4 ms·

Nope, you're not. Readability is crucial for those of us not wired the same way as those who seem to be more comfortable in Lisp. Can you get a lot done in Lisp

by eksith 14y ago

Nope, you're not. Readability is crucial for those of us not wired the same way as those who seem to be more comfortable in Lisp. Can you get a lot done in Lisp? Sure, if you can scan through and make sense of it. I've tried for a long time, almost to the point of barging in on my work time, but I haven't been able to get comfortable. The innumerable parentheses, for example, make perfect sense to those with the Lisp brain, but since I'm reading it in the context of English, where too many of those are frowned upon, it's nearly impossible for me to follow quickly. Whenever I bring this up among my colleagues, I get shot down by the proficient folks. The argument then turns into how I'm deficient somehow or haven't tried hard enough -- the word "stupid" came up a few times -- and that just completely turned me off the language. Religion is a touchy subject.

ScottBurson 14y ago
There's no excuse for people calling you stupid. But see orthecreedence's post. It can be learned with practice.
- eksith 14y ago
  Thank you. I should make it clear that I'm still on OK terms with those people. It wasn't so much a direct "you're stupid" or else I wouldn't speak to them again, but more of a "that's just stupid that you can't get it". Which I guess is a long about way of saying almost the same thing, but I think they held back. I can try to do something with it again if I have time, but I feel it's going to be a long and laborious process before I start to get comfortable. I used to unconsciously put semicolons ;)
  - tensor 14y ago
    Interestingly, I now unconsciously do this switching back to C: (printf "%d" i) Before I forget and switch back. I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. Practicing at night while the majority of your time is still spent with some other language is not the same thing. This is also true for learning human language and is why immersion programs are so successful. Further, I absolutely do not buy the claims that people have that they can understand haskell easily but not lisp. Haskell might look more familiar at a casual glance, but its syntax takes a substantial amount of time to really understand.
    - bobwaycott 14y ago
      > I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. Practicing at night while the majority of your time is still spent with some other language is not the same thing. This is also true for learning human language and is why immersion programs are so successful. I think this is spot on. I have a minor quibble that can't adapt ought to actually read find it difficult to adapt for the very reasons specified--it's not a matter of can or cannot, but a reflection of how much time one is actually able to invest in learning, like a human language. Random, sporadic investment into learning French vocabulary won't help much in improving one's ability to actually speak French. Much will be forgotten that way. Immersion is definitely the best model for picking up any new [programming] language. Each language I use with measurable proficiency--Python, Objective-C, C#, JavaScript, French, English, etc.--is in that list because I actually took on tasks in which that was the language I had to use. Each language I've messed around with on the side for fun/experimentation/curiosity--Mandarin Chinese, Lisp, Haskell, Java, etc.--is barely worth mentioning.
    - martinced 14y ago
      > I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. That is very interesting. It took me indeed may months of night-time programming in Clojure and elisp to get at a point where I could feel confortable with the syntax. I had a series of small "enlightenment" during that journey: the last one was not long ago, when I realized how I could "carry" state through a high-order function. But to stay focused I kept reading and re-reading great writing about Lisp by Paul Graham and kept viewing and re-viewing amazing videos by Rich Hickey. It's as with everything: keep your eyes on the goal, not on the obstacles. And at one point things are going to click in.
alberich 14y ago
Just an observation about the parentheses... Although it can be hard to make sense of the large number of parentheses, using good indentation (emacs does it for you) helps a lot. Of course Python makes it easier to figure out what code belongs where, it was made with this goal in mind after all. I believe it is a tradeoff, Lisp's syntax gives you flexibility and an easy (in terms) and powerfull macro system at the expense of code readability (when compared with some languages).
- eksith 14y ago
  I have no doubt as to the power of Lisp, I've seen the end results with my own eyes. Haven't tried reading it on Emacs yet, but I guess it couldn't hurt to try again. It's just extremely difficult to turn off my semicolon thought process and turn on parentheses.
- TylerE 14y ago
  If you're using indentation anyway, why not allow indentation to IMPLY parenthesis. so that say: foo 1 2 3 bar 1 2 if (eq qux 3) fizzbuzz 7 is translated by the parser to: (foo 1 2 3) (bar 1 2) (if (eq qux 3) (fizzbuzz 7))
  - spacemanaki 14y ago
    It's been proposed a few times, and some people have gone pretty far with it, http://www.dwheeler.com/readable/sweet-expressions.html http://www.dwheeler.com/readable/sweet-expressions.html It's never really caught on though, I would guess due to inertia. Most Lisp programmers just get used the parens, and maybe those that can't end up not using Lisp.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      That's unfortunate, I think. It would really open up the list world, especially to those of us comfortable with python. It seems like such an obvious upgrade to me, since: A: In no case will it break code that works now. B: It would always be possible to translate to and from it unambiguously, so if a team wanted to keep all of their code one way or the other, each individual developer could still see things with their own preference - imagine a tool like `gofmt`.
neutronicus 14y ago
For me, reading Lisp is a tactile experience as well as a visual one. Lisp code is a tree, and emacs has a lot of neat commands to let you move around the tree (up one level, down one level, leaf forward, leaf backward), and I find myself doing this whenever I have a piece of Lisp code open to "feel out" its structure. It's a little different, and maybe less like "reading" than understanding a piece of Python code, but I like it.
rayiner 14y ago
If you don't like the parents, check out Julia. It's basically Common Lisp with an infix syntax + cleanups.

