6 ms·

>>Lisp will never be massively successful (because it is a bit too complicated, too dynamic, too powerful for many users) I have a hard time buying your explan

by berntb 17y ago

>>Lisp will never be massively successful (because it is a bit too complicated, too dynamic, too powerful for many users) I have a hard time buying your explanation, since the scripting languages of today can be described as lisp subsets. I am a fan of Perl and enjoy my life. The other usual scripting languages are quite similar, in most ways. Still, I'd love to get a job using Common Lisp, which I haven't really touched since I studied. Why can't I do that? Edit: I don't mean to whine, it is just that there is something wrong here. Lisp should be a, well, "contender".

felideon 17y ago
Still, I'd love to get a job using Common Lisp, which I haven't really touched since I studied. Why can't I do that? Because, in the words of Drew Crampsie (paraphrased): Lispers do not look for Lisp jobs. They look for work to do and do it in Lisp. Edit: Also, I believe well-established Lisp companies (such as ITA or Clozure) usually look for experienced Lispers. If you studied it in school, what makes you a good candidate for these companies?
- berntb 17y ago
  Thanks for good information, but it wasn't what I asked about. :-) Lots of the standard scripting jobs out there could be done at least as well with lisp, so why aren't many of them? (For instance, there has been good interpreting and compiling environments for Lisp since the 1980s? 1970s?) (I didn't have any Common Lisp courses, I studied another lisp. I learned CL by myself.) Edit: A bit of syntax.
  - revorad 17y ago
    http://www.paulgraham.com/iflisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/iflisp.html
    - gaius 17y ago
      The argument that Lisp is too complicated for the average programmer is clearly nonsense: Anyone smart enough to use C++ to a professional standard is certainly smart enough to use Lisp. It's just sour grapes.
      - vikram 17y ago
        There are different types of complexities.
davidw 17y ago
If people think popularity doesn't matter at all, they are ignoring the economics of programming languages, where it does indeed matter that others use and contribute back to the community. Is Lisp popular enough? Hard to say, but people certainly seem to complain about the lack of popularity.
- lispm 17y ago
  It is popular enough, that there are ten maintained Common Lisp implementations, a hundred Scheme implementations and new dialects get invented every other year.
  - Avshalom 17y ago
    That makes lisp a popular IDEA but it completely ignores the GP's point of economics of a language. Specifically with a dozen implementations each you end up with a bunch of libraries that are subtly (some times not so) incompatible with other implementations so while the community as a whole might be large you don't get the advantages in terms of available code that the size should bring. At least that was my experience with Scheme, I don't know (but suspect from all the whinging) about the CL side of it. Which is one of the big advantages of Clojure of course, it comes with a lot of batteries.
    - lispm 17y ago
      Common Lisp defines a mildly large language with a standard of 1000+ pages. Implementations use both non-portable and portable libraries. There are also several libraries that span several implementations. Also the implementations serve different purposes and may use widely different implementation strategies - so not all libraries might apply to a certain implementation. The choice is there for a reason. Some libraries might start on some implementation. If it is good, then it will likely be ported (if necessary) to other implementations.
      - davidw 17y ago
        I would highly recommend the book "The Paradox of Choice". Here's something I wrote about the concept a while back: http://journal.dedasys.com/2006/02/18/maximizers-satisficers-and-programming-languages http://journal.dedasys.com/2006/02/18/maximizers-satisficers... As Steve's article suggests, I don't think lots of more or less equal implementations is that great in the long term. IMO, having one main one and some experiments floating around works better.
lispm 17y ago
the scripting languages are a shallow subset of Lisp, in some ways. But Lisp was not designed to script applications. It was designed to be a language that can compute with symbols. This applied to Lisp itself lead to meta circular definitions, macros, meta level architectures like CLOS, and more. It led to the first self hosting compiler in the earlz 60s and ever since Lisp implementations have been written largely in itself. It was designed to easily implement all kinds of notations and evaluation mechanism. Originally for example to implement symbolic mathematics and logic reasoners. If the subset of Lisp that allows scripting is fine for you, that's great. Why complicate things?
- berntb 17y ago
