6 ms·

Before you start learning Lisp...

76 points by fogus 17y ago

kiba 17y ago
Does anybody have a good elsip project idea? I been trying to learn elisp but I didn't have good enough excuses to write anything in elisp.
- mapleoin 17y ago
  write a hacker news reader so I won't have to exit emacs for that.
  - abstractbill 17y ago
    Excellent idea, that's something I would use.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - keyist 17y ago
    HN is pretty usable in w3m / emacs-w3m. To log in you will have to patch your w3m to send "Content-Length" instead of "Content-length" (see http://arclanguage.org/item?id=4419 http://arclanguage.org/item?id=4419 )
jacquesm 17y ago
From the article: > This is because the Lisp standard tries to specify a portable language, not a library. > Note that even the C language doesn't include these things. That's true, but the POSIX standard library functions are packaged with almost any C environment except for embedded systems and is usually available 'out of the box'. Of course there is a clear distinction between what is part of the language and what is part of the library. Is there an equivalent to so say 'stdlib' in the LISP world ?
- astine 17y ago
  Not really. Much of the stuff in stdlib is part of the CL standard. Most of the rest is available as part of most implementations. There is no (as I recal) standard library that every has and can expect to be available.
- aerique 17y ago
  Not for Common Lisp (CL), but a lot of what's in 'stdlib' for C is already in CL. Also a lot of implementations come with substantial extras, like f.e. sockets, that the article mentioned are not in the CL standard. Incompatibilities in those extras between implementations are handled by meta-packages (libraries or modules in other programming languages) provided by the community.
tocomment 17y ago
why does it say LISP isn't a functional programming language but Clojure is? Isn't Clojure a dialect of Lisp?
- abstractbill 17y ago
  The article was written by someone who seems to believe "Lisp" is synonymous with "Common Lisp" (We're talking about Common Lisp instead, often shortened to "Lisp"). So it seems Clojure (and Scheme, Arc, etc) are implicitly excluded by the author.
  - varjag 17y ago
    No, Scheme is Scheme, and Arc is Arc. You don't call Ruby a Python, despite that those languages are much closer than Lisp and Scheme.
    - dkersten 17y ago
      And Common Lisp is Common Lisp. They're still dialects of the mythical Lisp. Was there ever an actual just Lisp? Or was there just dialects, eg ZetaLisp, Emacs Lisp, MIT's Lisp Machine Lisp, etc etc
      - DrJokepu 17y ago
        There was an original LISP dialect; a quick Google search / Wikipedia session yielded this memo about a LISP 1.5 compiler written in 1962: ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-039.pdf Also there's LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual dated August 17, 1962 which is quite an interesting read: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%...
        dkersten 17y ago
        Ok, I stand corrected. Thanks for the links, btw, I'll enjoy reading them :-)
arithmetic 17y ago
Should be titled "Before you start learning Common Lisp". Anyone with a reasonable functional programming background would know the difference.
- varjag 17y ago
  See the last point in the write-up.
smithjchris 17y ago
... learn Java. Give yourself some worth and wealth before you become enlightened with Lisp :-)
garnet7 17y ago
I'm interested in learning Scheme, and keeping my fingers crossed that they can come together and specify some kind of "batteries-included" standard library. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll only be able to fiddle with Scheme for an hour or two on weekends and get my real work done with one of the "popular" languages (i.e., Perl, Python, etc.). Yes, I realize PLT has some batteries included but I'd prefer a community standard rather than a one-distro standard (not that I think (or even have much of an idea if) anything is wrong with PLT).
- mgreenbe 17y ago
  Your fingers are going to be crossed for a long time. I think the Steering Committee has too many divergent interests on it for there ever to be agreement on a serious standard library. Schemers are very DIY; for example, see http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware-author http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware.... Rolling your own libraries on top of a tiny implementation is not particularly uncommon. (I just hope you can write more, uh, ethical software than that guy!) PLT has the most batteries of any distro I've ever seen (disclaimer: one of its authors was my undergrad advisor). That is, PLT is (a) free, (b) mature, and (c) has a fair number of modules written by people other than the developers of the language. There's no sense in waiting, just dive in. If you don't want to use PLT, Bigloo can call Java libraries---solving your battery problem in a different way.
  - garnet7 17y ago
    > Your fingers are going to be crossed for a long time. Hm. That's going to make it very difficult to type. > I think the Steering Committee has too many divergent interests on it for there ever to be agreement on a serious standard library. That would be most unfortunate. > Schemers are very DIY; for example, see [snip] Not sure what about that story points to Schemers being particularly DIY. Sounds like the fellow needed something tiny, so rather than take a full-blown batteries-included language and strip out what he didn't need, he instead just used something small that he was familiar with. > There's no sense in waiting, just dive in. Yeah. Trying to make the time... thanks for the encouragement. :)

