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Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

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Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#91

Post by bjoli »

rcarmo wrote: post #61

I tried out a bunch of Scheme implementations recently in search of one that could build standalone binaries and had a moderately sane take on HTTP requests for a pet project of mine: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2019/06/20/2310 That said, I would probably go with Clojure for other solutions, since the JVM gives it a lot of reach and flexibility for real-world applications.

Chicken is by no means an insanely fast scheme (even though it is fast compared to many other dynamic languages). If you can get gerbil to work you will probably have at least another 1.5-2 to gain.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#92

Post by sgt »

iLemming wrote: post #75
sgt wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a silly question, but what would be the real-life benefits trying to convert a Java team to Clojure in 2019?

- Productivity. Bulding stuff in Clojure is not only joyful but also can give you real (not imaginary, not theoretical, but real, measurable) boost; - Concise syntax. Less code - less bugs; - FP. Immutability by default is something that once you get used to it, it is hard to imagine having to write code without it; - REPL. I mean real REPL, not some kind of crippled "interactive shell". e.g.: Jupyter is interactive…

Would you use the REPL to inspect / modify / debug running applications in production, or would it mainly be useful for development purposes?

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#93

Post by oblio »

ludwigvan wrote: post #80
oblio wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? If you write some Clojure Leinigen automatically figures out the dependencies? If not, every package manager works like you describe, you need it plus something like the JVM and it just works (Maven, Gradle, npm, pip...).

I think he means that Clojure is a dependency (a JAR) that lein installs. npm, pip etc require node or python, they don't bootstrap. Perhaps it doesn't make a huge difference in practice, but it might help in getting everyone on the same version. For node, you need something like volta or nvm.

He just said Leinigen still needs the JRE preinstalled, functionally it's the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#94

Post by ozim »

cutler wrote: post #53
neilv wrote: post #17

Suggestions: 1. More requirements helps. What kinds of production-grade software? 2. For most purposes, you won't see the real benefits, compared to contemporary alternatives, until you have some experience with the Lisp. Enough experience that you realize that, although you can write in a Python or Ruby style in a Lisp, to some degree, there's other various idiomatic programming that's a bigger win sometimes. 3. Onc…

A good way to get Clojure into your contracting work is with polyglot solutions where Clojure, along with, say, Python sits behind a Node.js gateway. Combined in this way Clojure is always accompanied by 2 of the most popular languages - Javascript and Python.

So Clojure is useless and just stick to Python and Javascript. If you will push some customer on such mine, hope you have liability limitation in contract.

We work with big customer who is 90% Java, and we as C# shop have one project with them. It is all time fights to get rid of us. But we are doing good work and deliver so it is hard for them to kick us out.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#95

Post by logari »

mdhughes wrote: post #88

[Chicken Scheme]( https://call-cc.org ) is fast, makes native binaries, and has a giant library of "eggs" covering most of the SRFIs. It's R5RS working its way towards R7RS. I've been using it for my "Python but fast" code for the last year or so, and it's one of the best production languages I've ever had. [Chez Scheme]( https://scheme.com ) is super fast, and has the best REPL I've ever seen, but can't easily make…

A balanced and intelligent comment.

Although, if Racket is for educational uses only, if you see their main website you will notice that it is actively preparing itself to become the next Python.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#96

Post by Jamesharsel »

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Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#98

Post by thanatropism »

ozim wrote: post #94
cutler wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good way to get Clojure into your contracting work is with polyglot solutions where Clojure, along with, say, Python sits behind a Node.js gateway. Combined in this way Clojure is always accompanied by 2 of the most popular languages - Javascript and Python.

So Clojure is useless and just stick to Python and Javascript. If you will push some customer on such mine, hope you have liability limitation in contract. We work with big customer who is 90% Java, and we as C# shop have one project with them. It is all time fights to get rid of us. But we are doing good work and deliver so it is hard for them to kick us out.

There is Hy, which is to Python as Clojure is to Java.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#99

Post by cutler »

ozim wrote: post #94
cutler wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good way to get Clojure into your contracting work is with polyglot solutions where Clojure, along with, say, Python sits behind a Node.js gateway. Combined in this way Clojure is always accompanied by 2 of the most popular languages - Javascript and Python.

So Clojure is useless and just stick to Python and Javascript. If you will push some customer on such mine, hope you have liability limitation in contract. We work with big customer who is 90% Java, and we as C# shop have one project with them. It is all time fights to get rid of us. But we are doing good work and deliver so it is hard for them to kick us out.

Clojure has much to offer which isn't available in JS or Python. Immutability and real concurrency for a start. I'm not sure what you mean by "pushing some customer". That's not how I do business.

Re: Ask HN: Best Lisp for software development?

#100

Post by kls »

I think you should separate the concepts of Java (the language) and the JVM in your mind while making your decision. You can absolutely write Clojure without touching Java, but at some point if your app scales you are going to have to understand optimizing and tuning the JVM, that being said, it's no different than optimizing and tuning the underlying OS (from a conceptual standpoint), it just happens to be a virtual run-time. You are not writing Java to tune the JVM as most of it is set by parameters and config files.

If you are dead set on no JVM there is always ClojureScript.

For reference I have worked in Clojure, CL and a little Scheme, but would not claim to be an expert in the latter two. From my experience Clojure is a LISP built for building user centric apps, where many of the others are an assortment of projects of people scratching their itch. Some good, some bad, some complete and documented, some not. They are very powerful, but seem to have less stewardship to keep the project on focus to be a dev platform for building holistic applications for businesses.

while it gets linked to a lot in discussions like this, it's worth noting the following article:

http://www.marktarver.com/bipolar.html

That is very much what CL and Scheme felt like to me.

Also to note, I have never worked with any of the commercial offerings for CL, so take my opinion on the matter with the grain of salt that my exposure to them has been limited to open source offerings.

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