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I think Lisp has a sort of cachet to it, "lost secret of the ancients scorned by foolish mortals," that draws a lot of people to talk about it endlessly and spe

by floren 4y ago

I think Lisp has a sort of cachet to it, "lost secret of the ancients scorned by foolish mortals," that draws a lot of people to talk about it endlessly and speculate about how important it is instead of just... using it. I used to see the same thing in the Plan 9 community where people loved to post on the mailing list about all their grand plans for doing stuff with Plan 9, but they never even installed the goddamn thing! If they had, they'd have realized it has some neat ideas but it's also just a software system, and a rough-around-the-edges research system at that. Similarly, Lisp is just a programming language, and regardless of how many blog posts you read about it, you'll still have to actually make the program in the end.

throw009 4y ago
Lisp is a research language that lucked into great syntax by accident. I use it all the time to help me think through a problem and then implement it in something brain dead like rust so the average programmer can follow along. From the outside my code bases look 0% lisp, from the inside they are 100% lisp with build artifacts in other languages.
- grugagag 4y ago
  > I use it all the time to help me think through a problem and then implement it in something brain dead like rust so the average programmer can follow along. Is Rust brain dead language anyone can follow along? Did you mean python? > From the outside my code bases look 0% lisp, from the inside they are 100% lisp with build artifacts in other languages. Can you expand on that? You generate code of other language than lisp in lisp?
  - throw009 4y ago
    No Rust, warmed over ideas form 40 years ago are just hard enough to make mediocrsties think they are cutting edge. >Can you expand on that? You generate code of other language than lisp in lisp? I write the real program in lisp in two weeks then translate it to a brain dead language over a few months so the average developer contribute to the code base. It's rather impossible to get people used to algol descendants to think about complex programs. It's rather like explaining color to the bilnd.
    - danuker 4y ago
      I code in assembly in my mind. I just translate it to Lisp so others can understand it. (sarcasm over) If Lisp is so amazing, why does it not get more followers?
      - carapace 4y ago
        "If <FOO> is so amazing, why doesn't everyone use it?" has got to be one of my least favorite questions. Never mind that it's lazy (in a bad way), it presupposes that people automatically adopt the best available technology or whatever, which is obviously false. But I think the thing that bothers me the most is that, asked with a different attitude and intent, it's usually a good question. E.g. Lisp is so much better than pretty much every other programming language (except maybe APL) that it truly is bizarre and therefore interesting that it doesn't get wider adoption. (I don't even use it, despite having such a near-worshipful attitude towards it.)
        treadmill 4y ago
        >Lisp is so much better than pretty much every other programming language >I don't even use it, despite having such a near-worshipful attitude towards it. How do you know that it is so much better then?
        carapace 4y ago
        In a word, extrapolation. I hope I don't sound too ridiculous, here on Hacker News, but I've kinda devoted my life to computer programming (it's deeper than that, and there's a lot of other stuff going on, but to a first approximation, that's a true statement.) I used to joke that I was reserving a bank of brain cells for that day when it was time to learn Lisp. When that day finally came, I was well prepared and grokked it mildly, but enough to become angry when I saw all the time and energy that has been wasted due to non-use of Lisp. I literally stomped around the house for twenty minutes cussing! Anyway, I know this is "argument from authority" by some rando on the Internet, so I don't expect you to take it seriously. :)
        4y ago
jpe90 4y ago
I actually just finally tried out plan 9 in a VM and liked it so much that I’ve been using acme for almost all my development on mac via plan9port for a few weeks now. I never bothered checking it out before because I had always seen it described as unusable so I figured it would be a waste of time.

by floren 4y ago

throw009 4y ago

Lisp is a research language that lucked into great syntax by accident. I use it all the time to help me think through a problem and then implement it in something brain dead like rust so the average programmer can follow along. From the outside my code bases look 0% lisp, from the inside they are 100% lisp with build artifacts in other languages.

grugagag 4y ago
> I use it all the time to help me think through a problem and then implement it in something brain dead like rust so the average programmer can follow along. Is Rust brain dead language anyone can follow along? Did you mean python? > From the outside my code bases look 0% lisp, from the inside they are 100% lisp with build artifacts in other languages. Can you expand on that? You generate code of other language than lisp in lisp?
- throw009 4y ago
  No Rust, warmed over ideas form 40 years ago are just hard enough to make mediocrsties think they are cutting edge. >Can you expand on that? You generate code of other language than lisp in lisp? I write the real program in lisp in two weeks then translate it to a brain dead language over a few months so the average developer contribute to the code base. It's rather impossible to get people used to algol descendants to think about complex programs. It's rather like explaining color to the bilnd.
  - danuker 4y ago
    I code in assembly in my mind. I just translate it to Lisp so others can understand it. (sarcasm over) If Lisp is so amazing, why does it not get more followers?
    - carapace 4y ago
      "If <FOO> is so amazing, why doesn't everyone use it?" has got to be one of my least favorite questions. Never mind that it's lazy (in a bad way), it presupposes that people automatically adopt the best available technology or whatever, which is obviously false. But I think the thing that bothers me the most is that, asked with a different attitude and intent, it's usually a good question. E.g. Lisp is so much better than pretty much every other programming language (except maybe APL) that it truly is bizarre and therefore interesting that it doesn't get wider adoption. (I don't even use it, despite having such a near-worshipful attitude towards it.)
      - treadmill 4y ago
        >Lisp is so much better than pretty much every other programming language >I don't even use it, despite having such a near-worshipful attitude towards it. How do you know that it is so much better then?
        carapace 4y ago
        In a word, extrapolation. I hope I don't sound too ridiculous, here on Hacker News, but I've kinda devoted my life to computer programming (it's deeper than that, and there's a lot of other stuff going on, but to a first approximation, that's a true statement.) I used to joke that I was reserving a bank of brain cells for that day when it was time to learn Lisp. When that day finally came, I was well prepared and grokked it mildly, but enough to become angry when I saw all the time and energy that has been wasted due to non-use of Lisp. I literally stomped around the house for twenty minutes cussing! Anyway, I know this is "argument from authority" by some rando on the Internet, so I don't expect you to take it seriously. :)
      - 4y ago

jpe90 4y ago

I actually just finally tried out plan 9 in a VM and liked it so much that I’ve been using acme for almost all my development on mac via plan9port for a few weeks now. I never bothered checking it out before because I had always seen it described as unusable so I figured it would be a waste of time.