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> I'd say replace Scheme with Python or something mainstream that's similarly powerful. I use Nix, which is a non-Lispy language which Guix is based on, and I'

> I'd say replace Scheme with Python or something mainstream that's similarly powerful. I use Nix, which is a non-Lispy language which Guix is based on, and I've found myself wanting Lisp-like metaprogramming on several occasions; which Python isn't suited for. I might switch to Guix precisely for that. > Adding LISP to stuff usually kills it off unfortunately Do you have any examples? Lisp has been around since the 1950s, and Scheme since the 1970s; they seem to be pretty death-proof. Python's only been around since the 1990s, so it's got a shorter track record.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
It's a great series of languages with plenty of advantages. There's still a small niche that uses it and one variant that's mainstreaming. Python is a knockoff of it with a decent standard library that grew wildly successful. It's why I recommend it as next best thing. "Do you have any examples? " Most articles written on history of LISP and its advantages come with examples of it going away in various companies or not getting adopted in general. Just try to recall how many of the following were done in (and still run on) LISP to see what I mean: processor support; operating systems; compilers; business apps; productivity tools; widely-used libraries; web services; popular FOSS apps or services; mobile apps or services; embedded systems. I'm sure your list in each is going to be tiny compared to the one's that chose alternative platforms. That's the LISP effect. Both commercial products and FLOSS have continuously fleed from the LISP's. Those that used mainstream alternatives got plenty of success. Just compare... pick a variant... a LISP's success against C/C++, C#, Java, PHP, Python and so on. You can have a great idea but hardly anyone will contribute to it if it's LISP. Clojure's been the only exception, it's tied to JVM, and still is barely a blip [1] on the overall radar. So, that's what I mean. You can use what increases odds of extension or adoption. Or you can use LISP with difficulty getting commercial or FOSS help. Now, the types of people that can churn out great LISP might be worth the extra effort and money. Jane St has a similar philosophy for Ocaml. Just worth knowing it's going to be an uphill battle compared to the alternatives. [1] http://langpop.com/ http://langpop.com/
- lispm 11y ago
  I don't think you are far off. Lisp provides an added complexity with its code is data / data is code philosophy, that makes it harder to use compared to primitive scripting languages like PHP (which will have a hard time to leave its domain). At the same time Lisp attracts a bunch of people because it is different. Which at the same time hinders its mass adoption, also secures its survival. > tiny compared to the one's that chose alternative platforms There are also a few domains where there are several Lisp applications or some which won't go away, even though the domain might be very specialized. For example in Computer Algebra: Maxima, Reduce and Axiom are all still maintained. In music composition there is a bunch of applications. Some new (OpusModus) and some old (PWGL, OpenMusic, Symbolic Composer). There are a few theorem provers used like ACL2 and PVS (Nasa). In CAD several Lisp system were bought off the market (for example iCAD by Dassault), but others still exist (like Genworks, or PTC's CREO elements). There are some of these clusters, small but interesting. Shortly after the AI winter Lisp was mostly dead and only a few barely maintained implementations have remained. Now more than ten Lisp implementations are being maintained, two large commercial implementations (Allegro CL and LispWorks) are still under further development and new implementations still appear from time to time (like CLASP on top of the LLVM or mocl, a full program to C translator for mobile applications). Thus there are people who can maintain and develop complex implementations and there are some users out there. It's small compared to PHP or Python, but it seems that there is a sustainable 'market'.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Your post is mostly accurate. Yet, the number of maintained implementations doesn't tell me anything about whether it's mainstream or worth using. Brainfuck language has a whole page worth of variants, implementations, uses, IDE's and so on. I doubt anyone will argue that we should use it for commercial projects. ;) A maintained, active implementation is only a start for a language. For LISP, the market is small and fragmented. They've always had the problem of siloing off from each other while mostly not building enough standardized functionality to get momentum. The language also has lots of warts from the old days that it should eliminate (Clojure does a bit). They've mostly ignored all this and that's why the language doesn't go anywhere. That Python, inspired by LISP, lacks every one of these problems is probably a reason for its success. Far as LISP's, I thought about relearning it and taking another go at it. Racket is the most interesting to me in terms of power, available libraries, community, and IDE. My old trick was doing imperative programming in LISP for rapid iteration and then auto-generating equivalent code to be handed off to a C or C++ compiler. Let me macro out the hacks needed for portability, performance, and security in many cases. Plus, interactive development + incremental function compilation is AWESOME. Thinking on two lines this time. One is to redo my old approach with C and Go as the new targets. That lets me piggy-back on all their momentum with rapid prototyping and zero-to-low-overhead abstractions. Another is to reimplement Python & its standard lib in LISP in a way that integrates code in both. That should give a performance boost, a way into LISP for Python developers, and let me use Python code/libraries. Ton of work going into the latter. Really busy so not sure if I can do either. What do you think about the options?

