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Is this a joke I'm not getting? Any examples of such software?

steeleduncan 2y ago
I think the point is that - you write some piece of software - then you add a straightforward configuration language - then you add variables because you don't want too much copy/paste - then you add if statements to allow conditional configuration - then you add loops because you are sick of seeing configuration that consists of unrolled loops - ... At some point your configuration system is Turing complete, so could be considered a programming language. However it was never designed as such, so it is not a horrible one TeX would be a good example of this. Ansible playbooks are (I believe) Turing complete, and YAML itself has such a huge spec, that if it isn't Turning complete and/or self aware already, I can't imagine it'll be long before it is
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  But if configuration is the example, a full fledged Lisp program as your configuration is TOO MUCH. Do you want configuration files functioning as malware vectors? And what about Lisp is enduser friendly? Configuration files are intended to address people that are programming-lite to poweruser-not-programmer level. Lisp s-expressions are recursive tree structures with prefix ordering, which is a "great filter" for the IQ of users. Greenspun's law, being a joke of Lisp users, actually indicates the inability of the Lisp community to understand why their language is niche to ultra-high-IQ people. If syntax patterns, formats, and programming languages survive for decades, there is a grassroots practical reason for their existence that ironically the ultra-smart all-knowing Lisp hacker just can't properly fathom.
  - everforward 2y ago
    > And what about Lisp is enduser friendly? It's not, it's developer-friendly. A basic Lisp interpreter is like a few hundred lines of code, so it's a very tempting system to embed. I think Lua is similar, but I haven't messed with it. It's also powerful enough that most things aren't incredibly awkward to specify in it. YAML/JSON/TOML/etc have issues expressing repetitive things that can be solved in a for-loop/map in Lisp. I don't even think Lisp should be an IQ filter. I wouldn't call myself a great or even good Lisp programmer, but the prefix syntax and s-expr's aren't all that hard to pick up. I don't think it's any more difficult than JSON, although it is far less common.
  - pkkm 2y ago
    > ultra-high-IQ people I think that's much more stereotype than reality. People see all these parentheses and think that it must be a difficult language that requires a big mindset shift, like these purely functional languages with dependent types. In reality, it takes a week or two, plus an editor plugin that highlights matching parentheses, to get used to writing (function arg-one arg-two) instead of function(arg_one, arg_two). After that, it's smooth sailing. Just another decently designed language that's dynamically but strongly typed. Feels like writing Python, except with a bit of metaprogramming from time to time. I think you're overestimating the importance of syntax and underestimating semantics. It doesn't take a very long program to get bitten by bad semantics. A few years ago, I was writing a game extension in Lua. It was only a couple hundred lines, and I still wasted hours debugging problems that would've been one minute fixes in Python or Lisp. All because of Lua's ridiculous idea of conflating arrays with hashtables, plus its habit of returning nil instead of raising an error when you do something that doesn't make sense.
  - kazinator 2y ago
    A fully bracketed prefix notation is unambiguous. It requires no knowledge of precedence rules. Small children can learn it. Your editor can indent it in a consistent way, no matter how you break it into multiple lines. You're almost never left wondering what element of the program is a child of what other element. You know the argument position of everything; there is no guesswork. If you misplace a parenthesis, the wrong indentation clues you in. Working with Lisp syntax requires few brain cycles; therefore, the syntax per se doesn't demand high intelligence. If you can fog a mirror, you can probably edit Lisp.
jjtheblunt 2y ago
It's a famous quote and it is of course meant to be humorous, and a statement of how vast the functionality of common lisp is (huge spec and book)
- pfdietz 2y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call it "huge" anymore, when the C++ specification (at least, this one from 2020) is 1841 pages long. https://isocpp.org/files/papers/N4860.pdf https://isocpp.org/files/papers/N4860.pdf
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    yeah fair point, agreed!
nosioptar 2y ago
Ratpoison, a tiling window manager for Linux, did this. The devs hit the point where they realized they were basically implementing parts of Lisp to allow more configuration. They ended up creating StumpWM in Common Lisp to be like Ratpoison if it allowed more configuration.
- _xiaz 2y ago
  That's a cool piece of trivia
jimbokun 2y ago
The joke is that C and C++ lack important features found in Common Lisp, so real world programs end up adding those features indirectly as the size of the program grows.
saghm 2y ago
I think the initial intent of the quote was to ridicule non-lisp users for reinventing the wheel, but to me it always reads as a fundamental misunderstanding of the fact that programming language constraints are _features_ rather than downsides.
efilife 2y ago
This thread is very interesting. My question got downvoted. Hovever, everyone gives completely different answers for the question, which means the answer isn't really that obvious. Reddit mentality

