsh 5y ago
The criticism may be justified but jeez the person who wrote that comes off like a HUGE asshole. Reminds me of people I've worked with in the past who think they know everything and have an arrogance so thick you could cut it with a knife.
- astrange 5y ago
  Every Lisp programmer I've ever met is like this. I don't know why, but it's probably Erik Naggum's fault. They used to be called "Lisp weenies" and now would be called "abusers". (The Clojure and Racket people are supposedly nice.)
  - guenthert 5y ago
    I've seen Erik Naggum's name mentioned in this context before, but years ago I looked through a bunch of his contribution on comp.lang.lisp and couldn't see anything justifying this reputation. His articles rather looked quite eloquent and thought-through. Could you provide an example?
    - astrange 5y ago
      Alas it's been a long time and I don't remember enough anymore. I just remember what I used to remember. There's some here (http://xahlee.info/Netiquette_dir/death_of_a_troll.html http://xahlee.info/Netiquette_dir/death_of_a_troll.html) and classic discussion can be found at (https://wiki.c2.com/?SocialProblemsOfLisp https://wiki.c2.com/?SocialProblemsOfLisp). The rest of the odd pattern of every Lisp programmer I've ever met being an asshole is mostly lost to IRC history, but I guess RMS is another example.
      - thealig 5y ago
        I've accessed that wiki.c2 for various discussions about programming before. However, I get confused with the format, specially here where it seems like a thread full of comments (no mention of usernames) there. (I like the relative minimalism and simplicity of the discourse though)
      - bobochan 5y ago
        I just re-read Xah's notes and all of that rings a bell, but off of comp.lang.lisp Erik could be incredibly kind in helping other programmers. I was working my way through an early edition of _A programmer's guide to Common Lisp_ by Deborah Tatar and got absolutely stumped on the chapter on macros. Erik worked with me over email until we actually found what appeared to be a typo in the example source code and was incredibly patient with my dumb mistakes.
  - thewakalix 5y ago
    "God help you if you are going to write your first interpreter in C of all things... Without manual intervention[,] C programs do pretty much no error detection... I hate C with a passion." -- Hayley Patton, Don't Build Your Own Lisp "What a whiny little bitch." -- wudangmonk, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27601530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27601530 When I look at these two statements, I wouldn't describe the first as being particularly abusive.
  - Smithalicious 5y ago
    I've found the Emacs Lisp crowd to also be nice.
- Koshkin 5y ago
  "I hate C with a passion." There it is, their problem.
wudangmonk 5y ago
Jesus just reading the first paragraph tells me everything I need to know about this person, what a whiny little bitch. Lisp and C are my favorite languages and most of the people I know who like one tend to like the other. I was surprised by this guy who praises lisp but hates C with such a passion.

phlalexsh 5y ago

The criticism may be justified but jeez the person who wrote that comes off like a HUGE asshole. Reminds me of people I've worked with in the past who think they know everything and have an arrogance so thick you could cut it with a knife.

astrange 5y ago
Every Lisp programmer I've ever met is like this. I don't know why, but it's probably Erik Naggum's fault. They used to be called "Lisp weenies" and now would be called "abusers". (The Clojure and Racket people are supposedly nice.)
- guenthert 5y ago
  I've seen Erik Naggum's name mentioned in this context before, but years ago I looked through a bunch of his contribution on comp.lang.lisp and couldn't see anything justifying this reputation. His articles rather looked quite eloquent and thought-through. Could you provide an example?
  - astrange 5y ago
    Alas it's been a long time and I don't remember enough anymore. I just remember what I used to remember. There's some here (http://xahlee.info/Netiquette_dir/death_of_a_troll.html http://xahlee.info/Netiquette_dir/death_of_a_troll.html) and classic discussion can be found at (https://wiki.c2.com/?SocialProblemsOfLisp https://wiki.c2.com/?SocialProblemsOfLisp). The rest of the odd pattern of every Lisp programmer I've ever met being an asshole is mostly lost to IRC history, but I guess RMS is another example.
    - thealig 5y ago
      I've accessed that wiki.c2 for various discussions about programming before. However, I get confused with the format, specially here where it seems like a thread full of comments (no mention of usernames) there. (I like the relative minimalism and simplicity of the discourse though)
    - bobochan 5y ago
      I just re-read Xah's notes and all of that rings a bell, but off of comp.lang.lisp Erik could be incredibly kind in helping other programmers. I was working my way through an early edition of _A programmer's guide to Common Lisp_ by Deborah Tatar and got absolutely stumped on the chapter on macros. Erik worked with me over email until we actually found what appeared to be a typo in the example source code and was incredibly patient with my dumb mistakes.
- thewakalix 5y ago
  "God help you if you are going to write your first interpreter in C of all things... Without manual intervention[,] C programs do pretty much no error detection... I hate C with a passion." -- Hayley Patton, Don't Build Your Own Lisp "What a whiny little bitch." -- wudangmonk, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27601530 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27601530 When I look at these two statements, I wouldn't describe the first as being particularly abusive.
- Smithalicious 5y ago
  I've found the Emacs Lisp crowd to also be nice.
Koshkin 5y ago
"I hate C with a passion." There it is, their problem.

wudangmonk 5y ago

Jesus just reading the first paragraph tells me everything I need to know about this person, what a whiny little bitch. Lisp and C are my favorite languages and most of the people I know who like one tend to like the other. I was surprised by this guy who praises lisp but hates C with such a passion.