4 ms·

>Common Lisp is the same But the great thing about Lisps is that they can't get stuck in the past. For example, if, say, Python didn't have decorators and you

by eudox 13y ago

>Common Lisp is the same But the great thing about Lisps is that they can't get stuck in the past. For example, if, say, Python didn't have decorators and you wanted to add them in, you'd have to present the idea in a PEP, get approval from Guido, write some code, et cetera. In Common Lisp, you just write some reader macros and that's it[1]. If Python stopped being maintained, it would lag behind other languages, but the fact that the Common Lisp spec hasn't been updated since 1996 doesn't make it any less modern. A more relevant example: Lisp doesn't have hash table literals, which every "modern" language these days has, but those can also be added, trivially in less than fifty lines[2] of CL code, and suddenly Common Lisp is modern again. [1]: https://github.com/arielnetworks/cl-annot https://github.com/arielnetworks/cl-annot [2]: http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html

PeterisP 13y ago
In programming languages, having 3 proper solutions to a problem is worse than having a single proper default solution - simply due to the overhead of first having to choose, and then the unneeded difficulty when reading other people's code who chose a different lib for the same thing. For things such as hash table literals, you're not supposed to simply have some way of doing it - you're supposed to have a good and commonly used way of how most everyone else would be doing it and representing them in his/her code. Having a bunch of nonobvious, nonstandartized ways alone hurts readability, maintenance and reusability - and thinking that it is okay is a sign of being stuck in the past. Being able to add it trivially yourself is an order of magnitude worse - because results in everybody rolling out his own. If you want to make an usable ecosystem (not just 'language core') then you have to make sure that for all/most commonly needed things, the default 'batteries included' or 'batteries taken from first google result' work well, not that it's simply possible to get them somehow.

by eudox 13y ago

PeterisP 13y ago

In programming languages, having 3 proper solutions to a problem is worse than having a single proper default solution - simply due to the overhead of first having to choose, and then the unneeded difficulty when reading other people's code who chose a different lib for the same thing. For things such as hash table literals, you're not supposed to simply have some way of doing it - you're supposed to have a good and commonly used way of how most everyone else would be doing it and representing them in his/her code. Having a bunch of nonobvious, nonstandartized ways alone hurts readability, maintenance and reusability - and thinking that it is okay is a sign of being stuck in the past. Being able to add it trivially yourself is an order of magnitude worse - because results in everybody rolling out his own. If you want to make an usable ecosystem (not just 'language core') then you have to make sure that for all/most commonly needed things, the default 'batteries included' or 'batteries taken from first google result' work well, not that it's simply possible to get them somehow.