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At reddit were not really Lisp experts - more like they heard the hype and believed it for a while, without having written anything substantial before. They wro

by lispm 12y ago

At reddit were not really Lisp experts - more like they heard the hype and believed it for a while, without having written anything substantial before. They wrote not more than a sketch of the site in Lisp and at the first sight of problems they switched to a language/implementation they were more familiar with. Neither Lisp in general nor SBCL specifically were/are that much used to form the bases of high profile websites. > I know of several other large corporate projects over the years that made similar switches for similar reasons. I've seen lots of large corporations rewriting all kinds of software. For example I've seen a lot C++ software being rewritten in Java. Large corporations are not interested to use 'powerful' languages like Lisp. They are more interested in cost cutting, outsourcing, offshoring, 'industrialized' software production, cheap supply of labor, ... > Continuing to claim that Lisp is better than all the proven better alternatives starts to make it smell like religion. It's religion. Stallman's statement is decades old. Lisp is powerful, flexible, etc. ... but there are a lot of great alternatives. Plus, as I said above, in many companies 'powerful' and 'flexible' is not the most important criteria when selecting languages and tools. Java got successful because of other qualities: being developed by SUN (then Google and IBM) for enterprise software development. 'GNU CL' was never a GNU project as such. GNU CL based on KCL/AKCL and has been used in a few applications. It never has been a focus of the GNU project - it's merely published under their umbrella. Stallman also never was a fan of Common Lisp - when he developed Emacs Lisp, he developed a very much simpler version, also based on Maclisp - which Common Lisp replaced.

bane 12y ago
So here's the list you provided, somebody had to rebut me, we may as well enjoy the debate. - to use a lisp on large-scale production software, the developers need to be experts, while the same isn't true of other languages - if you just commit long enough, a lisp will come through in the end - unless it's the wrong lisp (without specifying what is a right lisp) - large corporations don't want to use languages that are powerful or flexible, they prefer weak and rigid languages - lisps don't provide cheap, large-scale, easy to synchronize development at an industrial scale - other languages became successful because they targeted their audience So let's invert that and derive the ideal audience for a lisp that you just described: - not on a large scale project or team (something you can write 80% over a weekend in Python is too large) - already at an expert level - will commit to a path even when it's not working I'm not saying this to bash your statement, but I think you've provided a microcosm of why not to use Lisp. From a language selection standpoint, there are pitifully few consequential projects that scope to the ideal for a lisp. There's no obvious as to why its better, and there is to all of the alternatives. Based on this, it's possible to make easy arguments as to why to choose Asm, Perl or 80's Basic over a lisp that make those languages look like great ideas for almost any project where a lisp might be proposed. And nobody still has backed up a downvote with a pointer to a good lisp project. Not even one. I can probably find a list of ongoing MS-Basic projects without too much fuss, but it's like doing dentistry on an angry tiger to get something similar from the lisp community.
- lispm 12y ago
  > - to use a lisp on large-scale production software, the developers need to be experts, while the same isn't true of other languages That's not what I said. > - if you just commit long enough, a lisp will come through in the end That's not what I said. > - unless it's the wrong lisp (without specifying what is a right lisp) That's not what I said. > large corporations don't want to use languages that are powerful or flexible, they prefer weak and rigid languages That's not what I said. > - lisps don't provide cheap, large-scale, easy to synchronize development at an industrial scale That's not what I said. If you want honest discussions, then you might want not to distort what I've said. Things are not black or white. > And nobody still has backed up a downvote with a pointer to a good lisp project. Not even one * Google did the core of their flight search engine in Lisp. * DWAVE writes the OS for their quantum processor project in Lisp. * American Express checks credit card transactions using a rule-based system in Lisp * PTC sells a large CAD system, written largely in Lisp etc. etc.
  - bane 12y ago
    Nope, it's actually what you said, point for point in the same order. 1. "At reddit were not really Lisp experts" - this implies that they would have been successful if they were Lisp experts. Not needing to be an expert in a language to be productive is a powerful reason to use something that's not a Lisp. 2. "They wrote not more than a sketch of the site in Lisp and at the first sight of problems they switched to a language/implementation they were more familiar with" - implies that they didn't commit long enough to the language and that it would have worked out in the end. Reddit says their code wasn't even all that complicated, and they were already hitting huge intractable problems. Problems large enough that moving to an entirely different language was a better solution than continuing to fight with tools that didn't work. 3. "'GNU CL' was never a GNU project as such. GNU CL based on KCL/AKCL and has been used in a few applications. It never has been a focus of the GNU project - it's merely published under their umbrella." - This implies that GNU CL is not a good Lisp. What is a good Lisp? No idea, apparently there isn't one because RMS had to roll his own. Having to write your own dialect of a language to be productive does not sound like a good language. 4. "Large corporations are not interested to use 'powerful' languages like Lisp. They are more interested in cost cutting, outsourcing, offshoring, 'industrialized' software production, cheap supply of labor, ..." - you use a lot of words describing what large corporations want. The implication is that Lisp doesn't offer or support these things or corporations would be using one. 5. "Plus, as I said above, in many companies 'powerful' and 'flexible' is not the most important criteria when selecting languages and tools. Java got successful because of other qualities: being developed by SUN (then Google and IBM) for enterprise software development." See #4 above. And yes, anybody can go to the "Applications" section for Common Lisp on Wikipedia. What's more interesting is that Lispers, part of the Lisp community, can't just name some interesting projects off the cuff. Most developers can rattle off a list of interesting projects in languages they have only tangential relationship with. If you look around in the Lisp community, you see lots of "stuck at square one" with hundreds of implementations of some kind of Lisp, or Lisp compilers, or Lisp written in Foo language or Lisp-likes, but not a real big ecosystem beyond that. Why don't lispers just say "Hunchentoot", "Maxima" or something (Heck HN is written in a Lisp last I checked). These are legitimate, interesting projects! Lisp is exactly where it has been for decades, despite being taught formerly in major schools, have the same access to the internet and community as elsewhere and having supposed benefits that make it "better". But something like 90% of the time, when developers have to choose a language to work in, they don't choose a Lisp. It's not powerful if it doesn't solve people's problems. This bizarre cognitive dissonance among lispers is a real problem for the community and a big part of why the language is stuck in such a quagmire.

