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Insulting Perl helped Python and Ruby, but I doubt that insulting Common Lisp and Scheme will help Clojure. If the Clojure community thinks that its better to

Insulting Perl helped Python and Ruby, but I doubt that insulting Common Lisp and Scheme will help Clojure. If the Clojure community thinks that its better to attract more Ruby and Java programmers, and alienate other lispers, please, keep producing ignorant crap like this. Claiming Common Lisp is dead and comparing it to C++? Why should anybody listen to somebody’s extremely narrow minded opinion on THE FUTURE OF LISP, when that person has shown that he knows NOTHING about lisps past and present. Mr. Fogus, you know much better that to post such ignorance to Hacker News. Keep Clojure awesome, don't let the fanboys spread FUD. Inter-dialect respect, yaw! :)

swannodette 15y ago
Being overly defensive about your favorite programming language is also not productive. This just one guy's opinion not some "community". No programming language is beyond criticism (Clojure has plenty of warts), and certainly the mainstream ones are positively filled with teeth-grinding flaws - otherwise you wouldn't see such active work and interest around new programming languages.
- pavelludiq 15y ago
  I love most lisps I’ve had the pleasure to study. When clojure prospers, I’m happy. When individuals express such opinions clojure does not prosper, because the rest of the otherwise excellent community now has to explain that not all clojure programmers are ignorant fanboys, the same way Common Lisp programmers now have to explain that it's not a dead language that's like C++ with more parenthesis, and scheme isn't all just about teaching, and yes, there are libraries we can use. Its hard enough to use lisp, why make it harder? No lisp dialect needs to push others down in order to prosper, were better than that.
- oconnore 15y ago
  Criticism is cool, and even useful! "X is dead" is not.
sbt 15y ago
I think the comparison to C++ is apt. Both languages are sensible tools for experts, but unfortunately very complex. In C++, this is naturally due to backward compatibility with C. But in CL, it's the result of design by committee. Clojure is a great lisp dialect, but if you had the resources to write a new runtime, you could probably do better.
- pavelludiq 15y ago
  With the risk of making myself sound even more defensive about common lisp that I already did, common lisp was not designed by a committee, it was standardized after a lot of use and discussion within the community. p.s. And an expert is exactly what I want to become, I have no ambition to be a code monkey. I'm truly sorry if expertise and skill are valued less these days in the tech circles. "Good enough" is not good enough for me. I look up to the experts and brilliant minds of our community and aspire to be as good one day, I don't care much for the general case, i have no use for "a language for everybody".
  - sbt 15y ago
    I applaud that you want to become an expert. Emacs is a good example of a tool that takes a long time to learn, but this effort is well amortized. My intention was not to criticize C++, I think it's the right choice if you have the right people, as is Common Lisp. At the same time, tools with a high barrier to entry obviously have a harder time gaining adoption. Take the LOOP facility, it's obviously powerful, but it baffles beginners. One issue though. While becoming an expert in C++ can be a fruitful career path, all of the people I know who are using CL for work, are consultants working to maintain old projects. I'm not qualified to say how much money is in this or if it's any fun, but in my experience it's really hard to get a company to agree to CL, because of lack of people. That's why adoptability matters so tremendously. As for whether CL was designed by a committee or not, I was trying to communicate Richard Gabriel's account at http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/clcrit.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/clcrit.pdf
    - pavelludiq 15y ago
fogus 15y ago
A reminder: A blog post does not represent the common thoughts of a community any more than a submission to HN represents the thoughts of the submitter. Mr. Fogus, you know much better that to post such ignorance to Hacker News. Save your pontificating for someone else. What I do know is that when someone says something that I disagree with I think about and discuss it and respond or reject based on its own merits. I do know better than to plug my ears and scream "La La La La La" so as not to hear.
- pavelludiq 15y ago
  Thank you for the response. I agree in general. But so far I haven't seen too much fruit in this discussion, because the lisp community(all dialects) has had this conversation too many times, I appreciate your submissions and blog posts that give us a new way to look at things, there are certainly much better topics for us to discuss. The future of lisp is certainly important enough, but we could have had just a better way of starting it(continuing it actually).
deleted 15y ago
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swannodette 15y ago

Being overly defensive about your favorite programming language is also not productive. This just one guy's opinion not some "community". No programming language is beyond criticism (Clojure has plenty of warts), and certainly the mainstream ones are positively filled with teeth-grinding flaws - otherwise you wouldn't see such active work and interest around new programming languages.

pavelludiq 15y ago
I love most lisps I’ve had the pleasure to study. When clojure prospers, I’m happy. When individuals express such opinions clojure does not prosper, because the rest of the otherwise excellent community now has to explain that not all clojure programmers are ignorant fanboys, the same way Common Lisp programmers now have to explain that it's not a dead language that's like C++ with more parenthesis, and scheme isn't all just about teaching, and yes, there are libraries we can use. Its hard enough to use lisp, why make it harder? No lisp dialect needs to push others down in order to prosper, were better than that.
oconnore 15y ago
Criticism is cool, and even useful! "X is dead" is not.

sbt 15y ago

I think the comparison to C++ is apt. Both languages are sensible tools for experts, but unfortunately very complex. In C++, this is naturally due to backward compatibility with C. But in CL, it's the result of design by committee. Clojure is a great lisp dialect, but if you had the resources to write a new runtime, you could probably do better.

pavelludiq 15y ago
With the risk of making myself sound even more defensive about common lisp that I already did, common lisp was not designed by a committee, it was standardized after a lot of use and discussion within the community. p.s. And an expert is exactly what I want to become, I have no ambition to be a code monkey. I'm truly sorry if expertise and skill are valued less these days in the tech circles. "Good enough" is not good enough for me. I look up to the experts and brilliant minds of our community and aspire to be as good one day, I don't care much for the general case, i have no use for "a language for everybody".
- sbt 15y ago
  I applaud that you want to become an expert. Emacs is a good example of a tool that takes a long time to learn, but this effort is well amortized. My intention was not to criticize C++, I think it's the right choice if you have the right people, as is Common Lisp. At the same time, tools with a high barrier to entry obviously have a harder time gaining adoption. Take the LOOP facility, it's obviously powerful, but it baffles beginners. One issue though. While becoming an expert in C++ can be a fruitful career path, all of the people I know who are using CL for work, are consultants working to maintain old projects. I'm not qualified to say how much money is in this or if it's any fun, but in my experience it's really hard to get a company to agree to CL, because of lack of people. That's why adoptability matters so tremendously. As for whether CL was designed by a committee or not, I was trying to communicate Richard Gabriel's account at http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/clcrit.pdf http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/clcrit.pdf
  - pavelludiq 15y ago

fogus 15y ago

A reminder: A blog post does not represent the common thoughts of a community any more than a submission to HN represents the thoughts of the submitter. Mr. Fogus, you know much better that to post such ignorance to Hacker News. Save your pontificating for someone else. What I do know is that when someone says something that I disagree with I think about and discuss it and respond or reject based on its own merits. I do know better than to plug my ears and scream "La La La La La" so as not to hear.

pavelludiq 15y ago
Thank you for the response. I agree in general. But so far I haven't seen too much fruit in this discussion, because the lisp community(all dialects) has had this conversation too many times, I appreciate your submissions and blog posts that give us a new way to look at things, there are certainly much better topics for us to discuss. The future of lisp is certainly important enough, but we could have had just a better way of starting it(continuing it actually).

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]