8 ms·

Lisp: Icing or Cake?

244 points by psj 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
Porque no los dos?
koolala 2y ago
[flagged]
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Areading314 2y ago
    [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
swatson741 2y ago
I'm very curious what sort of games were made in elisp. It's not really the first thing that comes to mind when I think about games programming.
- rjsw 2y ago
  It has snake and tetris in the default installation.
  - doublerabbit 2y ago
    I'm surprised no one has joined the two and invented Snake Tetris.
    - JadeNB 2y ago
      They have; it's just usually called SnakeTris.
- davexunit 2y ago
  https://bcardoso.itch.io/shoggy https://bcardoso.itch.io/shoggy https://lcolonq.itch.io/slgj2024-game-boy-gizmo https://lcolonq.itch.io/slgj2024-game-boy-gizmo https://asquared31415.itch.io/disassembly https://asquared31415.itch.io/disassembly https://grindingstone.itch.io/pendulum https://grindingstone.itch.io/pendulum
- skissane 2y ago
  Every copy of GNU Emacs comes bundled with the text adventure Dunnet [0]. Dunnet was originally written by Ron Schnell in 1982, as a Maclisp program running under TOPS-20. [1] In 1992, he ported it to Emacs Lisp; however, the Emacs Lisp version is more than just a simple port of the original, it extends the game with new rooms/items/puzzles, but also removes MIT-centric content–e.g. the "endgame" computer at the end of the game was originally named MIT-SALLY, was located at MIT, and was accessed via Chaosnet–the GNU Emacs version removes all those (dated) MIT references–although the GNU Emacs version contains (obviously intentionally) equally dated (albeit more widely recognisable) content such as a VAX 11/780 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnet_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnet_(video_game) [1] Original is here: https://github.com/Quogic/DunnetPredecessor/blob/master/foo.lsp https://github.com/Quogic/DunnetPredecessor/blob/master/foo....
  - stevekemp 2y ago
    I've been an Emacs user for 20+ years and had never stumbled across that game, thanks for highlighting it! I found the CPU, the Key (guarded by the bear) and made it into the house. Was a fun diversion I guess I need to play it more seriously sometime.
- anthk 2y ago
  Malyon it's a ZMachine interpreter which works mostly fine.
  - momentoftop 2y ago
    Playing "This thing all things devours" is one of the most profound gaming experiences I have had, and I happened to use Malyon. Why wouldn't I use the best text editor to play an inform game?
    - anthk 2y ago
      Ditto, I loved devours too, and it's a libre game: https://jxself.org/git/devours.git https://jxself.org/git/devours.git Spiritwrak it's Zorkian but libre licensed unlike Zork [1-3] / Dungeon. And, OFC, Emacs has Inform-mode, a helper for Inform6 and Inform6-lib.
ngcc_hk 2y ago
“ We’re not living in a world of Lisp machines, but a world of glorified PDP-11s.” Quite a summary. Btw any icing with sdl I wonder.
- bitwize 2y ago
  Except conventional CPUs aren't really glorified PDP-11s, except in the sense that they're Von Neumann machines with untagged memory; and the conventional CPUs started lapping the Lisp machines around the mid-80s, when 32-bit microprocessors started becoming common and Lisp compiler technology evolved to better support them. And even the "untagged memory" bit might not hold; with things like CHERI, a LispM style architecture is due for a major comeback.
  - imachine1980_ 2y ago
    Hi I think is in the hypothesis (I'm not sure) of that we have edition made by the pdp 11 keyboard developer and tooling that's old and design whiout introspection in mind showcase in this video, the video is really cool but little bit long https://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s?si=FdwCbmRnU1gJIXJx https://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s?si=FdwCbmRnU1gJIXJx
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Or SPARC ADI and ARM MTE, already around, only Intel and AMD keep failing to deliver something that actually works, e.g. iAPX 432 and MPX.
- coliveira 2y ago
