5 ms·

Why I love Lisp

95 points by mordaroso 15y ago

gonzafer 15y ago
A good introduction to a language that has not been well considered yet.
aerique 15y ago
Minor nitpick on the article: Common Lisp is not a family, it's a standard with many implementations[1][2]. Common Lisp is a member of the Lisp familiy of languages, just like Clojure is. [1] http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp#Implementations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp#Implementations
- lispm 15y ago
  There are implementations which implement the standard, slight variations of it (lower case identifiers, ...) or large extended versions of it (+ MOP + CLOS everywhere + ...). There are also derived languages like Stella, L, SubL and others which implement some kind of subset. Then there is ISLisp, which is very similar, but slightly simplified.
- pupeno 15y ago
  Thanks. I changed the wording to reflect this. Is it better now?
  - aerique 15y ago
    Yup, thanks!
tedunangst 15y ago
Did something unusual happen today? There's three lisp stories on the front page, which is about 2.9 more than the average day. Just curious.
- jff 15y ago
  Somebody probably posted a Lisp story early this morning, it got ranked highly, everybody else noticed that and jumped on the karma bandwagon by posting their own Lisp essays or just their favorite bit of 10-year-old Lisp lore :) Remember, all it takes is one "XYZ sucks" post on the front page to get a front page full of "Why XYZ doesn't suck", "XYZ sucks super hard", "We're using XYZ at my startup", "Successful founders use ZYX, not XYZ", etc.
  - pupeno 15y ago
    But it it is clear that XYZ is the way to go, why would anyone even consider discussing it? /s
  - 5hoom 15y ago
    But lisp is a pretty interesting XYZ to blather about, you must admit. I'd rather a million lisp stories than all the non development related human-interest/social-studies stuff that often winds up on the front page ;)
paulasmuth 15y ago
This post has convinced me to take the time and try to learn at least a few bits of clojure. Thank you!
- calebmpeterson 15y ago
  Clojure when viewed as a dialect of Lisp is remarkably clean and well thought out. Clojure when viewed as a functional programming answer to multicore and concurrency is stunningly beautiful in it's simplicity. If you haven't read Rich Hickey's prose on State and Identity. I highly recommend it: clojure.org/state
hamidpalo 15y ago
The problem with these "Why I love blank language" is that they don't really address real-world usages. Sure, syntax overviews and cherry picked examples that show a quicksort in 5 lines are wonderful but no one writes quicksort. What about real-world usages in large systems?

95 points by mordaroso 15y ago

A good introduction to a language that has not been well considered yet.

Minor nitpick on the article: Common Lisp is not a family, it's a standard with many implementations[1][2]. Common Lisp is a member of the Lisp familiy of languages, just like Clojure is. [1] http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation http://www.cliki.net/Common%20Lisp%20implementation [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp#Implementations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Lisp#Implementations

lispm 15y ago
There are implementations which implement the standard, slight variations of it (lower case identifiers, ...) or large extended versions of it (+ MOP + CLOS everywhere + ...). There are also derived languages like Stella, L, SubL and others which implement some kind of subset. Then there is ISLisp, which is very similar, but slightly simplified.
pupeno 15y ago
Thanks. I changed the wording to reflect this. Is it better now?
- aerique 15y ago
  Yup, thanks!

tedunangst 15y ago

Did something unusual happen today? There's three lisp stories on the front page, which is about 2.9 more than the average day. Just curious.

jff 15y ago
Somebody probably posted a Lisp story early this morning, it got ranked highly, everybody else noticed that and jumped on the karma bandwagon by posting their own Lisp essays or just their favorite bit of 10-year-old Lisp lore :) Remember, all it takes is one "XYZ sucks" post on the front page to get a front page full of "Why XYZ doesn't suck", "XYZ sucks super hard", "We're using XYZ at my startup", "Successful founders use ZYX, not XYZ", etc.
- pupeno 15y ago
  But it it is clear that XYZ is the way to go, why would anyone even consider discussing it? /s
- 5hoom 15y ago
  But lisp is a pretty interesting XYZ to blather about, you must admit. I'd rather a million lisp stories than all the non development related human-interest/social-studies stuff that often winds up on the front page ;)

paulasmuth 15y ago

This post has convinced me to take the time and try to learn at least a few bits of clojure. Thank you!

calebmpeterson 15y ago
Clojure when viewed as a dialect of Lisp is remarkably clean and well thought out. Clojure when viewed as a functional programming answer to multicore and concurrency is stunningly beautiful in it's simplicity. If you haven't read Rich Hickey's prose on State and Identity. I highly recommend it: clojure.org/state

hamidpalo 15y ago

The problem with these "Why I love blank language" is that they don't really address real-world usages. Sure, syntax overviews and cherry picked examples that show a quicksort in 5 lines are wonderful but no one writes quicksort. What about real-world usages in large systems?