Lisp-stick on a Python

#1

Post by tosh » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 8:58 PM UTC

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#2

Post by bragr » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

Hylang is a great way to dip your toes into Lisp style languages IMHO since you have the entire python ecosystem at your fingertips. It was very eye opening to rewrite some scripts in Hy. I'm not sure if I'm ultimately a fan of lisp, but I had a lot of fun learning Hy a while back after discovering it in another HN post.

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#3

Post by tomcam » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

bragr wrote: post #2

Hylang is a great way to dip your toes into Lisp style languages IMHO since you have the entire python ecosystem at your fingertips. It was very eye opening to rewrite some scripts in Hy. I'm not sure if I'm ultimately a fan of lisp, but I had a lot of fun learning Hy a while back after discovering it in another HN post.

I can imagine speed being a real problem in production?

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#4

Post by thrown_22 » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

Question from the last time this came up: have they added let/letrec into the language yet? The last time I it looked like they had not.

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#5

Post by alschwalm » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #4

Question from the last time this came up: have they added let/letrec into the language yet? The last time I it looked like they had not.

Looks like it: https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/api.html#let

I recall hearing it had been implemented a while back, seems like it's true!

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#6

Post by lordgroff » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:40 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #3

bragr wrote: post #2

Hylang is a great way to dip your toes into Lisp style languages IMHO since you have the entire python ecosystem at your fingertips. It was very eye opening to rewrite some scripts in Hy. I'm not sure if I'm ultimately a fan of lisp, but I had a lot of fun learning Hy a while back after discovering it in another HN post.

I can imagine speed being a real problem in production?

You can transpile to Python. You get a bunch of necessary symbol definitions but that's about it.

I doubt anyone uses hy in production for completely other reasons, would love to be proven wrong.

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#7

Post by lordgroff » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #4

Question from the last time this came up: have they added let/letrec into the language yet? The last time I it looked like they had not.

Let is indeed there now.

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#8

Post by wiseowise » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:42 PM UTC

lordgroff wrote: post #6

tomcam wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine speed being a real problem in production?

You can transpile to Python. You get a bunch of necessary symbol definitions but that's about it. I doubt anyone uses hy in production for completely other reasons, would love to be proven wrong.

People use Python in production, why not Hy?

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#9

Post by thrown_22 » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:44 PM UTC

alschwalm wrote: post #5

thrown_22 wrote: post #4

Question from the last time this came up: have they added let/letrec into the language yet? The last time I it looked like they had not.

Looks like it: https://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/api.html#let I recall hearing it had been implemented a while back, seems like it's true!

Nice. They do seem to have filled out the language nicely.

Re: Lisp-stick on a Python

#10

Post by giantdude » Mon, Nov 14, 2022, 9:48 PM UTC

I don't get it. I am a Smug Lisp Weenie. Lisp is not a syntactic sugar - the only reason it looks like it does is for metaprogramming. Those parens are not syntax - they indicate the underlying structure of the code, a tree which may be manipulated by Lisp macros.

Why would anyone pretend to program in Lisp without any benefit? Also, Python is the worst imaginable engine for running Lisp. [correction: I see there are some kind of macros...]