3 ms·

If you want to go maverick, why not LISP?

by bigodbiel 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago
Too many parentheses.
- floatboth 5y ago
  Come on, that's not a real problem ;) As someone who had a Clojure phase about 9 years ago: the actual problem with modern Lisps is that they don't really offer a big set of unique good features. The basic functional map-filter-reduce "meat grinder" is everywhere (and has been almost everywhere for a long time, Java not having lambdas for ages is what clouded everyone's vision into thinking that's not the case). The other "Lisp feature" is macro metaprogramming based on homoiconicity (Code Is Data™) and we have it in some non-Lisps too now (hello Elixir) and… is it really the best way to do metaprogramming? Ehh. Well, many compiled&typed languages actually do similar-ish things: using syn in Rust proc macros / haskell-src-exts in Template Haskell you can work with code "as data". And that isn't as nice to work with as D's `static foreach/if` + reflection/introspecion thingies like allMembers/getMember.
  - User23 5y ago
    Clojure is a sort of baby’s first lisp. That’s not a bad thing by the way. Its relative simplicity and restrictiveness are usually beneficial for corporate environments and I like working in it. That said, if you want to talk about lisp you should really talk about Common Lisp. And there are a lot of solid criticisms of Common Lisp, but not enough features isn’t one I’ve heard before. The LOOP facility alone has an absurd number of features, to say nothing of the Meta Object Protocol. It’s fair to say that a proficient Lisper can write performant code in any set of paradigms you like using a modern Common Lisp implementation. That comes with some considerable trade-offs though.
- User23 5y ago
  I can’t tell if you’re joking, but you did make me laugh.
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  Parentheses aren't required for Lisp, since there are many alternative representations http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2017-08-29-s_expressions.html http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2017-08-29-s_expressions.html
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > many alternative representations If people feel regularly compelled to redo the syntax, there's something wrong with it. "Many" means balkanization, which is another problem. (D has some carefully designed points which discourage balkanization.) It goes back to too many parentheses. So I'm only half joking about it.

If you want to go maverick, why not LISP?

WalterBright 5y ago

Too many parentheses.

floatboth 5y ago
Come on, that's not a real problem ;) As someone who had a Clojure phase about 9 years ago: the actual problem with modern Lisps is that they don't really offer a big set of unique good features. The basic functional map-filter-reduce "meat grinder" is everywhere (and has been almost everywhere for a long time, Java not having lambdas for ages is what clouded everyone's vision into thinking that's not the case). The other "Lisp feature" is macro metaprogramming based on homoiconicity (Code Is Data™) and we have it in some non-Lisps too now (hello Elixir) and… is it really the best way to do metaprogramming? Ehh. Well, many compiled&typed languages actually do similar-ish things: using syn in Rust proc macros / haskell-src-exts in Template Haskell you can work with code "as data". And that isn't as nice to work with as D's `static foreach/if` + reflection/introspecion thingies like allMembers/getMember.
- User23 5y ago
  Clojure is a sort of baby’s first lisp. That’s not a bad thing by the way. Its relative simplicity and restrictiveness are usually beneficial for corporate environments and I like working in it. That said, if you want to talk about lisp you should really talk about Common Lisp. And there are a lot of solid criticisms of Common Lisp, but not enough features isn’t one I’ve heard before. The LOOP facility alone has an absurd number of features, to say nothing of the Meta Object Protocol. It’s fair to say that a proficient Lisper can write performant code in any set of paradigms you like using a modern Common Lisp implementation. That comes with some considerable trade-offs though.
User23 5y ago
I can’t tell if you’re joking, but you did make me laugh.
chriswarbo 5y ago
Parentheses aren't required for Lisp, since there are many alternative representations http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2017-08-29-s_expressions.html http://chriswarbo.net/blog/2017-08-29-s_expressions.html
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > many alternative representations If people feel regularly compelled to redo the syntax, there's something wrong with it. "Many" means balkanization, which is another problem. (D has some carefully designed points which discourage balkanization.) It goes back to too many parentheses. So I'm only half joking about it.