  >>If the subset of Lisp that allows scripting is fine for you, that's great. Well, the point was that I don't see why subsets have taken over, it's as if PHP grew larger than the rest of the scripting languages for web progr... Oh, wait. :-) But seriously, if you take the hit of a GC (which most everything do, today) then you might as well use the nicest system around. I am happy with my present tools, but a nice lisp variant might seriously tempt me. Sigh, maybe I should just look for different work or do a startup with really hard problems.
  - brlewis 17y ago
    The performance hit of a GC is less than the hit of a language that wasn't designed to be compiler-friendly. Scheme or CL will perform better than scripting languages. You don't need really hard problems before the benefits of a language with macros become obvious. SQL-driven web apps are a lot easier to write if you have macros, for example: http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_4.html#SEC31 http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_4.html#SEC31
- gaius 17y ago
  But Lisp was not designed to script applications. One word: Guile.
  - lispm 17y ago
    Guile is some random Lisp implementation, designed for scripting. 'Lisp' is a family of languages and the basic design was done by John McCarthy starting in 1958. He did not design a scripting language. I was talking about 'Lisp', not Guile.
WinterAyars 17y ago
Try listening to Matz talk about his experience with Lisp and (subsequently) his inspiration to make Ruby. Basically, he said Lisp sounded great in theory... but actually when you have to use it it's a huge pain in the ass. And Matz is a pretty fucking smart guy, so it's not just that too many people are too stupid to use it. Lisp actually has problems. But nobody is willing to talk about them. (I'm trying to hunt down that talk, but not having much luck.)
- lispm 17y ago
  I saw that talk and I can tell you that he looked very confused. He was just in the need for an excuse to develop just another scripting language. You could see that he had not much experience with Lisp and that Lisp was not something that he actually needed. I think he knew Lisp mostly 'in theory'. If you think that he is a pretty smart guy, then I would say that there are many Lisp implementations that are way ahead in terms of implementation technology - Matz's Ruby implementation is in the Lisp world several decades behind the state of the art. Ruby is one of the slowest scripting languages and has a very much ad-hoc design. It does useful things for many people, and that counts. But from the technology it is Ruby that is a huge pain in the ass. Just see how people struggle to write a decent compiler for it. Instead it is just another simple interpreter with a C core for the interpreter implementation and parts of the library. Ruby is fast where you stay in with the library functions that are implemented in C - otherwise it is a pain. The better Lisp systems are also written in Lisp and their performance is sometimes 10 to 100 times of what Ruby offers - while Lisp offers also lots of dynamic features and the code as data paradigm.
  - WinterAyars 17y ago
    If you did, indeed, see the talk then i think you missed the point.
    - lispm 17y ago
      http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/matzs-keynote.html http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/matzs-keynote.html He sounds confused. Started with BASIC: 'I could Make Intelligence'. ??? Then he found Lisp in a magazine article and 'fell in love with it'. 'BASIC aristocracy' vs. 'Lisp democracy'??? He liked Lisp from a book, but 'unfortunately he did not have a computer that could run it'. In University he used Emacs Lisp and it did not make him 'happy'. Parentheses? No? He had no problems with it. Macros? Partially. 'Smart people just underestimate oridinarity (sic) to use Lisp'. 'We are too ordinary to use Lisp'. Aristocracy. He is happy with aristocracy, as long as he has power. The whole video is so painful...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
mahmud 17y ago
Still, I'd love to get a job using Common Lisp, which I haven't really touched since I studied. Why can't I do that? I pay my bills writing Common Lisp code, full time. The fact that you're not an employed Lisper is your own fault, IMO, it takes guts to look someone in the eye and tell them their investment, in both time and money, is safe with you and your fringe programming language. It's allot of work, a lot of responsibility, and most certainly tons of fun. Try it. P.S. I am both lead developer and "CTO"; I have a team of web developers who consume my backend and architecture.
- johnzabroski 17y ago
  @IMO, it takes guts to look someone in the eye and tell them their investment, in both time and money, is safe with you and your fringe programming language. Not just fringe language, but fringe anything. The only known amongst a see of unknowns will be you.

