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Why Lisp is Awesome

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Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#51

Post by abstractbill »

lispm wrote: post #38
abstractbill wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but nobody would seriously write a programming language that used XML for its syntax.

So you say existing XML-based programming languages were 'written' by non-serious people? 'Water': source. . . else “OK” > . See also XSLT, XL, RuleML, ...

So you say existing XML-based programming languages were 'written' by non-serious people?

Whether or not the people who wrote (sorry, I guess "designed" is the more appropriate word) these languages were serious, I do believe they are a dead-end.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#52

Post by jodrellblank »

lispm wrote: post #49
blasdel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not think of a more clearly terrible example than Geology! The Grand Canyon is in no way exempt from time -- millions of years ago it was just another unremarkable course of the Colorado River, and millions of years from now it will have eroded to nothingness. The Himalayas used to be an unremarkable coastline, and the Appalachians hills were once taller than Everest is now.

Awesome is an impression by a person that makes an observation. Millions ago the earth had no Grand Canyon (and thus could not be observed) and millions years ago there were no observers that could be impressed by something. As long as there is a GRAND CANYON (a label for an observable geological feature given by man) the GRAND CANYON will be awesome. Your father found the Grand Canyon awesome and and your children w…

Unless there is an atomic spaceship war in a hundred years which scars the earth with canyons that size every few hundred miles. Then our grand children will not find "the Grand Canyon" awesome, they will find it "just another of those huge canyons that are everywhere and really boring".

Redwoods are awesome trees because of their size. If all other trees died out and Redwoods were the only tree, they wouldn't be awesome, they would be "normal tree size".

Unless you are high you don't go around being awe inspired by everyday things. Awesome is implicitly comparing with "everything else". Different things aren't awesome, but awesome things are different - but only while they are different.

> a Porsche from 1970 is still awesome

Not to me. A Veyron, now that's awesome. Spitfires are awesome, but only anachronistically - for their time and their reputation at the time - they don't hold a candle to a modern fighter.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#53

Post by jodrellblank »

ieure wrote: post #18
rntz wrote: post #9

This isn't why Lisp is awesome. This is why Lisp was awesome, back 50 years ago. Every single one of these features has since been adopted by mainstream scripting languages. What still sets Lisp apart is its metalinguistic capability - macros (hygienic or not).

I was specifically writing about features Lisp pioneered which other languages adopted. I think it's enlightening to understand the roots and history of things, and fint it amazing that such an old language pioneered so many fundamental constructs. Perhaps by 2059, we'll have languages with macros and regular syntax.

> Perhaps by 2059, we'll have languages with macros and regular syntax.

Boo has macros ... http://boo.codehaus.org/Language+Guide (at the end, under 'advanced features'.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#54

Post by lispm »

jodrellblank wrote: post #53
ieure wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was specifically writing about features Lisp pioneered which other languages adopted. I think it's enlightening to understand the roots and history of things, and fint it amazing that such an old language pioneered so many fundamental constructs. Perhaps by 2059, we'll have languages with macros and regular syntax.

> Perhaps by 2059, we'll have languages with macros and regular syntax. Boo has macros ... http://boo.codehaus.org/Language+Guide (at the end, under 'advanced features'.

C has macros.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#55

Post by lispm »

justinhj wrote: post #32
lispm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making that up. Awesome is a description like 'green'. Yesterday we saw an awesome game. The sound of the new stereo is awesome. The view from that skyscraper is awesome. If I compare something I'd say: Yesterday I saw the most awesome game. etc.

Not really. Inspiring awe is a property based on when you see it. If you could demo an iphone to someone in 1970 it would be awesome; if you demo it to someone in 2015 it would be an old iphone. Green is forever.

http://www.porsche.com/germany/sportandevents/motorsport/his...

http://www.ausmotive.com/2009/03/20/porsche-917-celebrates-4...

You would not find that Porsche 917 from 1970 awesome?

http://www.ausmotive.com/images/Porsche-917-01.jpg

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#56

Post by lispm »

jodrellblank wrote: post #52
lispm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome is an impression by a person that makes an observation. Millions ago the earth had no Grand Canyon (and thus could not be observed) and millions years ago there were no observers that could be impressed by something. As long as there is a GRAND CANYON (a label for an observable geological feature given by man) the GRAND CANYON will be awesome. Your father found the Grand Canyon awesome and and your children w…

Unless there is an atomic spaceship war in a hundred years which scars the earth with canyons that size every few hundred miles. Then our grand children will not find "the Grand Canyon" awesome, they will find it "just another of those huge canyons that are everywhere and really boring". Redwoods are awesome trees because of their size. If all other trees died out and Redwoods were the only tree, they wouldn't be awe…

I find a lot of cars awesome. Because they ALL have the SAME qualities that I like: excellent design, fantastic engineering, etc.

Sure, there might be cars with less fantastic engineering, those I might not find awesome. But it says nothing about that there is only a single thing of a certain type that I can find awesome or that other things are less or more awesome. 'Just awesome' stands for it alone.

No, I don't find the Veyron awesome. That's just butt ugly.

These are awesome cars:

http://www.ausmotive.com/images/Porsche-917-01.jpg

Especially the one in the front.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#57

Post by dmoney »

lispm wrote: post #30
DrJokepu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that appreciating Lisp's minimalistic, tree-like syntax requires a very mathematical way of thinking. Many (perhaps most) developers have a different way of thinking. There's nothing wrong with that, diversity is a good thing but because of that, I don't think that the S-Expression syntax will ever become "mainstream".

It is already. XML is full of prefix, nested syntax.

I think a better word would be "outfix".

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#58

Post by manicolosi »

ieure wrote: post #16
sokoloff wrote: post #5

If anyone misses Geocities or myspace, look at this site in IE. I'm not sure what exactly the point of (seemingly) intentionally making your blog site readable in FF and outrageously hard to read in IE is...

I got tired of fixing layouts in IE and decided it would be more fun to break it instead.

That's too bad. I'm stuck at work and wanted to read this.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#59

Post by likpok »

lispm wrote: post #48
likpok wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misunderstanding his point. Lisp used to be awesome because it implemented feature X. That is, show people feature X in Lisp, and they would be impressed because nothing else did X . Now, everything does X. Showing someone Lisp doing X will get the response of 'So what?'. Therefore, Lisp is no longer awesome because of feature X.

You are misunderstanding the original point. Lisp has certain qualities that are rare, designed in a special way and work together in special ways. Almost none of the mainstream scripting languages uses simple code as data as Lisp does. Not Ruby. Not Python. Not PHP. Not JavaScript. None of them have the roots in a meta-circular interpreter that fits on a page. http://arcfn.com/2008/07/maxwells-equations-of-software-…

Which is different (entirely) from what the article was saying. It listed off several things which current languages do.

What (someone) up the chain was saying was exactly that. Lisp is interesting because of those things that it alone does. Not because it is capable of things that other languages do.

Re: Why Lisp is Awesome

#60

Post by sokoloff »

ieure wrote: post #16
sokoloff wrote: post #5

If anyone misses Geocities or myspace, look at this site in IE. I'm not sure what exactly the point of (seemingly) intentionally making your blog site readable in FF and outrageously hard to read in IE is...

I got tired of fixing layouts in IE and decided it would be more fun to break it instead.

That's certainly one approach.

From the outside, my interpretation of that is "I don't value my own opinion enough to make it accessible to users of other extremely common browsers."

I assume you blog because you feel like you have something to say that's worth reading. Making that content inaccessible to a very large segment of the browsers/users in the world works contrary to that. (I do sympathize with the PITA factor.)

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