4 ms·

Can someone explain me why is Lisp still use today ?

timbit42 4y ago
Lisp is biding its time as all other languages slowly evolve into Lisps. Eventually, they will all merge and there will be one language and it will be Lisp.
eimrine 4y ago
You are on the website written on Lisp and on the best news source about Lisp and one of admins is the author of one of Lisp dialects and you asking that shit about Lisp here? Why?
- ForcedPush 4y ago
  I mean... Was not a rhetorical question, I saw more than one thing about Lisp this week and when searching about it, I saw it was an old language. Really just curious about it.
  - euclaise 4y ago
    Old doesn't necessarily mean bad
  - medo-bear 4y ago
    for some people it is the optimum language to talk with the computer. also it allows you to go low, high, and meta level ;)
rscho 4y ago
Because it's a good concept? Broaden your horizon a bit, maybe?
foobarbaz33 4y ago
To this day nothing else beats the fast feedback loop of Common lisp. It has the best hot-reload abilities of any other language. Other languages tout fast build times (that actually are not that fast) completely unaware they are stuck in slow feedback loops. Wait until you deal with slow loading process that is independant of your language. (ie even infinitly fast build time wont' save you). Once that data is loaded into your data structure you want it to STAY there. Lisp wills save your butt allowing you to continue to develop with the tight feedback loop.
- fallat 4y ago
  > To this day nothing else beats the fast feedback loop of Common lisp. JS + devtools...
johnnylambada 4y ago
Such anger for this question. One good answer (so far) and two unhelpfuls. It’s a good question perhaps asked badly. So I’ll take the liberty of rephrasing. Why learn lisp today instead of haskell, rust, kotlin, or any of the myriad other languages on offer?
- mepian 4y ago
  I like this explanation: https://gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html https://gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html
- massysett 4y ago
  As someone coming from Haskell and learning Common Lisp, I can say that Lisp just feels mature. It feels well thought out and logical. I can read the entire HyperSpec and it makes sense and it’s precise and there’s not a pile of language extensions. Haskell has inner beauty but the huge warts of something that is newer and more experimental. Partially as a result of all this, Lisp has other things that Haskell lacks, such as good editor support and a great REPL. Haskell editor tooling is awful and although it has a REPL it’s nowhere near as good as Common Lisp’s.
  - JoelMcCracken 4y ago
    yeah as a haskeller, there is a LOT that I wish haskell had that was better... if it had taken more of the good ideas from common lisp early on in its evolution, would be in a much better place. I'm looking forward to a replacement; Unison might be it, a lot of its choices are better oriented towards interactive development, but the jury is still out on this. Other candidates imo are lean, agda, roc, verse (this one I heavily doubt), or ghc fixing itself so this discussion is unnecessary. But there is space for a language that cuts out the historical baggage. For a while, I hoped that would be purescript, but I think that unlikely at this point.
- JoelMcCracken 4y ago
  I don't know that its good to learn it instead of any of those, but its fantastic to learn in addition to. It's just different. I love haskell, but also love lisp. For very different reasons, but they're both delightful expressions of thought.
veddox 4y ago
Because it is a family of languages that are perceived by many as being aesthetically pleasing, and offer a lot of features that give you a very different perspective on programming from the typical C-derived languages. Lisp is just fun to work with. Also the sense of tradition can be appealing - it is the second-oldest language still in use, after FORTRAN, and has been incredibly formative in many respects. It‘s similar to how learning Latin doesn’t only allow you to read a lot of great works of the past, but also helps you understand modern languages.
tmtvl 4y ago
S-expressions are the nicest syntax. Well, okay, to be fair the real reason is probably because Common Lisp is very mature, well specified, has a lot of useful libraries (Quicklisp is great), and several implementations can produce very efficient and fast code (about as fast as GC code can be, especially if you make good use of facilities like dynamic-extent).
morphle 4y ago
Because LISP and Smalltalk are still the best programming languages ever made? [1] A dialect Scheme was used in the famous MIT lecture course [2], the video [3] and book[4]. Many computer scientist grew up with thinking in LISP. [1] https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 "So the problem is—I’ve said this about both Smalltalk and Lisp—they tend to eat their young. What I mean is that both Lisp and Smalltalk are really fabulous vehicles, because they have a meta-system. They have so many ways of dealing with problems that the early-binding languages don’t have, that it’s very, very difficult for people who like Lisp or Smalltalk to imagine anything else." -Alan Kay [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Computer_Programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_o... [3] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/video_galleries/video-lectures/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretati... [4] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp

Lisp is biding its time as all other languages slowly evolve into Lisps. Eventually, they will all merge and there will be one language and it will be Lisp.

eimrine 4y ago

You are on the website written on Lisp and on the best news source about Lisp and one of admins is the author of one of Lisp dialects and you asking that shit about Lisp here? Why?