by berntb 17y ago

felideon 17y ago

Still, I'd love to get a job using Common Lisp, which I haven't really touched since I studied. Why can't I do that? Because, in the words of Drew Crampsie (paraphrased): Lispers do not look for Lisp jobs. They look for work to do and do it in Lisp. Edit: Also, I believe well-established Lisp companies (such as ITA or Clozure) usually look for experienced Lispers. If you studied it in school, what makes you a good candidate for these companies?

berntb 17y ago
Thanks for good information, but it wasn't what I asked about. :-) Lots of the standard scripting jobs out there could be done at least as well with lisp, so why aren't many of them? (For instance, there has been good interpreting and compiling environments for Lisp since the 1980s? 1970s?) (I didn't have any Common Lisp courses, I studied another lisp. I learned CL by myself.) Edit: A bit of syntax.
- revorad 17y ago
  http://www.paulgraham.com/iflisp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/iflisp.html
  - gaius 17y ago
    The argument that Lisp is too complicated for the average programmer is clearly nonsense: Anyone smart enough to use C++ to a professional standard is certainly smart enough to use Lisp. It's just sour grapes.
    - vikram 17y ago
      There are different types of complexities.

davidw 17y ago

If people think popularity doesn't matter at all, they are ignoring the economics of programming languages, where it does indeed matter that others use and contribute back to the community. Is Lisp popular enough? Hard to say, but people certainly seem to complain about the lack of popularity.

lispm 17y ago
It is popular enough, that there are ten maintained Common Lisp implementations, a hundred Scheme implementations and new dialects get invented every other year.
- Avshalom 17y ago
  That makes lisp a popular IDEA but it completely ignores the GP's point of economics of a language. Specifically with a dozen implementations each you end up with a bunch of libraries that are subtly (some times not so) incompatible with other implementations so while the community as a whole might be large you don't get the advantages in terms of available code that the size should bring. At least that was my experience with Scheme, I don't know (but suspect from all the whinging) about the CL side of it. Which is one of the big advantages of Clojure of course, it comes with a lot of batteries.
  - lispm 17y ago
    Common Lisp defines a mildly large language with a standard of 1000+ pages. Implementations use both non-portable and portable libraries. There are also several libraries that span several implementations. Also the implementations serve different purposes and may use widely different implementation strategies - so not all libraries might apply to a certain implementation. The choice is there for a reason. Some libraries might start on some implementation. If it is good, then it will likely be ported (if necessary) to other implementations.
    - davidw 17y ago
      I would highly recommend the book "The Paradox of Choice". Here's something I wrote about the concept a while back: http://journal.dedasys.com/2006/02/18/maximizers-satisficers-and-programming-languages http://journal.dedasys.com/2006/02/18/maximizers-satisficers... As Steve's article suggests, I don't think lots of more or less equal implementations is that great in the long term. IMO, having one main one and some experiments floating around works better.

lispm 17y ago

the scripting languages are a shallow subset of Lisp, in some ways. But Lisp was not designed to script applications. It was designed to be a language that can compute with symbols. This applied to Lisp itself lead to meta circular definitions, macros, meta level architectures like CLOS, and more. It led to the first self hosting compiler in the earlz 60s and ever since Lisp implementations have been written largely in itself. It was designed to easily implement all kinds of notations and evaluation mechanism. Originally for example to implement symbolic mathematics and logic reasoners. If the subset of Lisp that allows scripting is fine for you, that's great. Why complicate things?