I think the point is that - you write some piece of software - then you add a straightforward configuration language - then you add variables because you don't want too much copy/paste - then you add if statements to allow conditional configuration - then you add loops because you are sick of seeing configuration that consists of unrolled loops - ... At some point your configuration system is Turing complete, so could be considered a programming language. However it was never designed as such, so it is not a horrible one TeX would be a good example of this. Ansible playbooks are (I believe) Turing complete, and YAML itself has such a huge spec, that if it isn't Turning complete and/or self aware already, I can't imagine it'll be long before it is

AtlasBarfed 2y ago
But if configuration is the example, a full fledged Lisp program as your configuration is TOO MUCH. Do you want configuration files functioning as malware vectors? And what about Lisp is enduser friendly? Configuration files are intended to address people that are programming-lite to poweruser-not-programmer level. Lisp s-expressions are recursive tree structures with prefix ordering, which is a "great filter" for the IQ of users. Greenspun's law, being a joke of Lisp users, actually indicates the inability of the Lisp community to understand why their language is niche to ultra-high-IQ people. If syntax patterns, formats, and programming languages survive for decades, there is a grassroots practical reason for their existence that ironically the ultra-smart all-knowing Lisp hacker just can't properly fathom.
- everforward 2y ago
  > And what about Lisp is enduser friendly? It's not, it's developer-friendly. A basic Lisp interpreter is like a few hundred lines of code, so it's a very tempting system to embed. I think Lua is similar, but I haven't messed with it. It's also powerful enough that most things aren't incredibly awkward to specify in it. YAML/JSON/TOML/etc have issues expressing repetitive things that can be solved in a for-loop/map in Lisp. I don't even think Lisp should be an IQ filter. I wouldn't call myself a great or even good Lisp programmer, but the prefix syntax and s-expr's aren't all that hard to pick up. I don't think it's any more difficult than JSON, although it is far less common.
- pkkm 2y ago
  > ultra-high-IQ people I think that's much more stereotype than reality. People see all these parentheses and think that it must be a difficult language that requires a big mindset shift, like these purely functional languages with dependent types. In reality, it takes a week or two, plus an editor plugin that highlights matching parentheses, to get used to writing (function arg-one arg-two) instead of function(arg_one, arg_two). After that, it's smooth sailing. Just another decently designed language that's dynamically but strongly typed. Feels like writing Python, except with a bit of metaprogramming from time to time. I think you're overestimating the importance of syntax and underestimating semantics. It doesn't take a very long program to get bitten by bad semantics. A few years ago, I was writing a game extension in Lua. It was only a couple hundred lines, and I still wasted hours debugging problems that would've been one minute fixes in Python or Lisp. All because of Lua's ridiculous idea of conflating arrays with hashtables, plus its habit of returning nil instead of raising an error when you do something that doesn't make sense.
- kazinator 2y ago
  A fully bracketed prefix notation is unambiguous. It requires no knowledge of precedence rules. Small children can learn it. Your editor can indent it in a consistent way, no matter how you break it into multiple lines. You're almost never left wondering what element of the program is a child of what other element. You know the argument position of everything; there is no guesswork. If you misplace a parenthesis, the wrong indentation clues you in. Working with Lisp syntax requires few brain cycles; therefore, the syntax per se doesn't demand high intelligence. If you can fog a mirror, you can probably edit Lisp.

jjtheblunt 2y ago

It's a famous quote and it is of course meant to be humorous, and a statement of how vast the functionality of common lisp is (huge spec and book)

pfdietz 2y ago
I'm not sure I'd call it "huge" anymore, when the C++ specification (at least, this one from 2020) is 1841 pages long. https://isocpp.org/files/papers/N4860.pdf https://isocpp.org/files/papers/N4860.pdf
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  yeah fair point, agreed!

nosioptar 2y ago

Ratpoison, a tiling window manager for Linux, did this. The devs hit the point where they realized they were basically implementing parts of Lisp to allow more configuration. They ended up creating StumpWM in Common Lisp to be like Ratpoison if it allowed more configuration.

_xiaz 2y ago
That's a cool piece of trivia

jimbokun 2y ago

The joke is that C and C++ lack important features found in Common Lisp, so real world programs end up adding those features indirectly as the size of the program grows.

saghm 2y ago

I think the initial intent of the quote was to ridicule non-lisp users for reinventing the wheel, but to me it always reads as a fundamental misunderstanding of the fact that programming language constraints are _features_ rather than downsides.

efilife 2y ago

This thread is very interesting. My question got downvoted. Hovever, everyone gives completely different answers for the question, which means the answer isn't really that obvious. Reddit mentality