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Resist! Resist! Your brain is subject to colonization by self-referential idea complexes, but it is has defenses. We have learned a great deal over decades abo

Resist! Resist! Your brain is subject to colonization by self-referential idea complexes, but it is has defenses. We have learned a great deal over decades about how to make languages that enable building reliable, expressive systems. Lisps can draw upon very little of that learning. Types can do heavy lifting, where put to work. Instead of rebuilding something that was tried in the '70s, learn what they didn't know then, and apply it to something wholly new.

sph 4y ago
Meh. The fact that software engineers as they get older they are return to older and older technologies has to have a reason... or can simply be explained by declining mental faculties :) Types are cool, but are way overrated. Correctness isn't the only useful metric to optimise for. They are important if I am running a business and I don't want my crashing software to lose customers, but they are a hindrance if I just want to have fun and break things. Fun and productive businesses have been built on Lisp, BASIC and Python. Languages aren't continuously getting better. They are on a cycle that repeats every 25 years. We've just entered another strong typing era.
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  If you imagine the only or main use for a powerful type system is error-checking, it only demonstrates how much you have still to learn. It is not language design that is on a cycle, but people circling back to what excited them in their youth. But that was not the Lisp, it was youth itself, which you will not find in Lisp. Types, as I wrote above, can perform heavy lifting in a language that empowers them. New vistas await!
  - mschaef 4y ago
    > If you imagine the only or main use for a powerful type system is error-checking, it only demonstrates how much you have still to learn. It is not language design that is on a cycle, but people circling back to what excited them in their youth. But that was not the Lisp, it was youth itself, which you will not find in Lisp. Ironically, this comment reminds me of nothing more than the Smug Lisp Weenies of yore. https://wiki.c2.com/?SmugLispWeenie https://wiki.c2.com/?SmugLispWeenie I realize that we're all about technical purity over marketing, but I don't think you'll convince people to join your cause by 1) insulting their knowledge and 2) dismissing their interest in an alternative point of view as a way to 'reclaim their youth'. You may be right on both counts - I don't know - but even for someone interested in the technology alone, it's hardly a convincing argument to want to look into more strongly typed languages. (or whatever other technical feature you might want to advocate) Lisp received decades worth of attention and investment from folks at the frontier of the field, and it's stayed relegated to the margin for almost the entirety of that time. For people that took the time to learn Lisp, it could be a compelling and powerful environment. But the problem has been that to understand the advantages, you have to spend real time and effort to get there. You have to do the reading, do the work, write and evolve software, and accept a different way of working. The strongly typed functional programming community of today has some of the same sorts of issues and Lisp did back in the day. It's a compelling technology with lots of benefits, but it takes real work to understand and take advantage of. For people that have done the work and already get it, it's an obviously compelling thing - the way things 'should be'. For people that don't, it's an academic ivory tower or worse. Whatever you believe about your favored technology, it's the way this gap is addressed that will make the difference in whether or not it's successful or not. Lisp never did get it right. (Although Clojure arguably got pretty close.) I don't mean to specifically offend your sensibilities with respect to your comment, but I can't help but think you're just repeating the same mistake the Lisp folks did. (And no, there isn't a technical distinction between Lisp and whatever that will fix what is fundamentally a marketing and persuasion issue.)
  - sph 4y ago
    Let me one up you. Level 1 junior programmer: who needs typing lol Level 2 senior programmer: types are critical to ensure software runs as intended. You are here. Level 3 greybeard: who needs typing lol, there is a time and place for them. I am here. -- This is tongue-in-cheek, not meant to insult you. I get where you are coming from, but you are still giving too much importance to them. The subject matter here is me wanting to have fun, not writing medical software. Can I please have fun by writing a toy language that doesn't have a type system, or does that make me a noob?
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      I am probably older than you. You literally asked to be discouraged from pursuing this will-o'-th'-lisp. I offered an alternative where you stand to learn something wholly new. I know it is wholly new to you from falsehoods you repeat. Again: if you imagine types are only or even mainly for correctness, you have much to learn. You can start anytime you like. It will stretch your brain in new ways that are of no relevance to medical software.
- guidoism 4y ago
  I'm old and this is what is happening to me too. Nostalgia for my childhood computers that plug into TVs is one thing, and I know they sucked in so many ways that I'm happy I have left behind. But the time before my time (the 1970s) had so many interesting ideas that we have all abandoned because a single dominate pattern has become cheap and easy to build upon, but I feel like there's so much to learn by taking those old/abandoned ideas and applying it to modern hardware. That is what I spend my time thinking about and tinkering with.

