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in Scheme you can redefine `define` to be number 5. Easy to implement, but a nightmare in real world scenarios [0]. That's why languages like Go became popular,

in Scheme you can redefine `define` to be number 5. Easy to implement, but a nightmare in real world scenarios [0]. That's why languages like Go became popular, they're trashy, boring, and dumb, but that's exactly what's needed in big projects. [0]: imagine your colleague wrote a macro that redefines for loops because at the time, it made life easier for him.

codemac 2y ago
> in Scheme you can redefine `define` to be number 5. This is like asking "what if your coworker named all errs as `ok`" so everything was `if ok { return errors.New("Not ok!!"); }`. It's possible but no one does it. This is why `defmacro` and `gensym` in common lisp are awesome, and similarly why Go's warts don't matter. Much of programming language ugliness is an "impact x frequency" calculation, rather than one or the other. It's also why javascript is so terrible, you run into it's warts constantly all day long.
- lolinder 2y ago
  "No one does it" is extremely relative. Take your closing remark about JavaScript: I don't run into JS warts very often at all, and I'm a professional web developer who works in it day in and day out. I guess my team just doesn't do dumb JS stuff? But apparently lots of other people do run into them regularly, so I believe that such things do exist. By the same token, I've heard countless reports of people struggling with the flexibility that Lisp offers, with co-workers who abuse it to create nightmarish situations. That you haven't experienced that doesn't mean no one does.
  - codr7 2y ago
    I would definitely recommend mature teams for powerful languages, and the other way around. You wouldn't let a child handle a chainsaw.
  - codemac 2y ago
    ah you misunderstand me. I don't mean "do dumb stuff", I mean I've literally never seen anyone redefine the `define` keyword in any code. With javascript, I do see people use `===` frequently. It's a wart of the language that the operator even exist. It's not "dumb" to use it - it's how frequently are you assaulted with the bugs of the language (not bugs in your code).
    - dullcrisp 2y ago
      That’s true but I think if a major issue is having to type === instead of == then you’re probably doing okay.
neilv 2y ago
You might have been misled by a CS professor's enthusiasm about what they thought was neat, or was a good way to communicate something. But I don't recall seeing someone re-define `define` in real life. Nor do I recall seeing any problematic redefinitions in Scheme in real life. That said, if you wanted to make a language variant in which `define` did something different than normal (say, for instrumentation, or for different semantics for variable syntax), then you'd probably use Racket, and you'd probably define your own `#lang`, so that the first line of files using your language would be something like `#lang myfunkylang`. You can randomly sample code in <https://pkgs.racket-lang.org/ https://pkgs.racket-lang.org/>, and look for people doing anything other than `#lang racket/base` or `#lang typed/racket/base`.

codemac 2y ago

> in Scheme you can redefine `define` to be number 5. This is like asking "what if your coworker named all errs as `ok`" so everything was `if ok { return errors.New("Not ok!!"); }`. It's possible but no one does it. This is why `defmacro` and `gensym` in common lisp are awesome, and similarly why Go's warts don't matter. Much of programming language ugliness is an "impact x frequency" calculation, rather than one or the other. It's also why javascript is so terrible, you run into it's warts constantly all day long.

lolinder 2y ago
"No one does it" is extremely relative. Take your closing remark about JavaScript: I don't run into JS warts very often at all, and I'm a professional web developer who works in it day in and day out. I guess my team just doesn't do dumb JS stuff? But apparently lots of other people do run into them regularly, so I believe that such things do exist. By the same token, I've heard countless reports of people struggling with the flexibility that Lisp offers, with co-workers who abuse it to create nightmarish situations. That you haven't experienced that doesn't mean no one does.
- codr7 2y ago
  I would definitely recommend mature teams for powerful languages, and the other way around. You wouldn't let a child handle a chainsaw.
- codemac 2y ago
  ah you misunderstand me. I don't mean "do dumb stuff", I mean I've literally never seen anyone redefine the `define` keyword in any code. With javascript, I do see people use `===` frequently. It's a wart of the language that the operator even exist. It's not "dumb" to use it - it's how frequently are you assaulted with the bugs of the language (not bugs in your code).
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    That’s true but I think if a major issue is having to type === instead of == then you’re probably doing okay.

neilv 2y ago

You might have been misled by a CS professor's enthusiasm about what they thought was neat, or was a good way to communicate something. But I don't recall seeing someone re-define `define` in real life. Nor do I recall seeing any problematic redefinitions in Scheme in real life. That said, if you wanted to make a language variant in which `define` did something different than normal (say, for instrumentation, or for different semantics for variable syntax), then you'd probably use Racket, and you'd probably define your own `#lang`, so that the first line of files using your language would be something like `#lang myfunkylang`. You can randomly sample code in <https://pkgs.racket-lang.org/ https://pkgs.racket-lang.org/>, and look for people doing anything other than `#lang racket/base` or `#lang typed/racket/base`.