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Unpopular opinion here - and maybe it’s because I’m jealous of the Lispers. But is Lisp used for anything real? I mean, even teaching - is it worth it to lear

Unpopular opinion here - and maybe it’s because I’m jealous of the Lispers. But is Lisp used for anything real? I mean, even teaching - is it worth it to learn lisp? Aren’t other languages more practical to learn? Isn’t learning lisp like learning a a dead language that once you leave the lisp class you’ll never use again? Wouldn’t you learn the exact same things you learned in lisp using a more widely used (practical)language?

twobitshifter 5y ago
Here’s the famous Paul Graham Essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html >Eric Raymond has written an essay called "How to Become a Hacker," and in it, among other things, he tells would-be hackers what languages they should learn. He suggests starting with Python and Java, because they are easy to learn. The serious hacker will also want to learn C, in order to hack Unix, and Perl for system administration and cgi scripts. Finally, the truly serious hacker should consider learning Lisp: >Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot. This is the same argument you tend to hear for learning Latin. It won't get you a job, except perhaps as a classics professor, but it will improve your mind, and make you a better writer in languages you do want to use, like English. >But wait a minute. This metaphor doesn't stretch that far. The reason Latin won't get you a job is that no one speaks it. If you write in Latin, no one can understand you. But Lisp is a computer language, and computers speak whatever language you, the programmer, tell them to.
mhuffman 5y ago
>Isn’t learning lisp like learning a a dead language that once you leave the lisp class you’ll never use again? Well, similar to learning a dead language, lisp has lots of benefits! For example, learning some latin is very useful when you come across new (to you) words with latin roots for understanding what they mean! Similarly, learning lisp is very useful for understanding useful ways to solve new programming problems that you come across. This is what people mean when they say that lisp will change the way you think as a programmer. But even beyond that, lisp can be very productive. Especially some of its derivatives (like clojure). Edit: I did not see that someone already replied with a similar response. But I will leave this here anyway.
rjsw 5y ago
I use it in a real product. Common Lisp runs a lot faster than Python or Ruby and it is faster to write than C or Java.
retrac 5y ago
Common Lisp is a reasonably nice general purpose object-oriented language. It's big, but it's a smaller language than C++ while about as expressive, and quite efficient with a good compiler. There are a few real world applications in Lisp out there still. I saw an article about how Grammarly uses it for their grammar-checking service. Small Lisps are sometimes used as an embedded or scripting language -- AutoCAD to Emacs. Not just old code, I saw a project using it as a scripting language for a game engine in Rust the other day. When the language is crafted to that kind of purpose, it's often a good fit. Not to harp on like a CS prophet, but Lisp is basically a syntaxless language. '(It (can (be . maddening))) but the simplicity has its advantages. Ridiculously easy to implement (see niche scripting applications again) and you never get bogged down by syntax when coding. Just functions and data. It encourages a very meta style of programming, often where your program helps write itself at runtime. Even if you aren't sold on Common Lisp being a good language for career advancement (I'm not either, honestly) I do think something in the Lisp family is probably worth learning for the same reason you should learn at least one assembly language in passing. A handful of basic primitives support every major approach to programming, if you structure them correctly. Makes you think about the problem differently.
pjmlp 5y ago
Depends how real you consider the customers that keep LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp still in business since the Lisp Machine days, http://www.lispworks.com/ http://www.lispworks.com/ https://franz.com/ https://franz.com/ They are surely not surviving the last 30 years out of charity.

twobitshifter 5y ago

Here’s the famous Paul Graham Essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html >Eric Raymond has written an essay called "How to Become a Hacker," and in it, among other things, he tells would-be hackers what languages they should learn. He suggests starting with Python and Java, because they are easy to learn. The serious hacker will also want to learn C, in order to hack Unix, and Perl for system administration and cgi scripts. Finally, the truly serious hacker should consider learning Lisp: >Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot. This is the same argument you tend to hear for learning Latin. It won't get you a job, except perhaps as a classics professor, but it will improve your mind, and make you a better writer in languages you do want to use, like English. >But wait a minute. This metaphor doesn't stretch that far. The reason Latin won't get you a job is that no one speaks it. If you write in Latin, no one can understand you. But Lisp is a computer language, and computers speak whatever language you, the programmer, tell them to.

mhuffman 5y ago

>Isn’t learning lisp like learning a a dead language that once you leave the lisp class you’ll never use again? Well, similar to learning a dead language, lisp has lots of benefits! For example, learning some latin is very useful when you come across new (to you) words with latin roots for understanding what they mean! Similarly, learning lisp is very useful for understanding useful ways to solve new programming problems that you come across. This is what people mean when they say that lisp will change the way you think as a programmer. But even beyond that, lisp can be very productive. Especially some of its derivatives (like clojure). Edit: I did not see that someone already replied with a similar response. But I will leave this here anyway.

rjsw 5y ago

I use it in a real product. Common Lisp runs a lot faster than Python or Ruby and it is faster to write than C or Java.

retrac 5y ago

Common Lisp is a reasonably nice general purpose object-oriented language. It's big, but it's a smaller language than C++ while about as expressive, and quite efficient with a good compiler. There are a few real world applications in Lisp out there still. I saw an article about how Grammarly uses it for their grammar-checking service. Small Lisps are sometimes used as an embedded or scripting language -- AutoCAD to Emacs. Not just old code, I saw a project using it as a scripting language for a game engine in Rust the other day. When the language is crafted to that kind of purpose, it's often a good fit. Not to harp on like a CS prophet, but Lisp is basically a syntaxless language. '(It (can (be . maddening))) but the simplicity has its advantages. Ridiculously easy to implement (see niche scripting applications again) and you never get bogged down by syntax when coding. Just functions and data. It encourages a very meta style of programming, often where your program helps write itself at runtime. Even if you aren't sold on Common Lisp being a good language for career advancement (I'm not either, honestly) I do think something in the Lisp family is probably worth learning for the same reason you should learn at least one assembly language in passing. A handful of basic primitives support every major approach to programming, if you structure them correctly. Makes you think about the problem differently.

pjmlp 5y ago

Depends how real you consider the customers that keep LispWorks and Allegro Common Lisp still in business since the Lisp Machine days, http://www.lispworks.com/ http://www.lispworks.com/ https://franz.com/ https://franz.com/ They are surely not surviving the last 30 years out of charity.