3 ms·

bending the language trying to make it 'massively successful' won't improve anything This needs to be repeated more often - quality isn't measured by popularit

by andreyf 17y ago

bending the language trying to make it 'massively successful' won't improve anything This needs to be repeated more often - quality isn't measured by popularity. It's obvious when we talk about food establishments (McDonald's being the equivalent of Java), but for some reason, the logic is completely lost on people when we start talking about programming languages.

lispm 17y ago
if you are a good cook, a sharp knife will be very useful. Others might only hurt themselves with it. No, the quality of things is not measured necessarily by the amount of uneducated users.
- anonjon 17y ago
  Bad analogy. Even if you are a mediocre cook, you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than a sharp one, because it won't cut as well (and will slip, maiming your fingers). Also you'll improve faster, as the easy/boring jobs like chopping onions will go by faster. Seriously, spend the money on a good knife.
- arohner 17y ago
  > if you are a good cook, a sharp knife will be very useful. Others might only hurt themselves with it. Therefore inexperienced cooks should prepare food with butter knives?
  - lispm 17y ago
    just avoid sushi where you need real sharp knifes
- zaphar 17y ago
  A better way to state this is that if you are a good cook you are willing to spend more on a quality sharp knife. If you aren't a good cook you'll probably buy the serrated surgical steel knife from the guy in the mall because it's only 19.95 and will "stay sharp for life". Lisp has a cost for useage. Higher learning curve, Different way of thinking about patterns. Harder to use correctly at first. It's worth it for the "good cook" to pay the cost. Maybe not for the everyone else. (as an aside I love my expensive set of high quality knives. and always feel handicapped when I have to cook without them. But they did cost a small fortune)
  - brlewis 17y ago
    I really think if you plan on programming for more than a year, the learning curve for Scheme or CL is worth it. I was at the jQuery conference this past weekend, and a lot of the functional programming concepts would be way easier for people to understand if people saw them in Scheme first.
  - mahmud 17y ago
    I learned enough Lisp in 3 months to give up C++ completely. A year later it replaced Perl for me. I can wake up in the morning and do all computing within a single Lisp instance.
lsd5you 17y ago
<i>(McDonald's being the equivalent of Java)</i> Is this true, or is it something you want to be true. I would say its a disservice to the language which in many ways was better than its peers and has since been imitated a lot (VMs, Javadoc, Parts of the platform library). The tools in terms of breadth and quality available for java (IDEs, testing, decompiling, AOP ... etc.) are years ahead of most other platforms. (Excluding C#, what else...?). A large part of this is due to the simplicity of the language (and the stability). Is java worse if you are developping in Vim, no doubt, but this is a strawman. With the tools vs. python|ruby|lisp is a different proposition entirely.
- lispm 17y ago
  Java appealed to the industrial users: a controlled language specified down to the instruction level, no complicated features, absolute stability on all levels. The SUN Java courses were just that: the programmer has to learn the language constructs and the library. Then the programmer learns some patterns to use the language effectively Lisp is the antithesis to this: it is a language laboratory - the programmable programming language. The programmer needs to develop skills to understand when and how to change the language. Changing and extending the language is a core mechanism. This makes the language unstable and puts a lot of linguistic power into the programmer. With Lisp you need to trust the programmer and the programmer has to learn how to justify the trust (by learning to effectively use macros, by learning when and when not to use EVAL, ...). The Lisp programmer has to learn how to program languages and the concepts he may want to use for that.
  - lsd5you 17y ago
    I don't really disagree, though it is a bit of a simplification. There is a lot to this argument, but without going into details (another time maybe) is it not a testament to the base of the language that they've managed to build so much crap on top of it??.
    - andreyf 17y ago
      is it not a testament to the base of the language that they've managed to build so much crap on top of it? No, that's just a question of marketing and man power.
kevbin 17y ago
I think Java™ is more like Starbucks® Java:Starbucks::C#:Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Java:Starbucks::Scala:Peets Java:Starbucks::Groovy:Mystic Mocha Java:Starbucks::Algol60:Vesuvio Café

by andreyf 17y ago

lispm 17y ago

if you are a good cook, a sharp knife will be very useful. Others might only hurt themselves with it. No, the quality of things is not measured necessarily by the amount of uneducated users.

anonjon 17y ago
Bad analogy. Even if you are a mediocre cook, you are more likely to cut yourself with a dull knife than a sharp one, because it won't cut as well (and will slip, maiming your fingers). Also you'll improve faster, as the easy/boring jobs like chopping onions will go by faster. Seriously, spend the money on a good knife.
arohner 17y ago
> if you are a good cook, a sharp knife will be very useful. Others might only hurt themselves with it. Therefore inexperienced cooks should prepare food with butter knives?
- lispm 17y ago
  just avoid sushi where you need real sharp knifes
zaphar 17y ago
A better way to state this is that if you are a good cook you are willing to spend more on a quality sharp knife. If you aren't a good cook you'll probably buy the serrated surgical steel knife from the guy in the mall because it's only 19.95 and will "stay sharp for life". Lisp has a cost for useage. Higher learning curve, Different way of thinking about patterns. Harder to use correctly at first. It's worth it for the "good cook" to pay the cost. Maybe not for the everyone else. (as an aside I love my expensive set of high quality knives. and always feel handicapped when I have to cook without them. But they did cost a small fortune)
- brlewis 17y ago
  I really think if you plan on programming for more than a year, the learning curve for Scheme or CL is worth it. I was at the jQuery conference this past weekend, and a lot of the functional programming concepts would be way easier for people to understand if people saw them in Scheme first.
- mahmud 17y ago
  I learned enough Lisp in 3 months to give up C++ completely. A year later it replaced Perl for me. I can wake up in the morning and do all computing within a single Lisp instance.

lsd5you 17y ago

<i>(McDonald's being the equivalent of Java)</i> Is this true, or is it something you want to be true. I would say its a disservice to the language which in many ways was better than its peers and has since been imitated a lot (VMs, Javadoc, Parts of the platform library). The tools in terms of breadth and quality available for java (IDEs, testing, decompiling, AOP ... etc.) are years ahead of most other platforms. (Excluding C#, what else...?). A large part of this is due to the simplicity of the language (and the stability). Is java worse if you are developping in Vim, no doubt, but this is a strawman. With the tools vs. python|ruby|lisp is a different proposition entirely.

lispm 17y ago
Java appealed to the industrial users: a controlled language specified down to the instruction level, no complicated features, absolute stability on all levels. The SUN Java courses were just that: the programmer has to learn the language constructs and the library. Then the programmer learns some patterns to use the language effectively Lisp is the antithesis to this: it is a language laboratory - the programmable programming language. The programmer needs to develop skills to understand when and how to change the language. Changing and extending the language is a core mechanism. This makes the language unstable and puts a lot of linguistic power into the programmer. With Lisp you need to trust the programmer and the programmer has to learn how to justify the trust (by learning to effectively use macros, by learning when and when not to use EVAL, ...). The Lisp programmer has to learn how to program languages and the concepts he may want to use for that.
- lsd5you 17y ago
  I don't really disagree, though it is a bit of a simplification. There is a lot to this argument, but without going into details (another time maybe) is it not a testament to the base of the language that they've managed to build so much crap on top of it??.
  - andreyf 17y ago
    is it not a testament to the base of the language that they've managed to build so much crap on top of it? No, that's just a question of marketing and man power.

kevbin 17y ago

I think Java™ is more like Starbucks® Java:Starbucks::C#:Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Java:Starbucks::Scala:Peets Java:Starbucks::Groovy:Mystic Mocha Java:Starbucks::Algol60:Vesuvio Café