5 ms·

Every programming language doesn't have to be trendy on GitHub with a bazillion projects. Lisp was a major programming language as it powered nearly all AI res

Every programming language doesn't have to be trendy on GitHub with a bazillion projects. Lisp was a major programming language as it powered nearly all AI research for many many years and many of it's ideas have spread into languages we use today. For instance, it was the first language with a garbage collector ! It has many more or less direct descendents that are used The fact it was created some 70 years ago, but still run nearly unchanged and has active users and project is an achievement.

iLoveOncall 4y ago
My question isn't taking any of that away from Lisp. I'm not saying it hasn't served its purpose, I'm just saying that the claim that it's not a dead language is wrong, and you seem to agree.
- medo-bear 4y ago
  > I'm just saying that the claim that it's not a dead language is wrong Well your claim is just simply false. People have clearly demonstrated to you that CL is used today in production
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead. I'm sure a lot of websites are currently in production running on PHP 4. Is PHP 4 dead? Yes, it is.
    - ctrlmeta 4y ago
      > "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead. I guess you need to define "dead". I have to agree with others here that Lisp is not dead for the simple reason that Emacs is not dead. Emacs has a thriving community of developers who code and use Lisp almost everyday to solve problems. Org-mode alone has a large number of users from all walks of life, from writers to event organizers and Lisp code is written for Org-mode everyday. There are high-profile well known companies that use Clojure for processing high volume of transactions. They are in all probability writing Clojure code everyday that is going to production everyday. What exactly is your definition of "dead"? P.S. You have also completely misrepresented my earlier comment in your comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464215 so I am not entirely sure if you are arguing here in good faith or if you have an axe to grind.
      - PeterisP 4y ago
        Not the parent poster, but I would define "dead" as "not being used for starting new projects with intent for these projects to be used in practice". If a language is being widely used in specific existing 'legacy' projects and for people learning it to get a job in their maintenance (e.g. COBOL?), then I'd say it's dead. If during the last five years every organization considering what language to use for their new production system (as opposed to someone's toy project or learning project) chose something else, then that language apparently has no valid niche remaining and is effectively dead, being chosen only due to legacy/compatibility reasons if the system was already started with it. As the parent poster said - PHP4 sites exist in production and people work on PHP4 code maintaining them, and PHP4 is undeniably dead despite all that. Also, I'm not sure whether I'd equate Clojure with Lisp - I'd treat it as a separate language/ecosystem evolved from Lisp as it was commonly understood; I'd consider Clojure activity as evidence that "Lisp may be dead but its descendents live on".
        medo-bear 4y ago
        > but I would define "dead" as "not being used for starting new projects with intent for these projects to be used in practice" > I'd consider Clojure activity as evidence that "Lisp may be dead but its descendents live on" except that common/emacs lisp or scheme is certainly not dead by any measure lol
    - medo-bear 4y ago
      > "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead I don't think you know what 'dead' means
      - Davidbrcz 4y ago
        Just to add on that. In 2015, Paris Airport Air Traffic Software were running on windows 3.1. Is windows 3.1 outdated ? Yes. No longer a public facing product ? Yes. Dead ? Absolutely not (at least back then, maybe it got decommissioned). Around that time, a friend of mine was doing his master Thesis in an astronomy lab. He had to load fortran 77 routines from a 5" floppy disk that were doing critical computation (they were in the process of migrating). Same diagnosis: outdated, became a niche product, but not dead at all.
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Are there new things being developed based on windows 3.1? Are there new things being developed based on lisp? The analogy is not very good.
        ctrlmeta 4y ago
        > Are there new things being developed based on windows 3.1? No > Are there new things being developed based on lisp? Yes. > The analogy is not very good. I guess I am missing your point. Care to elaborate your point?
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Lisp and Windows 3.1 are “not dead” in very different ways. Put otherwise, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33465597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33465597 says one could define “dead” in a way that Win 3.1 is dead but Lisp is not (not more than usual anyway).
  - mbrodersen 4y ago
    COBOL is still used in production so COBOL also isn’t dead?
    - medo-bear 4y ago
      its more alive than banjo kazooie :) https://github.com/openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-course https://github.com/openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-co...
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - mbrodersen 4y ago
        Not so fast! Search Banjo Kazooie on YouTube and you will find recent videos with millions of views ;) Which frankly amazes me. The game was released in 1998!

