4 ms·

> It might be a neurological trait, some people just can't live with a syntactic layer Genuinely, I think this is the case, and it might be one of the biggest

> It might be a neurological trait, some people just can't live with a syntactic layer Genuinely, I think this is the case, and it might be one of the biggest tragedies in computing history. There is a type of brain that can deal happily with bare S-exps and once it learns to do so, sees syntactic sugar as waste. As a result, that type of brain dominated Lisp's evolution and so the Lisp mainstream never got past that. But, I suspect, most brains can't. And so demonstrably inferior languages thrived because they were prettier, or sweeter if that fits.

agumonkey 3y ago
My brain just loves reduction and homogeneity and sexps / fp hits very high on this. It's like vector math, the building blocks are simple, the rest is on you. And at the same time, I also remember enjoying the 'magic' of php array/map syntax .. it felt magical (thanks to dynamic loosely typed semantics too I guess). But rapidly you hit syntactic hurdles that just don't exist in function based languages. Then there are tribal effects, when a bunch of guys work in python or else, they'll love it, and resist anything too alien (even if .. under the clothes, it's mostly a limited common lisp :)
- lproven 3y ago
  > My brain just loves reduction and homogeneity and sexps / fp hits very high on this. OK then! Good for you. With great effort I can just barely follow what is going on; it is so very much not my thing. But we all have different strengths and weaknesses. > Then there are tribal effects This is so very true and much underestimated. Unix isn't an OS: it's a mindset and a set of cultural traditions, that have led multiple groups of people to re-implement the same style of OS over and over and over again. And now, it's so pervasive that many can't imagine anything else. I personally come from an era when rich complex GUI OSes fit into a single digit number of megabytes, and were amenable to exploration and comprehension by a single non-specialist individual in their spare time, without external materials or help. And I think that was hugely valuable and important, and we've lost it. We threw it away with the trash not realising how vital it was.

agumonkey 3y ago

My brain just loves reduction and homogeneity and sexps / fp hits very high on this. It's like vector math, the building blocks are simple, the rest is on you. And at the same time, I also remember enjoying the 'magic' of php array/map syntax .. it felt magical (thanks to dynamic loosely typed semantics too I guess). But rapidly you hit syntactic hurdles that just don't exist in function based languages. Then there are tribal effects, when a bunch of guys work in python or else, they'll love it, and resist anything too alien (even if .. under the clothes, it's mostly a limited common lisp :)

lproven 3y ago
> My brain just loves reduction and homogeneity and sexps / fp hits very high on this. OK then! Good for you. With great effort I can just barely follow what is going on; it is so very much not my thing. But we all have different strengths and weaknesses. > Then there are tribal effects This is so very true and much underestimated. Unix isn't an OS: it's a mindset and a set of cultural traditions, that have led multiple groups of people to re-implement the same style of OS over and over and over again. And now, it's so pervasive that many can't imagine anything else. I personally come from an era when rich complex GUI OSes fit into a single digit number of megabytes, and were amenable to exploration and comprehension by a single non-specialist individual in their spare time, without external materials or help. And I think that was hugely valuable and important, and we've lost it. We threw it away with the trash not realising how vital it was.