  Lisp is unsuitable for modern CPUs because of memory hierarchy. Lisp operates primarily with lists, which can have pointers all over memory. This was not a problem on earlier CPUs because all memory was the same with similar random access time. Modern CPUs cannot access pointers in memory with the same speed, they need to follow locality rules for performance. This means that an algorithm using something like C or Fortran arrays will always be faster than a Lisp list based version.
  - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ertucetin 2y ago
I recently created 3D boss fight prototype using Clojure: https://prototype-game.pages.dev https://prototype-game.pages.dev
- all2 2y ago
  I cannot make the controls work on mobile. I'll try when I have a PC in front of me again.
  - ertucetin 2y ago
    Yes it is for PC web. You can check sample video with your phone here: https://x.com/ertuctn/status/1796627956120399898 https://x.com/ertuctn/status/1796627956120399898
- kolme 2y ago
  That's rad! What libraries are you using?
  - ertucetin 2y ago
    Thanks, using Reagent for UI, and for the rendering engine it is BabylonJS.
- hazn 2y ago
  i mean this with absolute adoration for what you've created: it reminds me of avatar - legends of the arena [0]. one of my absolute favorite games of my childhood :') [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJFldES9dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJFldES9dg
- happypumpkin 2y ago
  This is great! I used to hate all forms of webdev but ClojureScript actually makes it enjoyable, I really hope it gets more traction.
bmacho 2y ago
No janet despite https://ianthehenry.com/posts/janet-game/ https://ianthehenry.com/posts/janet-game/ (article copyrighted between 1899-1907, but doesn't look vintage that's a shame)
- rcarmo 2y ago
  Janet seems to have fallen through the cracks. I went back to fennel for scripting stuff, mostly because I can just go and get a lot more Lua libraries and run it everywhere (even on my iPad with a-Shell) with zero hassle.
  - cardanome 2y ago
    Do you think that Fennel adds enough value on top of Lua to justify the extra compilation step? I mean it is valid to use it for the fun of it, just wondering. Lua is already more or less a Scheme clothed in a more conventional syntax. On top of that the fact that Lua already has excellent metaprogramming capabilities kind of negates the typical advantage of using a lisp-style syntax. So what is Fennel bringing to the table?
    - rudy6912 2y ago
      Compared to Lua, Fennel brings to the table: - Lisp syntax, so structural reading, navigation, and editing, - above-average Lisp macro system, so fundamental extensibility, - pattern matching, so a bit more expressiveness, and - some compile-time safety checks.
      - rcarmo 2y ago
        Also, more parenthesis. Which are a great reminder of more civilized times in computing.
- oofoe 2y ago
  Hi! Considered Janet very seriously, but couldn't see an immediate path to get where I wanted to go with it (web app, using WebGL (ThreeJS)). There were some useful references in this thread: https://janet.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/409517-help/topic/How.20do.20I.20run.20Janet.20in.20web.20browser.3F https://janet.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/409517-help/topic... and maybe I can try them later. As it was, even with a proven production path, I still barely got something playable on time... ("Playable" is perhaps generous.)
rcarmo 2y ago
This was… a hoot (pardon the pun) to read, since I’ve been eyeing Guile as a go-to for future stuff I build. Nice going on the WASM front.
- sourcepluck 2y ago
  If you like puns, strap yourself into your chair before reading this essay from Andy Wingo if you haven't seen it yet: https://wingolog.org/archives/2024/05/16/on-hoot-on-boot https://wingolog.org/archives/2024/05/16/on-hoot-on-boot
hazn 2y ago
i encourage the readers of this comment thread to check out the spritely institute, especially it's blog [0]. i don't wanna spoil what it's all about, but i ensure you it's a topic (and institute!) worth diving into. i poured 10h+ just reading the blog and all the related links and projects :) [0] https://spritely.institute/archive/ https://spritely.institute/archive/
- sourcepluck 2y ago
  +1. They seem to attract excellent people and do very cool stuff.
runlaszlorun 2y ago