iLoveOncall 4y ago

My question isn't taking any of that away from Lisp. I'm not saying it hasn't served its purpose, I'm just saying that the claim that it's not a dead language is wrong, and you seem to agree.

medo-bear 4y ago
> I'm just saying that the claim that it's not a dead language is wrong Well your claim is just simply false. People have clearly demonstrated to you that CL is used today in production
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead. I'm sure a lot of websites are currently in production running on PHP 4. Is PHP 4 dead? Yes, it is.
  - ctrlmeta 4y ago
    > "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead. I guess you need to define "dead". I have to agree with others here that Lisp is not dead for the simple reason that Emacs is not dead. Emacs has a thriving community of developers who code and use Lisp almost everyday to solve problems. Org-mode alone has a large number of users from all walks of life, from writers to event organizers and Lisp code is written for Org-mode everyday. There are high-profile well known companies that use Clojure for processing high volume of transactions. They are in all probability writing Clojure code everyday that is going to production everyday. What exactly is your definition of "dead"? P.S. You have also completely misrepresented my earlier comment in your comment here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464215 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464215 so I am not entirely sure if you are arguing here in good faith or if you have an axe to grind.
    - PeterisP 4y ago
      Not the parent poster, but I would define "dead" as "not being used for starting new projects with intent for these projects to be used in practice". If a language is being widely used in specific existing 'legacy' projects and for people learning it to get a job in their maintenance (e.g. COBOL?), then I'd say it's dead. If during the last five years every organization considering what language to use for their new production system (as opposed to someone's toy project or learning project) chose something else, then that language apparently has no valid niche remaining and is effectively dead, being chosen only due to legacy/compatibility reasons if the system was already started with it. As the parent poster said - PHP4 sites exist in production and people work on PHP4 code maintaining them, and PHP4 is undeniably dead despite all that. Also, I'm not sure whether I'd equate Clojure with Lisp - I'd treat it as a separate language/ecosystem evolved from Lisp as it was commonly understood; I'd consider Clojure activity as evidence that "Lisp may be dead but its descendents live on".
      - medo-bear 4y ago
        > but I would define "dead" as "not being used for starting new projects with intent for these projects to be used in practice" > I'd consider Clojure activity as evidence that "Lisp may be dead but its descendents live on" except that common/emacs lisp or scheme is certainly not dead by any measure lol
  - medo-bear 4y ago
    > "Used today in production" does not mean that it's not dead I don't think you know what 'dead' means
    - Davidbrcz 4y ago
      Just to add on that. In 2015, Paris Airport Air Traffic Software were running on windows 3.1. Is windows 3.1 outdated ? Yes. No longer a public facing product ? Yes. Dead ? Absolutely not (at least back then, maybe it got decommissioned). Around that time, a friend of mine was doing his master Thesis in an astronomy lab. He had to load fortran 77 routines from a 5" floppy disk that were doing critical computation (they were in the process of migrating). Same diagnosis: outdated, became a niche product, but not dead at all.
      - kgwgk 4y ago
        Are there new things being developed based on windows 3.1? Are there new things being developed based on lisp? The analogy is not very good.
        ctrlmeta 4y ago
        > Are there new things being developed based on windows 3.1? No > Are there new things being developed based on lisp? Yes. > The analogy is not very good. I guess I am missing your point. Care to elaborate your point?
        kgwgk 4y ago
        Lisp and Windows 3.1 are “not dead” in very different ways. Put otherwise, as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33465597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33465597 says one could define “dead” in a way that Win 3.1 is dead but Lisp is not (not more than usual anyway).
- mbrodersen 4y ago
  COBOL is still used in production so COBOL also isn’t dead?
  - medo-bear 4y ago
    its more alive than banjo kazooie :) https://github.com/openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-course https://github.com/openmainframeproject/cobol-programming-co...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mbrodersen 4y ago
      Not so fast! Search Banjo Kazooie on YouTube and you will find recent videos with millions of views ;) Which frankly amazes me. The game was released in 1998!