5 ms·

> The undeniable truth is that the world has largely embraced C-type languages, and in doing so, has achieved remarkable feats. The "absolute best" programming

> The undeniable truth is that the world has largely embraced C-type languages, and in doing so, has achieved remarkable feats. The "absolute best" programming language was not a requirement for this progress. It's hard to argue with that, but I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Should we stop striving for better programming languages, because the status quo is good enough? Or just stop for lisp languages but try to innovate in C-like languages?

submeta 3y ago
I'm not suggesting we should stop striving for better programming languages or even that the status quo is good enough. My point was not to discourage innovation in Lisp or in any other language. Quite the contrary, I believe that the world of programming is constantly evolving and not revolving solely around whether Lisp is the best. There is a plethora of new languages being generated that are designed to solve problems in unique, innovative ways. For example, languages like Rust, Elixir, Go, and Haskell are much younger than Lisp and are great in their respective fields. You know, in some ways, the situation often seems reversed. Some Lisp enthusiasts treat non-Lispers as if they are yet to grasp 'the truth', implying that with enough effort and enlightenment, they too will understand and embrace Lisp. While I recognize the merits of Lisp and the passion of its community, it's important to remember that the technological world isn't static; it continues to evolve and innovate. The reality is this: The world has moved on. A multitude of new languages, paradigms, and methodologies have emerged, each excelling in its unique way and suited to specific problems or contexts.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  > The reality is this: The world has moved on. A multitude of new languages, paradigms, and methodologies have emerged, each excelling in its unique way and suited to specific problems or contexts. When talking about programming languages, these type of comments are equivalent to those you describe being made by some lispers claiming to know "the truth". Plenty of languages have their evangelists and their detractors. Common Lisp is no different. Use the tool that suits you. Religious attitude toward anything is likely to be counter productive
- worthless-trash 3y ago
  The world hasn't moved on though, Isn't clojure, racket and more showing we're just going to keep re-inventing lisp. The points you make sound like you're assuming that newer == better, and 'moving on' is innovation. I'm not sure our current batch of fast fashion languages are significant improvements, they would need to provide a feature that lisp does not, and if so, what is it ?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- narag 3y ago
  The reality is this: The world has moved on. From where, to where? You're saying nothing really. Most movement I've seen in the last 25 years has been because of price, ease of use for beginners, learning materials, marketing and tooling. Intrinsic qualities of the language matters only to a handful of enthusiastic early adopters that I would put in the marketing category. IMHO Lisp lacks ease of use for beginners and tooling, it's not about the language at all.
  - submeta 3y ago
    > From where to where? We have come a long way from a time when dynamic languages like Perl, Python, and others were not yet prevalent. Back then, Lisp stood out as a unique problem-solving tool compared to languages like Pascal or C. However, today we live in a world where we have highly capable lisps and dynamic languages that allow us to explore problems quickly and with less verbosity. In this newer world, it seems that younger generations are not inclined to deal with s-expressions. I don't believe it's solely the marketing of other tools that has made them the go-to choices.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      I don't think the syntax of Lisp has a damned thing to do with its uptake. Syntax complaints are the shallowest of things and objections of junior programmers are completely unimportant. What kept Lisps out are deeper issues.
    - rjsw 3y ago
      Applications using SBCL run a lot faster than ones written in Perl or Python, that is enough reason for me to keep using Common Lisp.
JonChesterfield 3y ago
My impression is that language innovation in lisp dialects is largely stagnant at present. Common lisp is flexible enough that it's reasonable for projects to stay within the immutable standard, so only library progress happens. Scheme has given up on the minimal side to the design and become over-obsessed with complicated macros and static compilation. I suppose that's change, if not progress. Clojure I can't say much about. I like the hashed trie and do not consider the JVM connection a feature. Maybe that is still changing over time. Racket is still doing its thing, but the current push (Rhombus) seems to mostly be about removing S expressions. Kernel is a different lisp. Tragically we lost the author too young. Kernel deletes most of the limitations and cruft of _scheme_. It would benefit from a sbcl-level of development effort which doesn't seem to be happening. I'm interested anything else strange from the lisp world if people have references. Innovating in the C derivatives continues at pace of course.
- KingMob 3y ago
  Clojure innovation seems to have largely slowed down, at least from the language maintainers. The last few years have seen lots of little bug fixes, expanding the CLI tool, and better interop with later versions of Java, but nothing major.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  There is language innovation in Common Lisp, but it's either things that need to be in the standard (example: package local nicknames) or in improved implementation of things in the standard. The latter one I point to often is the problem of efficiently compiling a dynamic language, where (for example) the offsets of slots in objects can be changed at run time, or (another example) where the set of methods for a generic function can change at run time. See Robert Strandh's paper in https://european-lisp-symposium.org/static/proceedings/2021.pdf https://european-lisp-symposium.org/static/proceedings/2021.... (page 72)
  - JonChesterfield 3y ago
    Great paper, thank you for the reference!