nickpsecurity 11y ago

It's a great series of languages with plenty of advantages. There's still a small niche that uses it and one variant that's mainstreaming. Python is a knockoff of it with a decent standard library that grew wildly successful. It's why I recommend it as next best thing. "Do you have any examples? " Most articles written on history of LISP and its advantages come with examples of it going away in various companies or not getting adopted in general. Just try to recall how many of the following were done in (and still run on) LISP to see what I mean: processor support; operating systems; compilers; business apps; productivity tools; widely-used libraries; web services; popular FOSS apps or services; mobile apps or services; embedded systems. I'm sure your list in each is going to be tiny compared to the one's that chose alternative platforms. That's the LISP effect. Both commercial products and FLOSS have continuously fleed from the LISP's. Those that used mainstream alternatives got plenty of success. Just compare... pick a variant... a LISP's success against C/C++, C#, Java, PHP, Python and so on. You can have a great idea but hardly anyone will contribute to it if it's LISP. Clojure's been the only exception, it's tied to JVM, and still is barely a blip [1] on the overall radar. So, that's what I mean. You can use what increases odds of extension or adoption. Or you can use LISP with difficulty getting commercial or FOSS help. Now, the types of people that can churn out great LISP might be worth the extra effort and money. Jane St has a similar philosophy for Ocaml. Just worth knowing it's going to be an uphill battle compared to the alternatives. [1] http://langpop.com/ http://langpop.com/

lispm 11y ago
I don't think you are far off. Lisp provides an added complexity with its code is data / data is code philosophy, that makes it harder to use compared to primitive scripting languages like PHP (which will have a hard time to leave its domain). At the same time Lisp attracts a bunch of people because it is different. Which at the same time hinders its mass adoption, also secures its survival. > tiny compared to the one's that chose alternative platforms There are also a few domains where there are several Lisp applications or some which won't go away, even though the domain might be very specialized. For example in Computer Algebra: Maxima, Reduce and Axiom are all still maintained. In music composition there is a bunch of applications. Some new (OpusModus) and some old (PWGL, OpenMusic, Symbolic Composer). There are a few theorem provers used like ACL2 and PVS (Nasa). In CAD several Lisp system were bought off the market (for example iCAD by Dassault), but others still exist (like Genworks, or PTC's CREO elements). There are some of these clusters, small but interesting. Shortly after the AI winter Lisp was mostly dead and only a few barely maintained implementations have remained. Now more than ten Lisp implementations are being maintained, two large commercial implementations (Allegro CL and LispWorks) are still under further development and new implementations still appear from time to time (like CLASP on top of the LLVM or mocl, a full program to C translator for mobile applications). Thus there are people who can maintain and develop complex implementations and there are some users out there. It's small compared to PHP or Python, but it seems that there is a sustainable 'market'.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Your post is mostly accurate. Yet, the number of maintained implementations doesn't tell me anything about whether it's mainstream or worth using. Brainfuck language has a whole page worth of variants, implementations, uses, IDE's and so on. I doubt anyone will argue that we should use it for commercial projects. ;) A maintained, active implementation is only a start for a language. For LISP, the market is small and fragmented. They've always had the problem of siloing off from each other while mostly not building enough standardized functionality to get momentum. The language also has lots of warts from the old days that it should eliminate (Clojure does a bit). They've mostly ignored all this and that's why the language doesn't go anywhere. That Python, inspired by LISP, lacks every one of these problems is probably a reason for its success. Far as LISP's, I thought about relearning it and taking another go at it. Racket is the most interesting to me in terms of power, available libraries, community, and IDE. My old trick was doing imperative programming in LISP for rapid iteration and then auto-generating equivalent code to be handed off to a C or C++ compiler. Let me macro out the hacks needed for portability, performance, and security in many cases. Plus, interactive development + incremental function compilation is AWESOME. Thinking on two lines this time. One is to redo my old approach with C and Go as the new targets. That lets me piggy-back on all their momentum with rapid prototyping and zero-to-low-overhead abstractions. Another is to reimplement Python & its standard lib in LISP in a way that integrates code in both. That should give a performance boost, a way into LISP for Python developers, and let me use Python code/libraries. Ton of work going into the latter. Really busy so not sure if I can do either. What do you think about the options?