Nice piece. Maybe because I havent seen many articles these days with any sort of objective comparison of software approaches in general. Ok… I’ll admit that any attempt I’ve made to find such pieces never makes it past all the SEO spam these days. A little surprised to not see any games using Janet- since it seems to be both made for gaming and has a surprising number of ‘batteries included’ like a web server and graphics. Then again, I’ve only stumbled upon it pretty recently myself. From my minor hacking with it, it’s def worth a peek in the Lisp/games arena.
doublerabbit 2y ago
PHP: Noodles or Soup?
iainctduncan 2y ago
Great to see s7 getting some love. I used it as the Scheme for Scheme for Max, an open source extension to the Max/MSP computer music environment that puts a Scheme interpreter in Max, and I love it. It occupies a space somewhere between Guile, Clojure, and CL, while being very minimal, and is dead easy to embed. It is also much more liberally licensed (BSD) than Guile. If you like CL macros with first class environments, you will probably like s7. It's also dead easy to use in WASM, which I am doing for a music pedagogy project. It's using the icing approach, but I would say the cake is 3/4 icing. Notably, it was not difficult to make generic functions for calling JS functions from Scheme and vice versa, which has made things very smooth. A ganache perhaps. :-)
- mikemee 2y ago
  Another vote for s7. We successfully embedded it and SQLite as the (non graphics) engine for otherwise native apps on iOS and Android. Super fast. Great FFI. Reliable. Small. Huge benefits from shared code across our mobile apps, insanely fast unit tests and a clean set of tooling. Ultimately we switched to Fennel as a more pragmatic Lisp for mobile. AFAIK we were alone using s7 on mobile whereas Lua especially is a common mobile extension. Partly also this reflected the state of r7rs Scheme compatibility. We were running Guile on the desktop for development while shipping s7 and subtle incompatibilities would bite us regularly (a fun one was parameter evaluation order). Thumbs up to both s7 and fennel for their great projects and community.
  - supaflybanzai 2y ago
    Wow, so nice to hear some people actually experimenting with not just mainstream stuff. Where do you work (if it is not a secret)?
    - mikemee 2y ago
      No secret. A little puzzle app company I’ve been running for a while: www.eggheadgames.com. No ads or gamification. Just classic paper magazine puzzles. Pay for more or subscribe for unlimited play. As we’re small, rewriting the code over and over for cross-platform is costly. But as they’re games with words, we want a fully native experience for the highest quality app with great accessibility and full integration - as well as easier crash log debugging without intrusive 3rd party packages. The classic solutions are either not native enough (Flutter), are graphics-based (Unity), too expensive to maintain the stack (React *), don’t integrate well with the native mobile tooling (Go, various ports of Python, Ruby, Lisps apart from s7) or also end up being a separate core but are harder to debug via crash logs (various JS, Kotlin or Swift cross platform). Plus once we tried Lisp it was hard to go back! Succinct, fast, great editing. And yeah, it’s just fun to do something different. We also get a kick from being part of and contributing back to the Fennel community. It’s nice to mix some open source with commercial apps.
nanomonkey 2y ago
I'm excited to see all of the recent progress with Guile Scheme. Since the last time I looked it's gone from an interpreted language to having a full on compiler. Now it can be compiled to wasm with Hoot. This is exciting. I'm comfortable with Clojure, uLisp and Common Lisp...but I feel like Guile Scheme has cleared away much of CL's cruft, and I'd love to have a compiled lisp at my disposal, specially as Guix and Shepard take off. Are there any good resources for learning how to use Guile Scheme effectively? Besides Little Lisper and SICP...
screwlisp 2y ago
I did ask for a mention viz the table </drama> though I guess it's old news now. cf https://lispy-gopher-show.itch.io/logos-lisp-legend/devlog/740130/its-not-not-a-popularity-contest-lisp-edition https://lispy-gopher-show.itch.io/logos-lisp-legend/devlog/7... https://itch.io/post/10013482 https://itch.io/post/10013482

244 points by psj 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

Porque no los dos?

koolala 2y ago

[flagged]

doublerabbit 2y ago
[flagged]
- Areading314 2y ago
  [flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

swatson741 2y ago

I'm very curious what sort of games were made in elisp. It's not really the first thing that comes to mind when I think about games programming.

rjsw 2y ago
It has snake and tetris in the default installation.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  I'm surprised no one has joined the two and invented Snake Tetris.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    They have; it's just usually called SnakeTris.
davexunit 2y ago
https://bcardoso.itch.io/shoggy https://bcardoso.itch.io/shoggy https://lcolonq.itch.io/slgj2024-game-boy-gizmo https://lcolonq.itch.io/slgj2024-game-boy-gizmo https://asquared31415.itch.io/disassembly https://asquared31415.itch.io/disassembly https://grindingstone.itch.io/pendulum https://grindingstone.itch.io/pendulum
skissane 2y ago
Every copy of GNU Emacs comes bundled with the text adventure Dunnet [0]. Dunnet was originally written by Ron Schnell in 1982, as a Maclisp program running under TOPS-20. [1] In 1992, he ported it to Emacs Lisp; however, the Emacs Lisp version is more than just a simple port of the original, it extends the game with new rooms/items/puzzles, but also removes MIT-centric content–e.g. the "endgame" computer at the end of the game was originally named MIT-SALLY, was located at MIT, and was accessed via Chaosnet–the GNU Emacs version removes all those (dated) MIT references–although the GNU Emacs version contains (obviously intentionally) equally dated (albeit more widely recognisable) content such as a VAX 11/780 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnet_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnet_(video_game) [1] Original is here: https://github.com/Quogic/DunnetPredecessor/blob/master/foo.lsp https://github.com/Quogic/DunnetPredecessor/blob/master/foo....
- stevekemp 2y ago
  I've been an Emacs user for 20+ years and had never stumbled across that game, thanks for highlighting it! I found the CPU, the Key (guarded by the bear) and made it into the house. Was a fun diversion I guess I need to play it more seriously sometime.
anthk 2y ago
Malyon it's a ZMachine interpreter which works mostly fine.
- momentoftop 2y ago
  Playing "This thing all things devours" is one of the most profound gaming experiences I have had, and I happened to use Malyon. Why wouldn't I use the best text editor to play an inform game?
  - anthk 2y ago
    Ditto, I loved devours too, and it's a libre game: https://jxself.org/git/devours.git https://jxself.org/git/devours.git Spiritwrak it's Zorkian but libre licensed unlike Zork [1-3] / Dungeon. And, OFC, Emacs has Inform-mode, a helper for Inform6 and Inform6-lib.

ngcc_hk 2y ago

“ We’re not living in a world of Lisp machines, but a world of glorified PDP-11s.” Quite a summary. Btw any icing with sdl I wonder.

bitwize 2y ago
Except conventional CPUs aren't really glorified PDP-11s, except in the sense that they're Von Neumann machines with untagged memory; and the conventional CPUs started lapping the Lisp machines around the mid-80s, when 32-bit microprocessors started becoming common and Lisp compiler technology evolved to better support them. And even the "untagged memory" bit might not hold; with things like CHERI, a LispM style architecture is due for a major comeback.
- imachine1980_ 2y ago
  Hi I think is in the hypothesis (I'm not sure) of that we have edition made by the pdp 11 keyboard developer and tooling that's old and design whiout introspection in mind showcase in this video, the video is really cool but little bit long https://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s?si=FdwCbmRnU1gJIXJx https://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s?si=FdwCbmRnU1gJIXJx
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Or SPARC ADI and ARM MTE, already around, only Intel and AMD keep failing to deliver something that actually works, e.g. iAPX 432 and MPX.
coliveira 2y ago
Lisp is unsuitable for modern CPUs because of memory hierarchy. Lisp operates primarily with lists, which can have pointers all over memory. This was not a problem on earlier CPUs because all memory was the same with similar random access time. Modern CPUs cannot access pointers in memory with the same speed, they need to follow locality rules for performance. This means that an algorithm using something like C or Fortran arrays will always be faster than a Lisp list based version.
- 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ertucetin 2y ago

I recently created 3D boss fight prototype using Clojure: https://prototype-game.pages.dev https://prototype-game.pages.dev

all2 2y ago
I cannot make the controls work on mobile. I'll try when I have a PC in front of me again.
- ertucetin 2y ago
  Yes it is for PC web. You can check sample video with your phone here: https://x.com/ertuctn/status/1796627956120399898 https://x.com/ertuctn/status/1796627956120399898
kolme 2y ago
That's rad! What libraries are you using?
- ertucetin 2y ago
  Thanks, using Reagent for UI, and for the rendering engine it is BabylonJS.
hazn 2y ago
i mean this with absolute adoration for what you've created: it reminds me of avatar - legends of the arena [0]. one of my absolute favorite games of my childhood :') [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJFldES9dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcJFldES9dg
happypumpkin 2y ago
This is great! I used to hate all forms of webdev but ClojureScript actually makes it enjoyable, I really hope it gets more traction.

bmacho 2y ago

No janet despite https://ianthehenry.com/posts/janet-game/ https://ianthehenry.com/posts/janet-game/ (article copyrighted between 1899-1907, but doesn't look vintage that's a shame)

rcarmo 2y ago
Janet seems to have fallen through the cracks. I went back to fennel for scripting stuff, mostly because I can just go and get a lot more Lua libraries and run it everywhere (even on my iPad with a-Shell) with zero hassle.
- cardanome 2y ago
  Do you think that Fennel adds enough value on top of Lua to justify the extra compilation step? I mean it is valid to use it for the fun of it, just wondering. Lua is already more or less a Scheme clothed in a more conventional syntax. On top of that the fact that Lua already has excellent metaprogramming capabilities kind of negates the typical advantage of using a lisp-style syntax. So what is Fennel bringing to the table?
  - rudy6912 2y ago
    Compared to Lua, Fennel brings to the table: - Lisp syntax, so structural reading, navigation, and editing, - above-average Lisp macro system, so fundamental extensibility, - pattern matching, so a bit more expressiveness, and - some compile-time safety checks.
    - rcarmo 2y ago
      Also, more parenthesis. Which are a great reminder of more civilized times in computing.
oofoe 2y ago
Hi! Considered Janet very seriously, but couldn't see an immediate path to get where I wanted to go with it (web app, using WebGL (ThreeJS)). There were some useful references in this thread: https://janet.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/409517-help/topic/How.20do.20I.20run.20Janet.20in.20web.20browser.3F https://janet.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/409517-help/topic... and maybe I can try them later. As it was, even with a proven production path, I still barely got something playable on time... ("Playable" is perhaps generous.)

rcarmo 2y ago

This was… a hoot (pardon the pun) to read, since I’ve been eyeing Guile as a go-to for future stuff I build. Nice going on the WASM front.

sourcepluck 2y ago
If you like puns, strap yourself into your chair before reading this essay from Andy Wingo if you haven't seen it yet: https://wingolog.org/archives/2024/05/16/on-hoot-on-boot https://wingolog.org/archives/2024/05/16/on-hoot-on-boot

hazn 2y ago

i encourage the readers of this comment thread to check out the spritely institute, especially it's blog [0]. i don't wanna spoil what it's all about, but i ensure you it's a topic (and institute!) worth diving into. i poured 10h+ just reading the blog and all the related links and projects :) [0] https://spritely.institute/archive/ https://spritely.institute/archive/

sourcepluck 2y ago
+1. They seem to attract excellent people and do very cool stuff.

runlaszlorun 2y ago

Nice piece. Maybe because I havent seen many articles these days with any sort of objective comparison of software approaches in general. Ok… I’ll admit that any attempt I’ve made to find such pieces never makes it past all the SEO spam these days. A little surprised to not see any games using Janet- since it seems to be both made for gaming and has a surprising number of ‘batteries included’ like a web server and graphics. Then again, I’ve only stumbled upon it pretty recently myself. From my minor hacking with it, it’s def worth a peek in the Lisp/games arena.

doublerabbit 2y ago

PHP: Noodles or Soup?

iainctduncan 2y ago

Great to see s7 getting some love. I used it as the Scheme for Scheme for Max, an open source extension to the Max/MSP computer music environment that puts a Scheme interpreter in Max, and I love it. It occupies a space somewhere between Guile, Clojure, and CL, while being very minimal, and is dead easy to embed. It is also much more liberally licensed (BSD) than Guile. If you like CL macros with first class environments, you will probably like s7. It's also dead easy to use in WASM, which I am doing for a music pedagogy project. It's using the icing approach, but I would say the cake is 3/4 icing. Notably, it was not difficult to make generic functions for calling JS functions from Scheme and vice versa, which has made things very smooth. A ganache perhaps. :-)

mikemee 2y ago
Another vote for s7. We successfully embedded it and SQLite as the (non graphics) engine for otherwise native apps on iOS and Android. Super fast. Great FFI. Reliable. Small. Huge benefits from shared code across our mobile apps, insanely fast unit tests and a clean set of tooling. Ultimately we switched to Fennel as a more pragmatic Lisp for mobile. AFAIK we were alone using s7 on mobile whereas Lua especially is a common mobile extension. Partly also this reflected the state of r7rs Scheme compatibility. We were running Guile on the desktop for development while shipping s7 and subtle incompatibilities would bite us regularly (a fun one was parameter evaluation order). Thumbs up to both s7 and fennel for their great projects and community.
- supaflybanzai 2y ago
  Wow, so nice to hear some people actually experimenting with not just mainstream stuff. Where do you work (if it is not a secret)?
  - mikemee 2y ago
    No secret. A little puzzle app company I’ve been running for a while: www.eggheadgames.com. No ads or gamification. Just classic paper magazine puzzles. Pay for more or subscribe for unlimited play. As we’re small, rewriting the code over and over for cross-platform is costly. But as they’re games with words, we want a fully native experience for the highest quality app with great accessibility and full integration - as well as easier crash log debugging without intrusive 3rd party packages. The classic solutions are either not native enough (Flutter), are graphics-based (Unity), too expensive to maintain the stack (React *), don’t integrate well with the native mobile tooling (Go, various ports of Python, Ruby, Lisps apart from s7) or also end up being a separate core but are harder to debug via crash logs (various JS, Kotlin or Swift cross platform). Plus once we tried Lisp it was hard to go back! Succinct, fast, great editing. And yeah, it’s just fun to do something different. We also get a kick from being part of and contributing back to the Fennel community. It’s nice to mix some open source with commercial apps.

nanomonkey 2y ago

I'm excited to see all of the recent progress with Guile Scheme. Since the last time I looked it's gone from an interpreted language to having a full on compiler. Now it can be compiled to wasm with Hoot. This is exciting. I'm comfortable with Clojure, uLisp and Common Lisp...but I feel like Guile Scheme has cleared away much of CL's cruft, and I'd love to have a compiled lisp at my disposal, specially as Guix and Shepard take off. Are there any good resources for learning how to use Guile Scheme effectively? Besides Little Lisper and SICP...

screwlisp 2y ago

I did ask for a mention viz the table </drama> though I guess it's old news now. cf https://lispy-gopher-show.itch.io/logos-lisp-legend/devlog/740130/its-not-not-a-popularity-contest-lisp-edition https://lispy-gopher-show.itch.io/logos-lisp-legend/devlog/7... https://itch.io/post/10013482 https://itch.io/post/10013482