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The Nature of Lisp (2006)

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Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#21

Post by BeetleB »

kruhft wrote: post #2

"Why on Earth would anyone want to use a language with such horrific syntax?!" What is it with statements like this? It just sounds like a 'meme' to me, that everyone hears (even from advocates like this one) at first that the 'syntax' (of which there is a lot less than most languages in a Lisp) is 'horrible'? Of course, we, the learn-ed of Lisp, say that after a while the 'parens just disappear', which they don't, b…

I can handle parentheses.

What really gets me? Semicolons. Most useless character in programming language history. Every time I switch from a language that doesn't require them to one that does, the pirates run away from me.

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#22

Post by bunderbunder »

ajkjk wrote: post #12
kruhft wrote: post #2

"Why on Earth would anyone want to use a language with such horrific syntax?!" What is it with statements like this? It just sounds like a 'meme' to me, that everyone hears (even from advocates like this one) at first that the 'syntax' (of which there is a lot less than most languages in a Lisp) is 'horrible'? Of course, we, the learn-ed of Lisp, say that after a while the 'parens just disappear', which they don't, b…

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

It's not like that everywhere in the lispverse. I was overjoyed when Racket offered functions like 'first', 'rest', and 'second' to use in place of 'car', 'cdr' and 'cadr'. (Though it still retains the gross names, for backward compatibility.) Clojure does similar, with a hefty dose of additional pragmatism.

TBH, though, as someone who used to love Scheme (and has yet to spend any real time with Clojure), I agree that there's a hefty amount of nostalgia involved. 2 or 3 decades ago, lisp felt like a total sea change compared to what else was out there, which was mostly just a bunch of C and BASIC dialects. Nowadays even the C dialects have adopted most of what made lisp feel great, and I just don't feel that great a need to go back to living a world where (almost) everything is a linked list.

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#23

Post by felideon »

ajkjk wrote: post #12
kruhft wrote: post #2

"Why on Earth would anyone want to use a language with such horrific syntax?!" What is it with statements like this? It just sounds like a 'meme' to me, that everyone hears (even from advocates like this one) at first that the 'syntax' (of which there is a lot less than most languages in a Lisp) is 'horrible'? Of course, we, the learn-ed of Lisp, say that after a while the 'parens just disappear', which they don't, b…

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

> Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it.

Oh please, cry me a river. Like monads, promises, or props are any better.

> If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable notations" to get "coding nirvana", and coding nirvana is so great, why not fix the notations? do you just think everyone should have to struggle because you did?

Your ignorance is baffling. The notation is a feature, not a bug. If you want the feature, then yes, you will have to struggle.

While cons and cdr as concepts are necessary to learning what goes underneath the hood, idiomatic lisp is rarely written in terms of cons and cdr.

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#24

Post by mikegerwitz »

ajkjk wrote: post #12
kruhft wrote: post #2

"Why on Earth would anyone want to use a language with such horrific syntax?!" What is it with statements like this? It just sounds like a 'meme' to me, that everyone hears (even from advocates like this one) at first that the 'syntax' (of which there is a lot less than most languages in a Lisp) is 'horrible'? Of course, we, the learn-ed of Lisp, say that after a while the 'parens just disappear', which they don't, b…

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

Conventions exist in every language. `car', `cons', and `cdr' are also part of certain standards (e.g. RnRS). And, honestly, they compose a bit better than `first', and `rest' for combinations like `caddr' and `caaddr'. I suspect that you're going to be even more unhappy with those constructions.

The same can be said about older languages like C, which also have standardized notations.

Why fix what isn't broken?

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#25

Post by spion »

The surface problem of LISP are the parenthesis. The deeper problem is that its a very potent NIH enabler: most of us are not really that talented or have the time to properly invent things; those that are tend to not quite like other people's things (and are good at spotting flaws in them) so they work on their own "better" things (e.g. see arc).

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#26

Post by [deleted] »

felideon wrote: post #23
ajkjk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

> Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. Oh please, cry me a river. Like monads, promises, or props are any better. > If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable notations"…

[deleted]

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#27

Post by ajkjk »

felideon wrote: post #23
ajkjk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

> Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. Oh please, cry me a river. Like monads, promises, or props are any better. > If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable notations"…

I know that. My point is that the antiquated terminology's survival seems to be a symptom of a culture that values the wrong things: like pointless historical names instead of clear modernized ones.

(Monads and props are definitely not better. You won't find me defending them! 'Promise' is a much better name, though.)

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#28

Post by akvadrako »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #6
nathell wrote: post #4

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4765067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9575786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1319034

In case you or anyone reading this were unaware, there is a link underneath stories called "past," which provides the service nathell did in parent.

Woah, I've been reading hackers news for years and never noticed that.

I would suggest it be an expanded list by default. It would really cut down on dupes and encourage everybody to build on the old conversation instead of rehashing it.

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#29

Post by aaron-lebo »

spion wrote: post #25

The surface problem of LISP are the parenthesis. The deeper problem is that its a very potent NIH enabler: most of us are not really that talented or have the time to properly invent things; those that are tend to not quite like other people's things (and are good at spotting flaws in them) so they work on their own "better" things (e.g. see arc).

The biggest problem, related to the NIH or not, is that other language ecosystems every month race ahead with new libraries, features, and compelling reasons to use them. The best arguments for lisp are 12 years old, in comparison.

Over time the advantages of lisp have gotten smaller and smaller, assuming they were ever anything more than the rationalizations of happy users. When the options were Python, Ruby, PHP, C++ 03, and Java, this held much more weight.

Re: The Nature of Lisp (2006)

#30

Post by ajkjk »

mikegerwitz wrote: post #24
ajkjk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind the parens, but the whole attitude feels indicative of a problem. Like - it's 2018 and people are still using 'cdr' and 'cons' as terminology and happily expecting other people to learn those words and not even feeling bad about it. If the person justifying Lisp doesn't mind that the word 'cons' is terrible, why should I trust their aesthetic sense about anything? If I have to have "miserable nota…

Conventions exist in every language. `car', `cons', and `cdr' are also part of certain standards (e.g. RnRS). And, honestly, they compose a bit better than `first', and `rest' for combinations like `caddr' and `caaddr'. I suspect that you're going to be even more unhappy with those constructions. The same can be said about older languages like C, which also have standardized notations. Why fix what isn't broken?

Because it is broken. It's not broken if you've already learned it and internalized the terminology; it's broken for everyone else because it's needlessly difficult to learn (and actively dissuades people from wanting to learn it, hence all the articles evangelizing Lisp).
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