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New Common Lisp website

lisp-lang.org

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Re: New Common Lisp website

#41

Post by jkrems »

xenophonf wrote: post #15
dri_ft wrote: post #10

I hate the current trend for websites to have about a page's worth of information spread over about eight pages' worth of space. I'm used to seeing it on startup websites, where it doesn't bother me so much because I expect those to be trendy. But I'm recently seeing it infect websites of old school geek projects that I feel should know better. This is one example and the new emacs website a few days ago was another.

I'll allow it. Lisp in general (and Common Lisp in particular) desperately needs better marketing, which unfortunately is susceptible to the vagaries of fashion. If dressing it up a little makes it more attractive to the next generation, then mission accomplished.

The problem is not that it's flashy but that it's hard to use. You have to accidentally scroll because the site is designed to hide the fact that there's more content at the bottom. At first glance it's a huge blue rectangle with a big "Common Lisp" in the middle, no other information. It's the kind of website someone who isn't already really motivated might just close because they can't immediately figure out how to proceed.

So no, good marketing isn't an argument for this kind of website, if anything I think it's one against.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#42

Post by eatonphil »

JadeNB wrote: post #40
pflanze wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say it more correctly (hopefully): Haskell contains a purely functional sub-language. It also has impure parts (provided by monads). Just like most programming languages have pure and impure parts. The difference is that Haskell employs the type system to segregate the two parts.

> It also has impure parts (provided by monads). Since we're going for precision, I note that monads have nothing to do with impurity ( https://wiki.haskell.org/What_a_Monad_is_not#Monads_are_not_... ). It just happens that IO, in which the impurity lives, is a monad. It is also a functor (in the category-theory, not Prolog or C++, sense), but that doesn't make functors impure, and it doesn't make monads impure (or i…

For anyone reading "functor" and moving on, this (http://www.catonmat.net/blog/on-functors/) is a great post discussing how the term is used in a variety of languages.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#43

Post by aidenn0 »

eudox wrote: post #35
Decade wrote: post #34

I love (sarcastically) how the Start here -> First Steps does not include any instructions on how to get a Common Lisp installed and running on your computer.

http://lisp-lang.org/learn/getting-started/ The link is above the 'Tutorials' heading. Maybe it needs some custom style to make it stand out.

I did a double-take on that as well, so it might.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#44

Post by cname »

janoc wrote: post #27
xenophonf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll allow it. Lisp in general (and Common Lisp in particular) desperately needs better marketing, which unfortunately is susceptible to the vagaries of fashion. If dressing it up a little makes it more attractive to the next generation, then mission accomplished.

Sorry, but a "website" which is basically a set of powerpoint slides in Javascript is certainly not going to help "market" anything. And to add insult to the injury, when you actually suffer through those empty marketing slogans, you get down to a big link "Start here" - which unveils a link to few very basic tutorials. What exactly is the point of such "website"? The information value of this is zero. What a waste o…

You may have found it to be a waste of time, but I thought it was a pretty good introduction. Probably the furthest I've gotten into Common Lisp over the past ten years or so.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#45

Post by cname »

jkrems wrote: post #41
xenophonf wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll allow it. Lisp in general (and Common Lisp in particular) desperately needs better marketing, which unfortunately is susceptible to the vagaries of fashion. If dressing it up a little makes it more attractive to the next generation, then mission accomplished.

The problem is not that it's flashy but that it's hard to use. You have to accidentally scroll because the site is designed to hide the fact that there's more content at the bottom. At first glance it's a huge blue rectangle with a big "Common Lisp" in the middle, no other information. It's the kind of website someone who isn't already really motivated might just close because they can't immediately figure out how to…

I can almost see your point, but these days I think most people who are interested in programming languages know to scroll, and that doesn't seem particularly onerous to me. Granted, they probably should make it a little more obvious, but it's not that bad.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#46

Post by alphapapa »

dri_ft wrote: post #10

I hate the current trend for websites to have about a page's worth of information spread over about eight pages' worth of space. I'm used to seeing it on startup websites, where it doesn't bother me so much because I expect those to be trendy. But I'm recently seeing it infect websites of old school geek projects that I feel should know better. This is one example and the new emacs website a few days ago was another.

Seriously, the entire first screen is empty space and "Common Lisp". Haven't these people heard of "the fold"? Please, someone, anyone, tell me what the point is of having no information on the entire first screen. This is a web page, not a PPT with an intro slide!

Whenever I see this pattern, I usually hit the back button, because it tells me that the site is a waste of time, put together by someone who doesn't critique their own work and has no attention to detail (not that something as enormous as the big, blue, empty first screen is a "detail").

The entire first page could be filled with useful information, key points to get people's attention, show Lisp's advantages, and convince people to give it a try. Instead it's useless, and visitors have to dig through screen after screen to find anything.

Most people will not bother. If they were interested enough to put that much effort into it, they'd probably already be using Lisp.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#47

Post by Flow »

golergka wrote: post #32

Learning Scheme with SICP right now, and there's a question I'm now pondering: how does one choose between Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Clojure and others? Is there a good comparison of Lisp-derived languages somewhere?

Stick with Scheme for SICP.

As for the other Lisps, I think you should give them all a lengthy and serious try. It's worth it.

For Common Lisp, when you have learnt it a bit, get the book Let over Lambda. It's a great bus-ride read and, IMHO, is one of the best Lisp books I've read.

When you get to Clojure, don't be put off by the JVM and the harsh stack traces and unhelpful error messages. Look at the Rich Hickey video presentations and realize Clojure is its own thing. There are lots of smart and practical choices made in Clojure.

I've not had time to give Racket a try yet. But it seems a very nice language with good implementation, docs and community.

Re: New Common Lisp website

#49

Post by pflanze »

JadeNB wrote: post #40
pflanze wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say it more correctly (hopefully): Haskell contains a purely functional sub-language. It also has impure parts (provided by monads). Just like most programming languages have pure and impure parts. The difference is that Haskell employs the type system to segregate the two parts.

> It also has impure parts (provided by monads). Since we're going for precision, I note that monads have nothing to do with impurity ( https://wiki.haskell.org/What_a_Monad_is_not#Monads_are_not_... ). It just happens that IO, in which the impurity lives, is a monad. It is also a functor (in the category-theory, not Prolog or C++, sense), but that doesn't make functors impure, and it doesn't make monads impure (or i…

Alright, so let me phrase it this way then?:

> To say it more correctly (hopefully): Haskell contains a purely functional sub-language. It also has impure parts. Just like most programming languages have pure and impure parts. The difference is that Haskell employs the type system to segregate the two parts.

(Anyway I'd be interested in how to access IO without using the IO monad; is there a lower-level type to use instead?)

Re: New Common Lisp website

#50

Post by Pranz »

fadelakin wrote: post #3

Can someone explain to me the main differences between a language like Common Lisp and Haskell? I'm planning on learning on a purely functional language this year and I've narrowed it down to Haskell and CL but I don't know which to pick. Haskell has sort of been winning due to my friends knowing it and using it. If you have any resources as well, please let me know. I don't know if this is the right place to post th…

As others said, code-as-data and macros are probably the big ones but there's also a difference in composability vs configuration as Chris Done explained very nicely: http://chrisdone.com/posts/haskell-lisp-philosophy-differenc...
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