berntb 17y ago
>>If the subset of Lisp that allows scripting is fine for you, that's great. Well, the point was that I don't see why subsets have taken over, it's as if PHP grew larger than the rest of the scripting languages for web progr... Oh, wait. :-) But seriously, if you take the hit of a GC (which most everything do, today) then you might as well use the nicest system around. I am happy with my present tools, but a nice lisp variant might seriously tempt me. Sigh, maybe I should just look for different work or do a startup with really hard problems.
- brlewis 17y ago
  The performance hit of a GC is less than the hit of a language that wasn't designed to be compiler-friendly. Scheme or CL will perform better than scripting languages. You don't need really hard problems before the benefits of a language with macros become obvious. SQL-driven web apps are a lot easier to write if you have macros, for example: http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_4.html#SEC31 http://brl.codesimply.net/brl_4.html#SEC31
gaius 17y ago
But Lisp was not designed to script applications. One word: Guile.
- lispm 17y ago
  Guile is some random Lisp implementation, designed for scripting. 'Lisp' is a family of languages and the basic design was done by John McCarthy starting in 1958. He did not design a scripting language. I was talking about 'Lisp', not Guile.

WinterAyars 17y ago

Try listening to Matz talk about his experience with Lisp and (subsequently) his inspiration to make Ruby. Basically, he said Lisp sounded great in theory... but actually when you have to use it it's a huge pain in the ass. And Matz is a pretty fucking smart guy, so it's not just that too many people are too stupid to use it. Lisp actually has problems. But nobody is willing to talk about them. (I'm trying to hunt down that talk, but not having much luck.)

lispm 17y ago
I saw that talk and I can tell you that he looked very confused. He was just in the need for an excuse to develop just another scripting language. You could see that he had not much experience with Lisp and that Lisp was not something that he actually needed. I think he knew Lisp mostly 'in theory'. If you think that he is a pretty smart guy, then I would say that there are many Lisp implementations that are way ahead in terms of implementation technology - Matz's Ruby implementation is in the Lisp world several decades behind the state of the art. Ruby is one of the slowest scripting languages and has a very much ad-hoc design. It does useful things for many people, and that counts. But from the technology it is Ruby that is a huge pain in the ass. Just see how people struggle to write a decent compiler for it. Instead it is just another simple interpreter with a C core for the interpreter implementation and parts of the library. Ruby is fast where you stay in with the library functions that are implemented in C - otherwise it is a pain. The better Lisp systems are also written in Lisp and their performance is sometimes 10 to 100 times of what Ruby offers - while Lisp offers also lots of dynamic features and the code as data paradigm.
- WinterAyars 17y ago
  If you did, indeed, see the talk then i think you missed the point.
  - lispm 17y ago
    http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/matzs-keynote.html http://rubyconf2008.confreaks.com/matzs-keynote.html He sounds confused. Started with BASIC: 'I could Make Intelligence'. ??? Then he found Lisp in a magazine article and 'fell in love with it'. 'BASIC aristocracy' vs. 'Lisp democracy'??? He liked Lisp from a book, but 'unfortunately he did not have a computer that could run it'. In University he used Emacs Lisp and it did not make him 'happy'. Parentheses? No? He had no problems with it. Macros? Partially. 'Smart people just underestimate oridinarity (sic) to use Lisp'. 'We are too ordinary to use Lisp'. Aristocracy. He is happy with aristocracy, as long as he has power. The whole video is so painful...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

mahmud 17y ago

Still, I'd love to get a job using Common Lisp, which I haven't really touched since I studied. Why can't I do that? I pay my bills writing Common Lisp code, full time. The fact that you're not an employed Lisper is your own fault, IMO, it takes guts to look someone in the eye and tell them their investment, in both time and money, is safe with you and your fringe programming language. It's allot of work, a lot of responsibility, and most certainly tons of fun. Try it. P.S. I am both lead developer and "CTO"; I have a team of web developers who consume my backend and architecture.

johnzabroski 17y ago
@IMO, it takes guts to look someone in the eye and tell them their investment, in both time and money, is safe with you and your fringe programming language. Not just fringe language, but fringe anything. The only known amongst a see of unknowns will be you.