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Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

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Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#41

Post by chvid »

klibertp wrote: post #28
chvid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK macros in Lisp are turing complete and executed at compile time. This means (in principle) that there is no guarantee that a Lisp compile will ever terminate. I don't know why the OP is been down voted. Lisp is not for everyone and every application; I think that is a perfectly reasonable point of view.

The OP is being downvoted because he lies. Common Lisp does have strong and optional static typing. It does have namespaces. As for CL having `eval` - well, this is true at least. But I fail to see how in the world could that be a bad thing...

If a language has an eval construct it is hard/impossible to reason about types, security and correctness. It also makes it hard to compile it to machine code.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#42

Post by hga »

klibertp wrote: post #28
chvid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK macros in Lisp are turing complete and executed at compile time. This means (in principle) that there is no guarantee that a Lisp compile will ever terminate. I don't know why the OP is been down voted. Lisp is not for everyone and every application; I think that is a perfectly reasonable point of view.

The OP is being downvoted because he lies. Common Lisp does have strong and optional static typing. It does have namespaces. As for CL having `eval` - well, this is true at least. But I fail to see how in the world could that be a bad thing...

A good implementation also has total dynamic type checking, and the better allow you to relax that for run time speed (although it was nearly free on Lisp Machines and can be pretty cheap on out of order superscalar CPUs like Intels, as long as you don't enable Hyperthreading which tends to use up the otherwise free execution engines that get used for it).

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#43

Post by chvid »

weavie wrote: post #34
chvid wrote: post #16

Yes. I have. People with gray beard, strong views on programming languages, politics and UFOs. I always assumed that were dressed up for the occasion and not really real; like someone doing a role playing game or maybe being Santa for the kids during Christmas.

Hmm.. my beard isn't fully grey yet.

(Don't worry - it will be). Just making on joke what a "Lisp advocate" is.

But seriously; if you meet people who really understand programming language design they will have full understanding for other ways of designing a language than whatever is their specialty. After all there is a reason why PL is still a developing field.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#44

Post by chvid »

pjc50 wrote: post #20
chvid wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK macros in Lisp are turing complete and executed at compile time. This means (in principle) that there is no guarantee that a Lisp compile will ever terminate. I don't know why the OP is been down voted. Lisp is not for everyone and every application; I think that is a perfectly reasonable point of view.

C++ templates are also turing complete, executed at compile time, and can result in extremely high compile times: http://cpptruths.blogspot.co.uk/2005/11/c-templates-are-turi... I don't think that failure to terminate compiles is too big a problem in practice; treat it as just another form of compile-time error and fix your program.

It is a problem for tool support; one of the reasons why Java and C# has better editors.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#45

Post by keymone »

nabla9 wrote: post #29
keymone wrote: post #23

i feel like a lot of lisps are trying to drag this "everything is a list" abstraction way too far than they should. clojure takes more practical and pragmatic approach of giving native residency in a language for useful data structures like arrays, maps and sets and it (along with many other features) has totally won me over. it's incredibly important for a language to be convenient. edit: and not only me it seems: h…

>i feel like a lot of lisps are trying to drag this "everything is a list" I think you are speaking out of ignorance here. "everything is a list" is just a metaphor. Everything is either list or atom and almost everything is atom.

> Everything is either list or atom and almost everything is atom.

how can you both say this and that i'm talking out of ignorance? you're basically confirming my words.

larger point i was making is that "everything is a list" abstraction/metaphor influenced the decision to not include native representation of other data structures into the language. because parens are enough to represent everything. well they aren't enough for people looking for convenient, practical and simple languages.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#46

Post by escherize »

thiht wrote: post #38
pjmlp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually people that complain, don't spend time counting the amount of times () [] {} appear on their beloved programming languages. print(args) => (print args) if (cond) { exp1} else {exp2 } => (if (cond) (exp1) (exp2)) array[index] => (index array) And so on. On average there is probably the same amount, but visually it kind of appears to be more.

You took the examples where the number of parentheses is the same. Here is a more honest example: if (a && !b) {expr} => (if (and (a) (not b)) (expr)) That's a simple expression and I'm not even sure I managed to match the () correctly

I agree it's hard to write lisp without a proper editor. Having seen the light I just can't go back now. The power, ease, and simplicity are not something I've experienced with non lisps.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#47

Post by adwf »

pjmlp wrote: post #27
jordigh wrote: post #18

I'm pretty sure the biggest reason it hasn't caught on is the syntax. http://jordi.platinum.linux.pl/piccies/lisp.png It's the most frequent complaint uttered against Lisp for a reason. All of the other things mentioned in the top responses are addressed by modern Lisp variants. If Rust or Swift were implemented with sexps and everything else about them were equal, they would have a lot of difficulty winning hearts a…

Usually people that complain, don't spend time counting the amount of times () [] {} appear on their beloved programming languages. print(args) => (print args) if (cond) { exp1} else {exp2 } => (if (cond) (exp1) (exp2)) array[index] => (index array) And so on. On average there is probably the same amount, but visually it kind of appears to be more.

Haha, yes. The number of times I've looked at javascript with something like this:

  	})
      })
    });
...trailing almost every function definition is equally absurd. At least with Lisp I only have to deal with one delimiter type and just count the number instead of the })})}); mess of javascript and some other languages.

Although I do have to say I think Python got it right in trying to do away with as much of it as feasible.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#48

Post by chvid »

chvid wrote: post #16

Yes. I have. People with gray beard, strong views on programming languages, politics and UFOs. I always assumed that were dressed up for the occasion and not really real; like someone doing a role playing game or maybe being Santa for the kids during Christmas.

Ok; HN really don't like jokes :-(

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#49

Post by jeffreyrogers »

nabla9 wrote: post #17

"And you're right: we were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++ programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp. Aren't you happy?" -- Guy Steele, Sun Microsystems Labs (about Java) http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/m...

If Java is halfway to Lisp it's no surprise Lisp didn't take over the world.

Re: Why didn't Common Lisp fix the world?

#50

Post by eli_gottlieb »

chvid wrote: post #8

Why on earth would it fix the world? It was a step forward in the history of programming languages; but somehow the end of it, the final fix? Why would anyone expect that? Programming languages are about providing a useful way for humans to formulate and implement their ideas. Starting by turning things on their head reverse polish notation style is bad start as it is counter intuitive to nearly everyone.

>Why on earth would it fix the world? It was a step forward in the history o

Exactly. Haskell took until 1998 to really come together! ;-)

(And cabal hell lasts forever.)

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