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So, a language that excels when used by small teams and lone hackers... which BTW describes academic research perfectly. Of course if you have an army of progra
by rscho 5y ago
So, a language that excels when used by small teams and lone hackers... which BTW describes academic research perfectly. Of course if you have an army of programmers working in parallel on a 1M loc codebase, you won't want something too flexible. Right tool for the right environment!
Try to make something like MediKanren in a mainstream language, and the advantage of lisp languages will become immediately apparent.
- Zababa 5y ago> So, a language that excels when used by small teams and lone hackers... When you're trying to do something that hasn't been already done programming-wise. For most other cases you would be better served by a language with a healthy and large ecosystem.
- rscho 5y agoI agree, and this translates into the real world. That's exactly what lisp has been and is used for (research in quantum computing, for a current example). Still, it's not a bad thing to try to extend the user base as it translates to more libs and better implementations. Many new things are mostly same-old same-old with a sprinkle of 'new' glitter on top!
- bitwize 5y agoIf you have an army of programmers working on 1M LOC, there's a very good chance you're working on something overcomplicated for the problem it's trying to solve. Padding out your CV by inflating your budget/team size numbers, eh? :) Lisp gets a single programmer leverage over large, complicated problems, and puts even complex projects within the reach of small teams. In the 80s, Symbolics had the stated goal of making very large projects feasible by a small team, and anything smaller within the reach of a single developer. Ambitious, to be sure, but given the CF that is enterprise development, it shouldn't be ruled out as something to reach for.