5 ms·
Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?
by alex_lav 3y ago
Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoThey're not. But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. Also, in a professional setting, I find it a bit unprofessional and rude to poo poo technical ideas over trivialities.
- alex_lav 3y ago> But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. I don’t like the parenthesis. I’m not flaunting anything. Is it “flaunting” to calmly and respectfully share an opinion? To you it’s trivial, to me it’s not. It seems like you’re interested in creating conflict with people that don’t like a thing that you like. Which, I would cast this behavior as unprofessional, tbh.
- dang_flame 3y ago[dead]
- dun44 3y agoImagine someone who hates the exponentiation operator but wants to do mathematics nevertheless. For a living.
- alex_lav 3y agoInteresting hyperbole.
- Munksgaard 3y agoI don't like curly braces, but I don't let that decide which programming languages I use.
- alex_lav 3y agoThat’s your choice!
- hautcake 3y agoPeople that express strong opinions about syntax come across as dummies to professionals. Doesn’t mean they are of course. Just sayin’.
- alex_lav 3y agoSimilarly, people that dismiss valid criticism because it doesn't match their personal opinions seem like dummies to grown ups. Unsure if it means they are or are not dummies, though.
- CooCooCaCha 3y agoI'm not a fan of the parenthesis either, but when I learned about s-expressions and how lisp programs are also a data structures that piqued my interest and helped me look past them. I question people's judgement who can't look past the syntax when there is a very good, and interesting technical reason behind them.
- arnsholt 3y agoCode as data is interesting, but mostly orthogonal to S expressions. For example, Prolog code has the same property without S expressions, and more esoterically TeX (which is succinctly explained to a lisper as programming with defmacro but not defun).
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y agoAlso raw machine code and XML, even. Though it's just more powerful in Lisp precisely because the code is just lists in a language designed around working with lists. So you can actually leverage this property in Lisp without the code becoming inscrutable for it, which in my experience doesn't usually happen in other languages.
- alex_lav 3y ago> I question people's judgement who can't look past the syntax when there is a very good, and interesting technical reason behind them The list of things that are interesting is endless, though. I see something I’m turned off by, I move on. There are plenty of valuable things to spend time on.
- adastra22 3y agoA-expressions are a choice, and it is fine to argue whether it is a good one. There are plenty of other ways of achieving honiconic syntax.
- ColonelPhantom 3y agoWhat's an A-expression? I tried looking it up but didn't find anything. I have heard of M-expressions but never of an actual implementation. Scheme also seems to have some SRFIs involving alternate syntax that's whitespace dependent, like SRFI 119 (wisp), SRFI 110 (sweet-expressions or T-expressions), or SRFI 49.
- adastra22 3y agoI’ve written a large application in Lisp. Hated parentheses before, hate them even more now. It needlessly obscures code. Maybe it’s a personal issue, idk. But it’s not out of ignorance nor is code readability a trivial point.
- tmtvl 3y agoYeah it is a personal issue, there are people who really like Lisp syntax (I'm one of them). That doesn't mean anything bad, of course, some people like dark text on a light background, others light text on a dark background. Everyone is different and that's what makes the world so awesome. I see something like: some-var: I64 := a * b - c ^ d ^ e; ...and my brain gives out, while I find: (let ((some-var (- (* a b) (^ c d e)))) (declare (type I64 some-var)) ...) ...to be much more readable, YMMV.
- adastra22 3y agoHow do you look at the latter and know the code structure? Are you counting parentheses? Or are you relying on conventions around white space indentation. If the latter, are you not concerned a misplaced parentheses might make the code different from it appears? There could be bugs not shown in the indentation. Most lispers I know code in eMacs or other smart editors that provide auto code formatting and colored parens. But why not just make the indentation (or whatever that you really rely upon) the actual syntax, so there CANNOT be hidden bugs of that sort? Edit: to expand on this, I think it is no coincidence that most lisps remain untyped to this day. Strong typing is about having the compiler enforce type rules so you the developer can’t fuck it up. Weak typing is more convenient, but ultimately a source of bugs. Lisp has, effectively, weak syntax. I don’t like weak syntax for the same reasons I don’t like weak typing.
- Kinrany 3y agoAuto code formatting is a must in every language at this point.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
- dang_flame 3y ago[dead]
- physPop 3y agoHave a learning mindset?