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The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

marktarver.com

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Re: The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

#2

Post by sph »

I quite enjoyed this article, but I reckon they're talking about ADHD rather than "bipolar" mind. Seen under that lens, I resonate with his caricature.

Focus is a precious, rare resource outside my control. Mainstream languages, made for collaboration in big teams rather than maximum personal freedom, soon impose restrictions that kill hyperfocus. The "unused variable is an error" is the most egregious of them that I hate with a passion. The separation between compilation and running is another that seemingly inescapable today. With languages like Lisp, I can code at the speed of thought from prototype to production.

These days tech is advanced by FAANGs, so no one cares about removing the safeties from our languages; this is the reason the focus-challenged among us still go back to Lisp and other lost languages (Forth, Smalltalk, Self) that have disappeared from the mainstream.

Rust, C++, Go, Python, etc. are good, but they're not made for us.

Re: The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

#3

Post by 39 »

sph wrote: post #2

I quite enjoyed this article, but I reckon they're talking about ADHD rather than "bipolar" mind. Seen under that lens, I resonate with his caricature. Focus is a precious, rare resource outside my control. Mainstream languages, made for collaboration in big teams rather than maximum personal freedom, soon impose restrictions that kill hyperfocus. The "unused variable is an error" is the most egregious of them that I…

Okay, you made me want to try Lisp.

Re: The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

#7

Post by distcs »

sph wrote: post #2

I quite enjoyed this article, but I reckon they're talking about ADHD rather than "bipolar" mind. Seen under that lens, I resonate with his caricature. Focus is a precious, rare resource outside my control. Mainstream languages, made for collaboration in big teams rather than maximum personal freedom, soon impose restrictions that kill hyperfocus. The "unused variable is an error" is the most egregious of them that I…

This is a great perspective. I am not focus-challenged... at least I don't think I am, but your comment has been a revelation. I always had this nagging feeling about myself that I don't find myself fully immersed in the problem domain when working Go, Python, Rust like the way I feel while working with Lisp.

When I am programming in Lisp, I enter a sort of zen like state where my mind becomes one with the problem. Now don't get me wrong. I can write a lot of Go, Python, Rust, what have you on some days when I am working on a good problem and there are no meetings to distract me. On some days, I can do this for 6-10 hours straight with little breaks. So I don't think I have the ADHD problem that the parent or the OP is talking about.

But I still have this nagging feeling with other mainstream languages that their tooling, their ecosystem, the breaking dependencies, the "making the compiler happy", the stupid language restrictions and such things distract me from my problem domain.

But not so with Lisp. With Lisp, it's just me, the problem, the algorithms to solve it and the code. Nothing else. It is a feeling of hyperfocus (a word you so rightly chose). For some reason I cannot get into that state with other languages and I could never understand why.

Your comment is on to something here and this might very well explain the zen-like hyperfocus feeling of immersing fully into the problem domain I get with Lisp.

Re: The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

#8

Post by BoxOfRain »

sph wrote: post #2

I quite enjoyed this article, but I reckon they're talking about ADHD rather than "bipolar" mind. Seen under that lens, I resonate with his caricature. Focus is a precious, rare resource outside my control. Mainstream languages, made for collaboration in big teams rather than maximum personal freedom, soon impose restrictions that kill hyperfocus. The "unused variable is an error" is the most egregious of them that I…

I do wonder if I’d be diagnosed with ADHD if I didn’t already have a fairly obscure neurological disorder. My visual cortex can’t filter its own noise out properly which causes a bunch of mostly migraine-like neurological issues including apparently making my focus unreliable and forcing me to work in a very “burst-then-rest” kind of fashion, but I was already that way beforehand it just got much worse when I contracted the disorder.

Either way this comment makes me want to try a LISP! I might give Clojure a go, I daily drive another alt-JVM language at the moment so it’s a natural choice.

Re: The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (2007)

#9

Post by AnthonBerg »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #8
sph wrote: post #2

I quite enjoyed this article, but I reckon they're talking about ADHD rather than "bipolar" mind. Seen under that lens, I resonate with his caricature. Focus is a precious, rare resource outside my control. Mainstream languages, made for collaboration in big teams rather than maximum personal freedom, soon impose restrictions that kill hyperfocus. The "unused variable is an error" is the most egregious of them that I…

I do wonder if I’d be diagnosed with ADHD if I didn’t already have a fairly obscure neurological disorder. My visual cortex can’t filter its own noise out properly which causes a bunch of mostly migraine-like neurological issues including apparently making my focus unreliable and forcing me to work in a very “burst-then-rest” kind of fashion, but I was already that way beforehand it just got much worse when I contrac…

This is super interesting. Thank you. Feels similar to subtle patterns in my next of kin and their inner workings. So I can read more, would you mind sharing the name of the disorder?
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