76 points by fogus 17y ago

kiba 17y ago

Does anybody have a good elsip project idea? I been trying to learn elisp but I didn't have good enough excuses to write anything in elisp.

mapleoin 17y ago
write a hacker news reader so I won't have to exit emacs for that.
- abstractbill 17y ago
  Excellent idea, that's something I would use.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- keyist 17y ago
  HN is pretty usable in w3m / emacs-w3m. To log in you will have to patch your w3m to send "Content-Length" instead of "Content-length" (see http://arclanguage.org/item?id=4419 http://arclanguage.org/item?id=4419 )

jacquesm 17y ago

From the article: > This is because the Lisp standard tries to specify a portable language, not a library. > Note that even the C language doesn't include these things. That's true, but the POSIX standard library functions are packaged with almost any C environment except for embedded systems and is usually available 'out of the box'. Of course there is a clear distinction between what is part of the language and what is part of the library. Is there an equivalent to so say 'stdlib' in the LISP world ?

astine 17y ago
Not really. Much of the stuff in stdlib is part of the CL standard. Most of the rest is available as part of most implementations. There is no (as I recal) standard library that every has and can expect to be available.
aerique 17y ago
Not for Common Lisp (CL), but a lot of what's in 'stdlib' for C is already in CL. Also a lot of implementations come with substantial extras, like f.e. sockets, that the article mentioned are not in the CL standard. Incompatibilities in those extras between implementations are handled by meta-packages (libraries or modules in other programming languages) provided by the community.

tocomment 17y ago

why does it say LISP isn't a functional programming language but Clojure is? Isn't Clojure a dialect of Lisp?

abstractbill 17y ago
The article was written by someone who seems to believe "Lisp" is synonymous with "Common Lisp" (We're talking about Common Lisp instead, often shortened to "Lisp"). So it seems Clojure (and Scheme, Arc, etc) are implicitly excluded by the author.
- varjag 17y ago
  No, Scheme is Scheme, and Arc is Arc. You don't call Ruby a Python, despite that those languages are much closer than Lisp and Scheme.
  - dkersten 17y ago
    And Common Lisp is Common Lisp. They're still dialects of the mythical Lisp. Was there ever an actual just Lisp? Or was there just dialects, eg ZetaLisp, Emacs Lisp, MIT's Lisp Machine Lisp, etc etc
    - DrJokepu 17y ago
      There was an original LISP dialect; a quick Google search / Wikipedia session yielded this memo about a LISP 1.5 compiler written in 1962: ftp://publications.ai.mit.edu/ai-publications/pdf/AIM-039.pdf Also there's LISP 1.5 Programmer's Manual dated August 17, 1962 which is quite an interesting read: http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%201.5%20Programmers%20Manual.pdf http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/LISP/book/LISP%...
      - dkersten 17y ago
        Ok, I stand corrected. Thanks for the links, btw, I'll enjoy reading them :-)

arithmetic 17y ago

Should be titled "Before you start learning Common Lisp". Anyone with a reasonable functional programming background would know the difference.

varjag 17y ago
See the last point in the write-up.

smithjchris 17y ago

... learn Java. Give yourself some worth and wealth before you become enlightened with Lisp :-)

garnet7 17y ago

I'm interested in learning Scheme, and keeping my fingers crossed that they can come together and specify some kind of "batteries-included" standard library. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll only be able to fiddle with Scheme for an hour or two on weekends and get my real work done with one of the "popular" languages (i.e., Perl, Python, etc.). Yes, I realize PLT has some batteries included but I'd prefer a community standard rather than a one-distro standard (not that I think (or even have much of an idea if) anything is wrong with PLT).

mgreenbe 17y ago
Your fingers are going to be crossed for a long time. I think the Steering Committee has too many divergent interests on it for there ever to be agreement on a serious standard library. Schemers are very DIY; for example, see http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware-author http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware.... Rolling your own libraries on top of a tiny implementation is not particularly uncommon. (I just hope you can write more, uh, ethical software than that guy!) PLT has the most batteries of any distro I've ever seen (disclaimer: one of its authors was my undergrad advisor). That is, PLT is (a) free, (b) mature, and (c) has a fair number of modules written by people other than the developers of the language. There's no sense in waiting, just dive in. If you don't want to use PLT, Bigloo can call Java libraries---solving your battery problem in a different way.
- garnet7 17y ago
  > Your fingers are going to be crossed for a long time. Hm. That's going to make it very difficult to type. > I think the Steering Committee has too many divergent interests on it for there ever to be agreement on a serious standard library. That would be most unfortunate. > Schemers are very DIY; for example, see [snip] Not sure what about that story points to Schemers being particularly DIY. Sounds like the fellow needed something tiny, so rather than take a full-blown batteries-included language and strip out what he didn't need, he instead just used something small that he was familiar with. > There's no sense in waiting, just dive in. Yeah. Trying to make the time... thanks for the encouragement. :)