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Serious question: who uses Lisp these days? Been in software dev industry for over 20 years. Never encountered a single project employing the language. There m

Serious question: who uses Lisp these days? Been in software dev industry for over 20 years. Never encountered a single project employing the language. There must be some reason Lisp is so popular on HN.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
I've seen some self reported “lisp pros” working every day on lisp projects, but they are pretty rare compared to c++/javascript/python/c# programmers. It usually sounds like they are senior people who get their choice of languages and/or consultants who write and maintain very custom stuff with long-term, loyal customers.
Scaless 5y ago
The scripting language for Halo 1/2/3/ODST/Reach were based on Lisp. Halo 4 kept a similar syntax but got rid of the parentheses to be more BASIC-like. Halo 5 and now Infinite moved on completely to Lua. Halo 1 reference: https://andrew.gg/scripts/00reference.html https://andrew.gg/scripts/00reference.html Decompiled campaign scripts: https://github.com/Nibre/blamscript/blob/master/blamscript/halo_reach_xex/scenarios/m10/scripts/m10.hsc https://github.com/Nibre/blamscript/blob/master/blamscript/h...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
karanbhangui 5y ago
Clojure is fairly popular on the JVM and the site you are on uses a lisp dialect named Arc. Though not popular as an industrial language, ideas from lisp have spread into javascript and front end dev
retrac 5y ago
Grammarly uses it for many of their services.: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/running-lisp-in-production/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/running-lisp-in-p... Pathway Tools is a genetic database search/comparison tool (I think, it's a bit over my head) and powers the https://biocyc.org/ https://biocyc.org/ website. Both are pretty typical use cases. Back-end services dealing with heavy symbolic manipulations. I think the most common use of Lisp is to implement Lisp though. ;)
nyolfen 5y ago
> There must be some reason Lisp is so popular on HN. sicp is a really good book, but also: https://marktarver.com/bipolar.html https://marktarver.com/bipolar.html
ksherlock 5y ago
You are, indirectly, by posting on hacker news...
chubot 5y ago
The author of this site and the founder of YC wrote Lisp books, and then a bunch of influential essays about Lisp (starting ~20 years ago): http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html This site is written in Arc, his first Lisp: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134
kmstout 5y ago
- Professionally, much of my output is in Python--everyone else in the shop knows it--with a smattering of C when it's warranted. That said, I'm an Emacs user, and I do write libraries and custom modes in Elisp to do things I find useful. In the hopes that others will, too, I make them available to my colleagues. - I use Common Lisp at home for personal projects when shell scripts no longer cut it. When the Python 3 storm hit my ~/bin, it occurred to me that one of CL's best features is that its specification has been stable for several years (even while the ecosystem has evolved considerably).
- jhgb 5y ago
  > its specification has been stable for several years And by "several", you mean "at least fifteen at the time"? ;)
klyrs 5y ago
This gets posted to HN every so often: https://common-lisp.net/lisp-companies https://common-lisp.net/lisp-companies
tsimionescu 5y ago
Just to add an example, there is a Portuguese company called SISCOG which produces planning software in (Common) Lisp, mainly for railway timetables, powering many European railway systems.
jhgb 5y ago
> Been in software dev industry for over 20 years. Never encountered a single project employing the language. Are you saying you've never seen AutoCAD or Emacs in your life? While possible, I find it somewhat difficult to believe.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

I've seen some self reported “lisp pros” working every day on lisp projects, but they are pretty rare compared to c++/javascript/python/c# programmers. It usually sounds like they are senior people who get their choice of languages and/or consultants who write and maintain very custom stuff with long-term, loyal customers.

Scaless 5y ago

The scripting language for Halo 1/2/3/ODST/Reach were based on Lisp. Halo 4 kept a similar syntax but got rid of the parentheses to be more BASIC-like. Halo 5 and now Infinite moved on completely to Lua. Halo 1 reference: https://andrew.gg/scripts/00reference.html https://andrew.gg/scripts/00reference.html Decompiled campaign scripts: https://github.com/Nibre/blamscript/blob/master/blamscript/halo_reach_xex/scenarios/m10/scripts/m10.hsc https://github.com/Nibre/blamscript/blob/master/blamscript/h...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

karanbhangui 5y ago

Clojure is fairly popular on the JVM and the site you are on uses a lisp dialect named Arc. Though not popular as an industrial language, ideas from lisp have spread into javascript and front end dev

retrac 5y ago

Grammarly uses it for many of their services.: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/running-lisp-in-production/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/engineering/running-lisp-in-p... Pathway Tools is a genetic database search/comparison tool (I think, it's a bit over my head) and powers the https://biocyc.org/ https://biocyc.org/ website. Both are pretty typical use cases. Back-end services dealing with heavy symbolic manipulations. I think the most common use of Lisp is to implement Lisp though. ;)

nyolfen 5y ago

> There must be some reason Lisp is so popular on HN. sicp is a really good book, but also: https://marktarver.com/bipolar.html https://marktarver.com/bipolar.html

ksherlock 5y ago

You are, indirectly, by posting on hacker news...

chubot 5y ago

The author of this site and the founder of YC wrote Lisp books, and then a bunch of influential essays about Lisp (starting ~20 years ago): http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/lisp.html This site is written in Arc, his first Lisp: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134

kmstout 5y ago

- Professionally, much of my output is in Python--everyone else in the shop knows it--with a smattering of C when it's warranted. That said, I'm an Emacs user, and I do write libraries and custom modes in Elisp to do things I find useful. In the hopes that others will, too, I make them available to my colleagues. - I use Common Lisp at home for personal projects when shell scripts no longer cut it. When the Python 3 storm hit my ~/bin, it occurred to me that one of CL's best features is that its specification has been stable for several years (even while the ecosystem has evolved considerably).

jhgb 5y ago
> its specification has been stable for several years And by "several", you mean "at least fifteen at the time"? ;)

klyrs 5y ago

This gets posted to HN every so often: https://common-lisp.net/lisp-companies https://common-lisp.net/lisp-companies

tsimionescu 5y ago

Just to add an example, there is a Portuguese company called SISCOG which produces planning software in (Common) Lisp, mainly for railway timetables, powering many European railway systems.

jhgb 5y ago

> Been in software dev industry for over 20 years. Never encountered a single project employing the language. Are you saying you've never seen AutoCAD or Emacs in your life? While possible, I find it somewhat difficult to believe.