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It's the Reddit story all over. Lisp devs know Lisp + X, but everyone else only knows X, so we'll use X instead -- even if it's inferior and causes issues down

by hajile 3y ago

It's the Reddit story all over. Lisp devs know Lisp + X, but everyone else only knows X, so we'll use X instead -- even if it's inferior and causes issues down the line. This isn't really limited to Lisp though. It applies to quite a few languages with the excuse of "market forces" where "market forces" really means "we want to makes sure our devs are easily replaceable cogs" (using a niche language actually pressures both sides to stick together because the dev can't easily find a new job and the company can't easily find a new dev).

lispm 3y ago
It's slightly different: Naughty Dog had proven that they can deliver commercial successful applications (novel platform games on the Playstation with excellent content) using Lisp. They had their own IDE on top of Common Lisp and as a delivery vehicle a Scheme-like runtime. They were bought by a much larger C++-Shop (Sony) and were trying to get the benefits from a larger eco-system. In the end they were bought for their talent, their experience, their brand - but not for their technology. For Naughty Dog it could also have been the right moment, since from a certain point in time the game platforms are getting so complex that making custom inhouse game runtimes may no longer make sense for smaller game studios. Reddit OTOH had never delivered anything commercially successful in Lisp, little experience with Lisp, but heard that it could be cool. They used unproven tech. Naughty Dog used proven tech and had enough experience to do low-level systems programming for a brand new game platform. Which is really an outstanding achievement. Reddit had only a rough prototype in Lisp, Reddit then switched inhouse to other technology. The early Reddit in Lisp: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0
- hajile 3y ago
  Naughty Dog only switched because they were bought out by Sony who then demanded that they change languages. Reddit was merged with another YC company. That company used Python, so they switched everyone to Django. Last I knew, most of Reddit’s outage woes were still due to the outdated ORM they are stuck with. In any case, Common Lisp is hardly “unproven Tech”.
  - lispm 3y ago
    > Naughty Dog only switched because they were bought out by Sony who then demanded that they change languages. To reuse a larger code-base, instead of working on their own new platforms for the next systems. > In any case, Common Lisp is hardly “unproven Tech”. Common Lisp is a language. Software is running on implementations and SBCL was relatively new then (2005). They used SBCL which at that time was not used to implement such websites. Naughty Dog used Allegro CL, which was already used in a bunch of 3d/OpenGL applications. Their own runtime was custom build and required real deep expertise in implementing a GC-less Scheme for an embedded platform.
    - hajile 3y ago
      Reddit could have switched to a paid Common Lisp variant without any trouble if they'd actually had issues. The people there said they moved to Python because that's what the other team knew. I don't see a reason to argue otherwise. The argument behind the Naughty Dog switch was also pretty clear. Sony wanted to be able to move devs between projects easily and everything else used C++, so they'd rather force Naughty Dog to use C++ than tell everyone else to learn Common Lisp. To my knowledge, there was zero discussion on the merits of one or the other and it was a business call. Further, the reams of custom code Naughty Dog now has written on Racket points to them still loving lisp and not minding if they have to invest a lot of effort into being able to use it in their designs.
      - lispm 3y ago
        > Reddit could have switched to a paid Common Lisp variant without any trouble if they'd actually had issues. I thought they had issues. Didn't they? Paid Common Lisp variants tend to get expensive and even for those, the main applications rarely were high-traffic websites with UI frameworks. Take ITA Software / Google, they were developing core business logic of the flight search engine in Lisp - the product than ran/runs in SBCL. They had a team of 100+ people and a bunch of the top Lisp talent of that time. They also invested a lot into improving SBCL. > Sony wanted to be able to move devs between projects easily and everything else used C++, so they'd rather force Naughty Dog to use C++ than tell everyone else to learn Common Lisp. To my knowledge, there was zero discussion on the merits of one or the other and it was a business call. A business call is based on assumptions: larger ecosystem, more libraries, shared runtimes, etc. That's all much more economical than doing it alone as a small studio. > Further, the reams of custom code Naughty Dog now has written on Racket points to them still loving lisp and not minding if they have to invest a lot of effort into being able to use it in their designs. Of course they love Scheme and they were then back creating their own content delivery tools. But they stopped implementing runtime things like core 3d graphics animation frameworks for new CPUs/GPUs, etc.
p_l 3y ago
Naughty Dog continued using Lisp for game development throughout the Uncharted series at least, I'm not sure about The Last of Us but I would be very unsurprised if that changed. They just stopped having the game written nearly purely in custom Lisp dialect, instead only mostly - effectively switching from GOAL setup of Jak&Daxter run-time to similar approach to GOOL in Crash Bandicoot - core written in C/C++ running considerable portion of game logic in Lisp (variant of PLT scheme in Uncharted). Uncharted dev tools were also built in PLT Scheme (aka Racket).

