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Why? The properties of lisp make it suitable for both a config file, and an extension language. It can be easily embedded into existing languages and is extremely flexible.
Turing-completeness in a config file is an anti-pattern. Write an external program to generate the config file instead.
Can someone explain these scheme and lisp languages to me? Every time I look at these languages, I can't grasp what you can use them for. And why one would use them. I always feel like I'm missing something. In the example scripts and code snippets, I can see that you can define functions, that you can use lists, mathematical operations, you can build some algorithms, you can print text, but it never goes further tha…
the language is malleable. because it is homoiconic. so while developing software, you are simultaneously writing a domain specific language for your problem. because macros.
in the end, if you like your craft, you end up with a "language" that is very suitable for solving the problem you have at hand, with very little noise.
the downside is, probably most others will not understand your code so lisps have heavy bias towards "solo hackers". BUT... if that is important to you, you can code towards understandability. so much so that you can make it very hard for others to make mistakes when using the public api.
so with most programming languages, you program within the constraints of the syntactic rules of the language. with lisps, you define the language you want to approach the problem, that language comes out by itself iteratively. for some, that is a joy. others don't care for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? The properties of lisp make it suitable for both a config file, and an extension language. It can be easily embedded into existing languages and is extremely flexible.
Turing-completeness in a config file is an anti-pattern. Write an external program to generate the config file instead.
Can someone explain these scheme and lisp languages to me? Every time I look at these languages, I can't grasp what you can use them for. And why one would use them. I always feel like I'm missing something. In the example scripts and code snippets, I can see that you can define functions, that you can use lists, mathematical operations, you can build some algorithms, you can print text, but it never goes further tha…
I think you must be fixating on syntax, or have been seeing some code that is advanced or (it exists) a very confusing example by some academic to demonstrate some curiosity.
Except for idiomatic recursion (which you don't have to use), Scheme semantics should initially look familiar to a Python or JavaScript programmer, like a subset of that, just with a different syntax. (Scheme nuances are much better designed, but to a new programmer semantics will look like a subset.)
And the Scheme syntax is one of the simplest ever, once you understand it.
What should instead be confusing is a language with very different semantics, like lazy evaluation, or an OOPL with complicating dispatch rules to reason about.
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Turing-completeness in a config file is an anti-pattern. Write an external program to generate the config file instead.
Why? Emacs has Emacs Lisp and Neovim has Lua, it's great to be able to configure, write plugins and helper functions, in the same language.
When I tried to introduce s-expressions to a DSL my co-workers nearly lynched me. The parenthesis were so violently hated I sunk into a deep hole and still haven’t came back out of it.
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emacsers looking deep from afar
I would use Helix in the terminal if it supported Emacs keybindings tbh but I don't want to relearn another set of keybindings. Still I'd be interested in what it becomes.
Can someone explain these scheme and lisp languages to me? Every time I look at these languages, I can't grasp what you can use them for. And why one would use them. I always feel like I'm missing something. In the example scripts and code snippets, I can see that you can define functions, that you can use lists, mathematical operations, you can build some algorithms, you can print text, but it never goes further tha…
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They're not. But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. Also, in a professional setting, I find it a bit unprofessional and rude to poo poo technical ideas over trivialities.
I’ve written a large application in Lisp. Hated parentheses before, hate them even more now. It needlessly obscures code. Maybe it’s a personal issue, idk. But it’s not out of ignorance nor is code readability a trivial point.
That's my point, is all.
As for readability, I don't think it's trivial at all. I just don't think syntax has all that much to do with it. It plays a role, but a very minor one compared to overall code quality. In other words it's syntax that's mostly a trivial point, not readablity.
One undeniable advantage of Lisp in terms of syntactic readability though is that other languages always end up piling on more syntax over time as the language gets older. That's by far my least favourite thing about Rust for instance, even though I do love the language. There's always some new syntax, keyword, or position that an existing keyword can suddenly go in. The longer I go without actively using Rust, the more work it is to start again, because I have to go learn all this new stuff now. And syntax always takes a while to feel intuitive, at least for me. But it's still a lot easier than grokking new semantics and paradigms. I still don't have a good handle on async rust.
If someone told me to go read some ALGOL 68, I could probably do just fine because there's nothing semantically unfamiliar about it compared to something like C. But if someone gave me some Haskell written as sexps I would be utterly lost despite the syntax being perfectly comfortable to me. Because I never quite grokked typed FP.
Can someone explain these scheme and lisp languages to me? Every time I look at these languages, I can't grasp what you can use them for. And why one would use them. I always feel like I'm missing something. In the example scripts and code snippets, I can see that you can define functions, that you can use lists, mathematical operations, you can build some algorithms, you can print text, but it never goes further tha…
used to be on the same camp. now I think I get it. the language is malleable. because it is homoiconic. so while developing software, you are simultaneously writing a domain specific language for your problem. because macros. in the end, if you like your craft, you end up with a "language" that is very suitable for solving the problem you have at hand, with very little noise. the downside is, probably most others wil…