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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 innovatio

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
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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.

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.