by hajile 3y ago

lispm 3y ago

It's slightly different: Naughty Dog had proven that they can deliver commercial successful applications (novel platform games on the Playstation with excellent content) using Lisp. They had their own IDE on top of Common Lisp and as a delivery vehicle a Scheme-like runtime. They were bought by a much larger C++-Shop (Sony) and were trying to get the benefits from a larger eco-system. In the end they were bought for their talent, their experience, their brand - but not for their technology. For Naughty Dog it could also have been the right moment, since from a certain point in time the game platforms are getting so complex that making custom inhouse game runtimes may no longer make sense for smaller game studios. Reddit OTOH had never delivered anything commercially successful in Lisp, little experience with Lisp, but heard that it could be cool. They used unproven tech. Naughty Dog used proven tech and had enough experience to do low-level systems programming for a brand new game platform. Which is really an outstanding achievement. Reddit had only a rough prototype in Lisp, Reddit then switched inhouse to other technology. The early Reddit in Lisp: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit1.0

hajile 3y ago
Naughty Dog only switched because they were bought out by Sony who then demanded that they change languages. Reddit was merged with another YC company. That company used Python, so they switched everyone to Django. Last I knew, most of Reddit’s outage woes were still due to the outdated ORM they are stuck with. In any case, Common Lisp is hardly “unproven Tech”.
- lispm 3y ago
  > Naughty Dog only switched because they were bought out by Sony who then demanded that they change languages. To reuse a larger code-base, instead of working on their own new platforms for the next systems. > In any case, Common Lisp is hardly “unproven Tech”. Common Lisp is a language. Software is running on implementations and SBCL was relatively new then (2005). They used SBCL which at that time was not used to implement such websites. Naughty Dog used Allegro CL, which was already used in a bunch of 3d/OpenGL applications. Their own runtime was custom build and required real deep expertise in implementing a GC-less Scheme for an embedded platform.
  - hajile 3y ago
    Reddit could have switched to a paid Common Lisp variant without any trouble if they'd actually had issues. The people there said they moved to Python because that's what the other team knew. I don't see a reason to argue otherwise. The argument behind the Naughty Dog switch was also pretty clear. Sony wanted to be able to move devs between projects easily and everything else used C++, so they'd rather force Naughty Dog to use C++ than tell everyone else to learn Common Lisp. To my knowledge, there was zero discussion on the merits of one or the other and it was a business call. Further, the reams of custom code Naughty Dog now has written on Racket points to them still loving lisp and not minding if they have to invest a lot of effort into being able to use it in their designs.
    - lispm 3y ago
      > Reddit could have switched to a paid Common Lisp variant without any trouble if they'd actually had issues. I thought they had issues. Didn't they? Paid Common Lisp variants tend to get expensive and even for those, the main applications rarely were high-traffic websites with UI frameworks. Take ITA Software / Google, they were developing core business logic of the flight search engine in Lisp - the product than ran/runs in SBCL. They had a team of 100+ people and a bunch of the top Lisp talent of that time. They also invested a lot into improving SBCL. > Sony wanted to be able to move devs between projects easily and everything else used C++, so they'd rather force Naughty Dog to use C++ than tell everyone else to learn Common Lisp. To my knowledge, there was zero discussion on the merits of one or the other and it was a business call. A business call is based on assumptions: larger ecosystem, more libraries, shared runtimes, etc. That's all much more economical than doing it alone as a small studio. > Further, the reams of custom code Naughty Dog now has written on Racket points to them still loving lisp and not minding if they have to invest a lot of effort into being able to use it in their designs. Of course they love Scheme and they were then back creating their own content delivery tools. But they stopped implementing runtime things like core 3d graphics animation frameworks for new CPUs/GPUs, etc.

p_l 3y ago

Naughty Dog continued using Lisp for game development throughout the Uncharted series at least, I'm not sure about The Last of Us but I would be very unsurprised if that changed. They just stopped having the game written nearly purely in custom Lisp dialect, instead only mostly - effectively switching from GOAL setup of Jak&Daxter run-time to similar approach to GOOL in Crash Bandicoot - core written in C/C++ running considerable portion of game logic in Lisp (variant of PLT scheme in Uncharted). Uncharted dev tools were also built in PLT Scheme (aka Racket).