4 ms·

Building Large Systems in Lisp (2010)

29 points by momo-reina 12y ago

amelius 12y ago
> So, yes, lisp does not HAVE a lot of libraries. But what people miss is that lisp doesn't NEED libraries. This sounds a bit overly optimistic to me...
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > I am the lead developer on Axiom which is a very large lisp project (about 1 million things of code) to do computer algebra. The help system and graphics were implemented in C but browsers did not exist at the time (1970s). These are being reimplemented in lisp using Firefox and the canvas facility. > In the past I helped develop a product for building rule-based programs which was sold by IBM. It was entirely in lisp. > I helped develop an expert system (FAME, a Finance and Marketing Expert) to price and sell IBM mainframe hardware. It was written entirely in lisp. > I developed a language (KROPS) which was a symmetric representation of a knowledge language (KREP, Knowledge Representation) and a rule-based language (OPS5 A rule-based language). It was entirely in lisp. > I developed a robot planning program to build and assemble objects from their computer-aided design descriptions (BOXER - A Design- to-Build system). It was entirely in lisp. This sounds a bit like if he hasn't needed libraries yet, lisp probably doesn't need libraries.
  - rodw 12y ago
    This is an impressive list, but it sounds like these programs are all within the same general category, and that category is a particular sweet-spot for lisp. I think when people complain about a lack of library support in lisp they aren't looking for libraries for symbolic manipulation but for more mundane things.
norswap 12y ago
>In Java I need "factory objects", "visitors", and other such pieces of "design patterns". In lisp, I have never needed to write a "factory". The whole "visitor" pattern becomes a 1-line (map...) call. You don't need any of those things, although they (regrettably) certainly are in the culture.
agumonkey 12y ago
I searched for this so many times. I thought it was a blog post, not a ML one.
AnimalMuppet 12y ago
I presume that "graph" here means "data structure" rather than "graphics". I could see creating the data structure in Lisp code just in passing, with no library needed. Easy. Computer graphics? Not so much.

29 points by momo-reina 12y ago

> So, yes, lisp does not HAVE a lot of libraries. But what people miss is that lisp doesn't NEED libraries. This sounds a bit overly optimistic to me...

copsarebastards 12y ago
> I am the lead developer on Axiom which is a very large lisp project (about 1 million things of code) to do computer algebra. The help system and graphics were implemented in C but browsers did not exist at the time (1970s). These are being reimplemented in lisp using Firefox and the canvas facility. > In the past I helped develop a product for building rule-based programs which was sold by IBM. It was entirely in lisp. > I helped develop an expert system (FAME, a Finance and Marketing Expert) to price and sell IBM mainframe hardware. It was written entirely in lisp. > I developed a language (KROPS) which was a symmetric representation of a knowledge language (KREP, Knowledge Representation) and a rule-based language (OPS5 A rule-based language). It was entirely in lisp. > I developed a robot planning program to build and assemble objects from their computer-aided design descriptions (BOXER - A Design- to-Build system). It was entirely in lisp. This sounds a bit like if he hasn't needed libraries yet, lisp probably doesn't need libraries.
- rodw 12y ago
  This is an impressive list, but it sounds like these programs are all within the same general category, and that category is a particular sweet-spot for lisp. I think when people complain about a lack of library support in lisp they aren't looking for libraries for symbolic manipulation but for more mundane things.

norswap 12y ago

>In Java I need "factory objects", "visitors", and other such pieces of "design patterns". In lisp, I have never needed to write a "factory". The whole "visitor" pattern becomes a 1-line (map...) call. You don't need any of those things, although they (regrettably) certainly are in the culture.

agumonkey 12y ago

I searched for this so many times. I thought it was a blog post, not a ML one.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago

I presume that "graph" here means "data structure" rather than "graphics". I could see creating the data structure in Lisp code just in passing, with no library needed. Easy. Computer graphics? Not so much.