by lispm 12y ago

bane 12y ago

So here's the list you provided, somebody had to rebut me, we may as well enjoy the debate. - to use a lisp on large-scale production software, the developers need to be experts, while the same isn't true of other languages - if you just commit long enough, a lisp will come through in the end - unless it's the wrong lisp (without specifying what is a right lisp) - large corporations don't want to use languages that are powerful or flexible, they prefer weak and rigid languages - lisps don't provide cheap, large-scale, easy to synchronize development at an industrial scale - other languages became successful because they targeted their audience So let's invert that and derive the ideal audience for a lisp that you just described: - not on a large scale project or team (something you can write 80% over a weekend in Python is too large) - already at an expert level - will commit to a path even when it's not working I'm not saying this to bash your statement, but I think you've provided a microcosm of why not to use Lisp. From a language selection standpoint, there are pitifully few consequential projects that scope to the ideal for a lisp. There's no obvious as to why its better, and there is to all of the alternatives. Based on this, it's possible to make easy arguments as to why to choose Asm, Perl or 80's Basic over a lisp that make those languages look like great ideas for almost any project where a lisp might be proposed. And nobody still has backed up a downvote with a pointer to a good lisp project. Not even one. I can probably find a list of ongoing MS-Basic projects without too much fuss, but it's like doing dentistry on an angry tiger to get something similar from the lisp community.

lispm 12y ago
> - to use a lisp on large-scale production software, the developers need to be experts, while the same isn't true of other languages That's not what I said. > - if you just commit long enough, a lisp will come through in the end That's not what I said. > - unless it's the wrong lisp (without specifying what is a right lisp) That's not what I said. > large corporations don't want to use languages that are powerful or flexible, they prefer weak and rigid languages That's not what I said. > - lisps don't provide cheap, large-scale, easy to synchronize development at an industrial scale That's not what I said. If you want honest discussions, then you might want not to distort what I've said. Things are not black or white. > And nobody still has backed up a downvote with a pointer to a good lisp project. Not even one * Google did the core of their flight search engine in Lisp. * DWAVE writes the OS for their quantum processor project in Lisp. * American Express checks credit card transactions using a rule-based system in Lisp * PTC sells a large CAD system, written largely in Lisp etc. etc.
- bane 12y ago
  Nope, it's actually what you said, point for point in the same order. 1. "At reddit were not really Lisp experts" - this implies that they would have been successful if they were Lisp experts. Not needing to be an expert in a language to be productive is a powerful reason to use something that's not a Lisp. 2. "They wrote not more than a sketch of the site in Lisp and at the first sight of problems they switched to a language/implementation they were more familiar with" - implies that they didn't commit long enough to the language and that it would have worked out in the end. Reddit says their code wasn't even all that complicated, and they were already hitting huge intractable problems. Problems large enough that moving to an entirely different language was a better solution than continuing to fight with tools that didn't work. 3. "'GNU CL' was never a GNU project as such. GNU CL based on KCL/AKCL and has been used in a few applications. It never has been a focus of the GNU project - it's merely published under their umbrella." - This implies that GNU CL is not a good Lisp. What is a good Lisp? No idea, apparently there isn't one because RMS had to roll his own. Having to write your own dialect of a language to be productive does not sound like a good language. 4. "Large corporations are not interested to use 'powerful' languages like Lisp. They are more interested in cost cutting, outsourcing, offshoring, 'industrialized' software production, cheap supply of labor, ..." - you use a lot of words describing what large corporations want. The implication is that Lisp doesn't offer or support these things or corporations would be using one. 5. "Plus, as I said above, in many companies 'powerful' and 'flexible' is not the most important criteria when selecting languages and tools. Java got successful because of other qualities: being developed by SUN (then Google and IBM) for enterprise software development." See #4 above. And yes, anybody can go to the "Applications" section for Common Lisp on Wikipedia. What's more interesting is that Lispers, part of the Lisp community, can't just name some interesting projects off the cuff. Most developers can rattle off a list of interesting projects in languages they have only tangential relationship with. If you look around in the Lisp community, you see lots of "stuck at square one" with hundreds of implementations of some kind of Lisp, or Lisp compilers, or Lisp written in Foo language or Lisp-likes, but not a real big ecosystem beyond that. Why don't lispers just say "Hunchentoot", "Maxima" or something (Heck HN is written in a Lisp last I checked). These are legitimate, interesting projects! Lisp is exactly where it has been for decades, despite being taught formerly in major schools, have the same access to the internet and community as elsewhere and having supposed benefits that make it "better". But something like 90% of the time, when developers have to choose a language to work in, they don't choose a Lisp. It's not powerful if it doesn't solve people's problems. This bizarre cognitive dissonance among lispers is a real problem for the community and a big part of why the language is stuck in such a quagmire.