by eksith 14y ago

ScottBurson 14y ago

There's no excuse for people calling you stupid. But see orthecreedence's post. It can be learned with practice.

eksith 14y ago
Thank you. I should make it clear that I'm still on OK terms with those people. It wasn't so much a direct "you're stupid" or else I wouldn't speak to them again, but more of a "that's just stupid that you can't get it". Which I guess is a long about way of saying almost the same thing, but I think they held back. I can try to do something with it again if I have time, but I feel it's going to be a long and laborious process before I start to get comfortable. I used to unconsciously put semicolons ;)
- tensor 14y ago
  Interestingly, I now unconsciously do this switching back to C: (printf "%d" i) Before I forget and switch back. I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. Practicing at night while the majority of your time is still spent with some other language is not the same thing. This is also true for learning human language and is why immersion programs are so successful. Further, I absolutely do not buy the claims that people have that they can understand haskell easily but not lisp. Haskell might look more familiar at a casual glance, but its syntax takes a substantial amount of time to really understand.
  - bobwaycott 14y ago
    > I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. Practicing at night while the majority of your time is still spent with some other language is not the same thing. This is also true for learning human language and is why immersion programs are so successful. I think this is spot on. I have a minor quibble that can't adapt ought to actually read find it difficult to adapt for the very reasons specified--it's not a matter of can or cannot, but a reflection of how much time one is actually able to invest in learning, like a human language. Random, sporadic investment into learning French vocabulary won't help much in improving one's ability to actually speak French. Much will be forgotten that way. Immersion is definitely the best model for picking up any new [programming] language. Each language I use with measurable proficiency--Python, Objective-C, C#, JavaScript, French, English, etc.--is in that list because I actually took on tasks in which that was the language I had to use. Each language I've messed around with on the side for fun/experimentation/curiosity--Mandarin Chinese, Lisp, Haskell, Java, etc.--is barely worth mentioning.
  - martinced 14y ago
    > I strongly suspect that the people who can't adapt are having difficulty because they are not programming with the new syntax full time. That is very interesting. It took me indeed may months of night-time programming in Clojure and elisp to get at a point where I could feel confortable with the syntax. I had a series of small "enlightenment" during that journey: the last one was not long ago, when I realized how I could "carry" state through a high-order function. But to stay focused I kept reading and re-reading great writing about Lisp by Paul Graham and kept viewing and re-viewing amazing videos by Rich Hickey. It's as with everything: keep your eyes on the goal, not on the obstacles. And at one point things are going to click in.

alberich 14y ago

Just an observation about the parentheses... Although it can be hard to make sense of the large number of parentheses, using good indentation (emacs does it for you) helps a lot. Of course Python makes it easier to figure out what code belongs where, it was made with this goal in mind after all. I believe it is a tradeoff, Lisp's syntax gives you flexibility and an easy (in terms) and powerfull macro system at the expense of code readability (when compared with some languages).

eksith 14y ago
I have no doubt as to the power of Lisp, I've seen the end results with my own eyes. Haven't tried reading it on Emacs yet, but I guess it couldn't hurt to try again. It's just extremely difficult to turn off my semicolon thought process and turn on parentheses.
TylerE 14y ago
If you're using indentation anyway, why not allow indentation to IMPLY parenthesis. so that say: foo 1 2 3 bar 1 2 if (eq qux 3) fizzbuzz 7 is translated by the parser to: (foo 1 2 3) (bar 1 2) (if (eq qux 3) (fizzbuzz 7))
- spacemanaki 14y ago
  It's been proposed a few times, and some people have gone pretty far with it, http://www.dwheeler.com/readable/sweet-expressions.html http://www.dwheeler.com/readable/sweet-expressions.html It's never really caught on though, I would guess due to inertia. Most Lisp programmers just get used the parens, and maybe those that can't end up not using Lisp.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    That's unfortunate, I think. It would really open up the list world, especially to those of us comfortable with python. It seems like such an obvious upgrade to me, since: A: In no case will it break code that works now. B: It would always be possible to translate to and from it unambiguously, so if a team wanted to keep all of their code one way or the other, each individual developer could still see things with their own preference - imagine a tool like `gofmt`.

neutronicus 14y ago

For me, reading Lisp is a tactile experience as well as a visual one. Lisp code is a tree, and emacs has a lot of neat commands to let you move around the tree (up one level, down one level, leaf forward, leaf backward), and I find myself doing this whenever I have a piece of Lisp code open to "feel out" its structure. It's a little different, and maybe less like "reading" than understanding a piece of Python code, but I like it.

rayiner 14y ago

If you don't like the parents, check out Julia. It's basically Common Lisp with an infix syntax + cleanups.