4 ms·

You're conflating "success" with "popularity". Lisps weren't invented to become "popular", they were invented to get something done in a way that other language

You're conflating "success" with "popularity". Lisps weren't invented to become "popular", they were invented to get something done in a way that other languages couldn't easily do at the time. One only "fails" if one cannot accomplish its purpose. Different languages have different purposes, so "success" as a measure to compare them is inane... unless the purpose of all programming languages should be to be the most popular programming language?

ubernostrum 13y ago
Except the unspoken continuation of essentially all praise of Lisp is "...so if it's this incredibly awesome, why isn't it used more?"
- orangethirty 13y ago
  There are a lot of snobs in the Lisp community. They can't stand the thought of Lisp going mainstream, because their language is too beautiful and perfect. Every language has them, but Lisp seems to have the highest ratio of snob/regular person. I love the language, but the community is not as good as others. edit: I'm getting downvoted by the snobs themselves. Hilarious.
  - acheron 13y ago
    As the famous "Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" [1] essay puts it, Lisp's key techniques are "recursion and condescension". [1] http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-m...
    - zem 13y ago
      verity stob said that first (and the essay did attribute it correctly)
  - pivo 13y ago
    This may be true of the Common Lisp community but the Clojure community seems to be very welcoming and I think one of the more exciting communities around today.
    - orangethirty 13y ago
      Yes, I agree. The Clojure community is very nice, and tight-knit.
    - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
      Likewise the Racket community,
    - jrajav 13y ago
      Chicken Scheme's community is great too, though smaller.
  - lispm 13y ago
    Of all I dislike the whiners and complainers the most.
  - pavelludiq 13y ago
    As e certified smug lisper(you get to be one when another smug lisper calls you one :), I would say that there are many of us who just don't care whether or not lisp gets more popular, but I don't think I've ever come across anyone who would intentionally drive away new users(except for obvious trolls, who come to #lisp and ask what it is used for, and get angry when we answer: "Writing software", one even called us cts :). I don't really mind more popularity, but my definition of a mainstream language is "The non-technical boss prefers it, because of reasons completely unrelated to its technical qualities.", in which case I agree with the snobs, we don't need that at all. But if by mainstream you mean "It moves up from its current position as 33th most popular language on github", sure, why not. If by mainstream you mean "more companies start using it for useful software that makes money": http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com/post/36425247242/when-i-hear-of-a-lisp-success-in-industry http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com/post/36425247242/when-i-hear... I consider Common Lisp to be a tremendous success, some of the coolest software was written or prototyped in it, including many language implementations. Not to mention what a tremendous achievement it is for a modern lisp system to be able to run 4 decades old code with little or no modification. Being mainstream was probably never a design goal, but the things listed above are, and that is probably why many lispers simply don't care about being mainstream, the language is not optimized for that at all. I don't thing that makes lispers snobs, they've just self-selected for people who can work with less community support. It's like a low-econ game of starcraft :)
raganwald 13y ago
I'm speaking to the wiki page. If this is a discussion about whether Lisp was too powerful to successfully implement Expert Systems, or Yahoo! Stores, or Reddit, well then, I agree that's a different conversation. But this is what I thought the page was speaking to.

ubernostrum 13y ago

Except the unspoken continuation of essentially all praise of Lisp is "...so if it's this incredibly awesome, why isn't it used more?"

orangethirty 13y ago
There are a lot of snobs in the Lisp community. They can't stand the thought of Lisp going mainstream, because their language is too beautiful and perfect. Every language has them, but Lisp seems to have the highest ratio of snob/regular person. I love the language, but the community is not as good as others. edit: I'm getting downvoted by the snobs themselves. Hilarious.
- acheron 13y ago
  As the famous "Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages" [1] essay puts it, Lisp's key techniques are "recursion and condescension". [1] http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-m...
  - zem 13y ago
    verity stob said that first (and the essay did attribute it correctly)
- pivo 13y ago
  This may be true of the Common Lisp community but the Clojure community seems to be very welcoming and I think one of the more exciting communities around today.
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    Yes, I agree. The Clojure community is very nice, and tight-knit.
  - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
    Likewise the Racket community,
  - jrajav 13y ago
    Chicken Scheme's community is great too, though smaller.
- lispm 13y ago
  Of all I dislike the whiners and complainers the most.
- pavelludiq 13y ago
  As e certified smug lisper(you get to be one when another smug lisper calls you one :), I would say that there are many of us who just don't care whether or not lisp gets more popular, but I don't think I've ever come across anyone who would intentionally drive away new users(except for obvious trolls, who come to #lisp and ask what it is used for, and get angry when we answer: "Writing software", one even called us cts :). I don't really mind more popularity, but my definition of a mainstream language is "The non-technical boss prefers it, because of reasons completely unrelated to its technical qualities.", in which case I agree with the snobs, we don't need that at all. But if by mainstream you mean "It moves up from its current position as 33th most popular language on github", sure, why not. If by mainstream you mean "more companies start using it for useful software that makes money": http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com/post/36425247242/when-i-hear-of-a-lisp-success-in-industry http://this-plt-life.tumblr.com/post/36425247242/when-i-hear... I consider Common Lisp to be a tremendous success, some of the coolest software was written or prototyped in it, including many language implementations. Not to mention what a tremendous achievement it is for a modern lisp system to be able to run 4 decades old code with little or no modification. Being mainstream was probably never a design goal, but the things listed above are, and that is probably why many lispers simply don't care about being mainstream, the language is not optimized for that at all. I don't thing that makes lispers snobs, they've just self-selected for people who can work with less community support. It's like a low-econ game of starcraft :)

raganwald 13y ago

I'm speaking to the wiki page. If this is a discussion about whether Lisp was too powerful to successfully implement Expert Systems, or Yahoo! Stores, or Reddit, well then, I agree that's a different conversation. But this is what I thought the page was speaking to.