ForcedPush 4y ago
I mean... Was not a rhetorical question, I saw more than one thing about Lisp this week and when searching about it, I saw it was an old language. Really just curious about it.
- euclaise 4y ago
  Old doesn't necessarily mean bad
- medo-bear 4y ago
  for some people it is the optimum language to talk with the computer. also it allows you to go low, high, and meta level ;)

rscho 4y ago

Because it's a good concept? Broaden your horizon a bit, maybe?

foobarbaz33 4y ago

To this day nothing else beats the fast feedback loop of Common lisp. It has the best hot-reload abilities of any other language. Other languages tout fast build times (that actually are not that fast) completely unaware they are stuck in slow feedback loops. Wait until you deal with slow loading process that is independant of your language. (ie even infinitly fast build time wont' save you). Once that data is loaded into your data structure you want it to STAY there. Lisp wills save your butt allowing you to continue to develop with the tight feedback loop.

fallat 4y ago
> To this day nothing else beats the fast feedback loop of Common lisp. JS + devtools...

johnnylambada 4y ago

Such anger for this question. One good answer (so far) and two unhelpfuls. It’s a good question perhaps asked badly. So I’ll take the liberty of rephrasing. Why learn lisp today instead of haskell, rust, kotlin, or any of the myriad other languages on offer?

mepian 4y ago
I like this explanation: https://gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html https://gigamonkeys.com/book/introduction-why-lisp.html
massysett 4y ago
As someone coming from Haskell and learning Common Lisp, I can say that Lisp just feels mature. It feels well thought out and logical. I can read the entire HyperSpec and it makes sense and it’s precise and there’s not a pile of language extensions. Haskell has inner beauty but the huge warts of something that is newer and more experimental. Partially as a result of all this, Lisp has other things that Haskell lacks, such as good editor support and a great REPL. Haskell editor tooling is awful and although it has a REPL it’s nowhere near as good as Common Lisp’s.
- JoelMcCracken 4y ago
  yeah as a haskeller, there is a LOT that I wish haskell had that was better... if it had taken more of the good ideas from common lisp early on in its evolution, would be in a much better place. I'm looking forward to a replacement; Unison might be it, a lot of its choices are better oriented towards interactive development, but the jury is still out on this. Other candidates imo are lean, agda, roc, verse (this one I heavily doubt), or ghc fixing itself so this discussion is unnecessary. But there is space for a language that cuts out the historical baggage. For a while, I hoped that would be purescript, but I think that unlikely at this point.
JoelMcCracken 4y ago
I don't know that its good to learn it instead of any of those, but its fantastic to learn in addition to. It's just different. I love haskell, but also love lisp. For very different reasons, but they're both delightful expressions of thought.

veddox 4y ago

Because it is a family of languages that are perceived by many as being aesthetically pleasing, and offer a lot of features that give you a very different perspective on programming from the typical C-derived languages. Lisp is just fun to work with. Also the sense of tradition can be appealing - it is the second-oldest language still in use, after FORTRAN, and has been incredibly formative in many respects. It‘s similar to how learning Latin doesn’t only allow you to read a lot of great works of the past, but also helps you understand modern languages.

tmtvl 4y ago

S-expressions are the nicest syntax. Well, okay, to be fair the real reason is probably because Common Lisp is very mature, well specified, has a lot of useful libraries (Quicklisp is great), and several implementations can produce very efficient and fast code (about as fast as GC code can be, especially if you make good use of facilities like dynamic-extent).

morphle 4y ago

Because LISP and Smalltalk are still the best programming languages ever made? [1] A dialect Scheme was used in the famous MIT lecture course [2], the video [3] and book[4]. Many computer scientist grew up with thinking in LISP. [1] https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 "So the problem is—I’ve said this about both Smalltalk and Lisp—they tend to eat their young. What I mean is that both Lisp and Smalltalk are really fabulous vehicles, because they have a meta-system. They have so many ways of dealing with problems that the early-binding languages don’t have, that it’s very, very difficult for people who like Lisp or Smalltalk to imagine anything else." -Alan Kay [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Computer_Programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_o... [3] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretation-of-computer-programs-spring-2005/video_galleries/video-lectures/ https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-001-structure-and-interpretati... [4] http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp