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I know many people who are counterexamples to your theory. Languages like Perl and Python have a strong advantage in libraries. If you don't need the things tha
by inklesspen 18y ago
I know many people who are counterexamples to your theory. Languages like Perl and Python have a strong advantage in libraries. If you don't need the things that only Lisp can do, there's not as much of a reason to use it.
- coryrc 18y agoThe (derisive) saying used to be "You can write FORTRAN in any language" but you can also write Lisp in any language. Not that I completely agree with the GP's point.
- gruseom 18y agoyou can also write Lisp in any language No you can't. In fact, that's precisely what you can't do. (Unless you're talking about writing a Lisp interpreter... but then your Lisp programs themselves would still be written in Lisp.)
- gruseom 18y agoI think the parent comment was probably trolling, but as someone who loves Lisp I have to say that some people have deeper reasons for not liking it than "libraries". A few of the best programmers I know just don't like Lisp. They tell me s-expressions don't fit the way their brains work. I'm not inclined to dismiss this as laziness, stupidity, or ignorance - though it's tempting :) If you don't need the things that only Lisp can do, there's not as much of a reason to use it. This is not an unreasonable thing to say, yet I'm skeptical. The problem is that a lot of the things that are natural to do in language X just wouldn't occur to you in language Y. I think this is a big problem with the way people compare programming languages. I've been meaning to write a post about it sometime.
- pg 18y agoIf you don't need the things that only Lisp can do, there's not as much of a reason to use it. True. But the Lisp programmer would reply that you need the things only Lisp can do in most non-trivial programs.