sph 4y ago

Meh. The fact that software engineers as they get older they are return to older and older technologies has to have a reason... or can simply be explained by declining mental faculties :) Types are cool, but are way overrated. Correctness isn't the only useful metric to optimise for. They are important if I am running a business and I don't want my crashing software to lose customers, but they are a hindrance if I just want to have fun and break things. Fun and productive businesses have been built on Lisp, BASIC and Python. Languages aren't continuously getting better. They are on a cycle that repeats every 25 years. We've just entered another strong typing era.

moloch-hai 4y ago
If you imagine the only or main use for a powerful type system is error-checking, it only demonstrates how much you have still to learn. It is not language design that is on a cycle, but people circling back to what excited them in their youth. But that was not the Lisp, it was youth itself, which you will not find in Lisp. Types, as I wrote above, can perform heavy lifting in a language that empowers them. New vistas await!
- mschaef 4y ago
  > If you imagine the only or main use for a powerful type system is error-checking, it only demonstrates how much you have still to learn. It is not language design that is on a cycle, but people circling back to what excited them in their youth. But that was not the Lisp, it was youth itself, which you will not find in Lisp. Ironically, this comment reminds me of nothing more than the Smug Lisp Weenies of yore. https://wiki.c2.com/?SmugLispWeenie https://wiki.c2.com/?SmugLispWeenie I realize that we're all about technical purity over marketing, but I don't think you'll convince people to join your cause by 1) insulting their knowledge and 2) dismissing their interest in an alternative point of view as a way to 'reclaim their youth'. You may be right on both counts - I don't know - but even for someone interested in the technology alone, it's hardly a convincing argument to want to look into more strongly typed languages. (or whatever other technical feature you might want to advocate) Lisp received decades worth of attention and investment from folks at the frontier of the field, and it's stayed relegated to the margin for almost the entirety of that time. For people that took the time to learn Lisp, it could be a compelling and powerful environment. But the problem has been that to understand the advantages, you have to spend real time and effort to get there. You have to do the reading, do the work, write and evolve software, and accept a different way of working. The strongly typed functional programming community of today has some of the same sorts of issues and Lisp did back in the day. It's a compelling technology with lots of benefits, but it takes real work to understand and take advantage of. For people that have done the work and already get it, it's an obviously compelling thing - the way things 'should be'. For people that don't, it's an academic ivory tower or worse. Whatever you believe about your favored technology, it's the way this gap is addressed that will make the difference in whether or not it's successful or not. Lisp never did get it right. (Although Clojure arguably got pretty close.) I don't mean to specifically offend your sensibilities with respect to your comment, but I can't help but think you're just repeating the same mistake the Lisp folks did. (And no, there isn't a technical distinction between Lisp and whatever that will fix what is fundamentally a marketing and persuasion issue.)
- sph 4y ago
  Let me one up you. Level 1 junior programmer: who needs typing lol Level 2 senior programmer: types are critical to ensure software runs as intended. You are here. Level 3 greybeard: who needs typing lol, there is a time and place for them. I am here. -- This is tongue-in-cheek, not meant to insult you. I get where you are coming from, but you are still giving too much importance to them. The subject matter here is me wanting to have fun, not writing medical software. Can I please have fun by writing a toy language that doesn't have a type system, or does that make me a noob?
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    I am probably older than you. You literally asked to be discouraged from pursuing this will-o'-th'-lisp. I offered an alternative where you stand to learn something wholly new. I know it is wholly new to you from falsehoods you repeat. Again: if you imagine types are only or even mainly for correctness, you have much to learn. You can start anytime you like. It will stretch your brain in new ways that are of no relevance to medical software.
guidoism 4y ago
I'm old and this is what is happening to me too. Nostalgia for my childhood computers that plug into TVs is one thing, and I know they sucked in so many ways that I'm happy I have left behind. But the time before my time (the 1970s) had so many interesting ideas that we have all abandoned because a single dominate pattern has become cheap and easy to build upon, but I feel like there's so much to learn by taking those old/abandoned ideas and applying it to modern hardware. That is what I spend my time thinking about and tinkering with.