submeta 3y ago

I'm not suggesting we should stop striving for better programming languages or even that the status quo is good enough. My point was not to discourage innovation in Lisp or in any other language. Quite the contrary, I believe that the world of programming is constantly evolving and not revolving solely around whether Lisp is the best. There is a plethora of new languages being generated that are designed to solve problems in unique, innovative ways. For example, languages like Rust, Elixir, Go, and Haskell are much younger than Lisp and are great in their respective fields. You know, in some ways, the situation often seems reversed. Some Lisp enthusiasts treat non-Lispers as if they are yet to grasp 'the truth', implying that with enough effort and enlightenment, they too will understand and embrace Lisp. While I recognize the merits of Lisp and the passion of its community, it's important to remember that the technological world isn't static; it continues to evolve and innovate. The reality is this: The world has moved on. A multitude of new languages, paradigms, and methodologies have emerged, each excelling in its unique way and suited to specific problems or contexts.

medo-bear 3y ago
> The reality is this: The world has moved on. A multitude of new languages, paradigms, and methodologies have emerged, each excelling in its unique way and suited to specific problems or contexts. When talking about programming languages, these type of comments are equivalent to those you describe being made by some lispers claiming to know "the truth". Plenty of languages have their evangelists and their detractors. Common Lisp is no different. Use the tool that suits you. Religious attitude toward anything is likely to be counter productive
worthless-trash 3y ago
The world hasn't moved on though, Isn't clojure, racket and more showing we're just going to keep re-inventing lisp. The points you make sound like you're assuming that newer == better, and 'moving on' is innovation. I'm not sure our current batch of fast fashion languages are significant improvements, they would need to provide a feature that lisp does not, and if so, what is it ?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
narag 3y ago
The reality is this: The world has moved on. From where, to where? You're saying nothing really. Most movement I've seen in the last 25 years has been because of price, ease of use for beginners, learning materials, marketing and tooling. Intrinsic qualities of the language matters only to a handful of enthusiastic early adopters that I would put in the marketing category. IMHO Lisp lacks ease of use for beginners and tooling, it's not about the language at all.
- submeta 3y ago
  > From where to where? We have come a long way from a time when dynamic languages like Perl, Python, and others were not yet prevalent. Back then, Lisp stood out as a unique problem-solving tool compared to languages like Pascal or C. However, today we live in a world where we have highly capable lisps and dynamic languages that allow us to explore problems quickly and with less verbosity. In this newer world, it seems that younger generations are not inclined to deal with s-expressions. I don't believe it's solely the marketing of other tools that has made them the go-to choices.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    I don't think the syntax of Lisp has a damned thing to do with its uptake. Syntax complaints are the shallowest of things and objections of junior programmers are completely unimportant. What kept Lisps out are deeper issues.
  - rjsw 3y ago
    Applications using SBCL run a lot faster than ones written in Perl or Python, that is enough reason for me to keep using Common Lisp.

JonChesterfield 3y ago

My impression is that language innovation in lisp dialects is largely stagnant at present. Common lisp is flexible enough that it's reasonable for projects to stay within the immutable standard, so only library progress happens. Scheme has given up on the minimal side to the design and become over-obsessed with complicated macros and static compilation. I suppose that's change, if not progress. Clojure I can't say much about. I like the hashed trie and do not consider the JVM connection a feature. Maybe that is still changing over time. Racket is still doing its thing, but the current push (Rhombus) seems to mostly be about removing S expressions. Kernel is a different lisp. Tragically we lost the author too young. Kernel deletes most of the limitations and cruft of _scheme_. It would benefit from a sbcl-level of development effort which doesn't seem to be happening. I'm interested anything else strange from the lisp world if people have references. Innovating in the C derivatives continues at pace of course.

KingMob 3y ago
Clojure innovation seems to have largely slowed down, at least from the language maintainers. The last few years have seen lots of little bug fixes, expanding the CLI tool, and better interop with later versions of Java, but nothing major.
pfdietz 3y ago
There is language innovation in Common Lisp, but it's either things that need to be in the standard (example: package local nicknames) or in improved implementation of things in the standard. The latter one I point to often is the problem of efficiently compiling a dynamic language, where (for example) the offsets of slots in objects can be changed at run time, or (another example) where the set of methods for a generic function can change at run time. See Robert Strandh's paper in https://european-lisp-symposium.org/static/proceedings/2021.pdf https://european-lisp-symposium.org/static/proceedings/2021.... (page 72)
- JonChesterfield 3y ago
  Great paper, thank you for the reference!