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Why Fennel?

fennel-lang.org

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Re: Why Fennel?

#21

Post by roxolotl »

2mlWQbCK wrote: post #6
threatofrain wrote: post #3

https://janet-lang.org Also by the same author.

I prefer Janet, but Fennel is great in places Lua is already supported, like in Löve2D. https://git.sr.ht/~benthor/absolutely-minimal-love2d-fennel

One thing I've found that's really nice with Fennel + Love2D is you can even do hot reloading with nvim+conjure[0](I assume emacs too). I assume there's a way to hot refresh with just straight Lua but it feels very natural to do with a lisp.

0(example config): https://github.com/TheBlob42/love2d-fennel-neovim

Re: Why Fennel?

#22

Post by AlienRobot »

calebkaiser wrote: post #15
AlienRobot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by the same author What? People are just creating new languages these days as if they were Javascript libraries? Let's say I wanted to make my own programming language. What's the easiest way to prototype it in a way I can share it with the world? Are the programming language development toolkits that come with a tokenizer library and things like that? Should I write my own program to output machine code? Or maybe i…

The author, Calvin Rose, is a (I assume pretty great) compiler engineer at NVIDIA who has a personal affinity for LISPs and Lua: https://bakpakin.com/ I don't think the average programming language enthusiast is maintaining multiple well-known languages.

Interesting. I saw another link here of someone who insists on making C# run everywhere, now someone who insists on LISPs.

I really want to try making a language that is imperative, like really imperative, where every line must start with a verb, just to see what it would look like.

Re: Why Fennel?

#23

Post by no_wizard »

qrobit wrote: post #9
Graziano_M wrote: post #2

Fennel is nice. I converted my neovim config[1] to fennel and haven't looked back. [1]: https://github.com/Grazfather/dotfiles/blob/master/nvim/fnl/...

Fennel is indeed nice and I rewrote my config in it too, but looked back ~2 years later and rewrote it again in Lua. I think Fennel for configuration is not justified and just adds complexity. Also the tools are not there: two existing language servers[1][2] can't compete with Sumneko's Lua language server[3] and they are fennel-exclusive and clueless about Lua code. I still like Fennel for writing more complicated c…

I find most niche / less popular languages lack the developer tools ecosystem in ways that simply hinders adoption by more devs.

A good and comprehensive LSP for example. It really needs to be on par with other languages to increase adoption

Re: Why Fennel?

#24

Post by jodrellblank »

AlienRobot wrote: post #13
threatofrain wrote: post #3

https://janet-lang.org Also by the same author.

>by the same author What? People are just creating new languages these days as if they were Javascript libraries? Let's say I wanted to make my own programming language. What's the easiest way to prototype it in a way I can share it with the world? Are the programming language development toolkits that come with a tokenizer library and things like that? Should I write my own program to output machine code? Or maybe i…

Crafting interpreters by Robert Nystrom could be a place to start - https://craftinginterpreters.com/

The author posts on HN as ‘munificent’, I think.

Re: Why Fennel?

#26

Post by lelanthran »

AlienRobot wrote: post #22
calebkaiser wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author, Calvin Rose, is a (I assume pretty great) compiler engineer at NVIDIA who has a personal affinity for LISPs and Lua: https://bakpakin.com/ I don't think the average programming language enthusiast is maintaining multiple well-known languages.

Interesting. I saw another link here of someone who insists on making C# run everywhere, now someone who insists on LISPs. I really want to try making a language that is imperative, like really imperative, where every line must start with a verb, just to see what it would look like.

> I really want to try making a language that is imperative, like really imperative, where every line must start with a verb, just to see what it would look like.

It would look like Tcl.

Re: Why Fennel?

#27

Post by grzm »

lc9er wrote: post #18
grzm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Fennel was originated by Phil Hagelberg (technomancy) https://git.sr.ht/~technomancy/fennel-lang.org Janet looks like is by Calvin Rose (bakpakin) https://github.com/janet-lang/janet/graphs/contributors

I’m pretty sure Calvin created Fennel and Phil took up the reins when Calvin moved on from the project.

I stand corrected:

    % git remote -v
    origin https://git.sr.ht/~technomancy/fennel (fetch)
    origin https://git.sr.ht/~technomancy/fennel (push)

    % git log --reverse
    commit 9afe4338ed1816a759cb4b120f89e8f67159ce16
    Author: Calvin Rose 
    Date:   Sun Aug 7 18:50:34 2016

        First commit.

    commit b62a24853e24662f76932a2a81bb77cc25704491
    Author: Calvin Rose 
    Date:   Sun Aug 7 19:05:40 2016

        Add some examples.

    commit 5e3e0fe11e4f56007b3523e54d81d55280ef2204
    Author: Calvin Rose 
    Date:   Tue Aug 9 08:27:43 2016

        Update README.md

Re: Why Fennel?

#28

Post by monomers »

threatofrain wrote: post #3

https://janet-lang.org Also by the same author.

I like Janet a lot, and have been using it for small personal projects for about a year.

But it does come with some design decisions that I'm a bit ambivalent about and for which I haven't found a good explanation:

- No persistent data structures. I guess this has something to do with limitations of the GC?

- unhygienic macros combined with lack of namespaces. XOR those two choices would be fine, but the combination is janky

- Somewhat peculiar choices in syntax. It's neither Scheme, nor is it Clojure. # starts comments, ; is splice, @ marks literals as mutable...

Re: Why Fennel?

#29

Post by pdimitar »

hyperbrainer wrote: post #20
Graziano_M wrote: post #2

Fennel is nice. I converted my neovim config[1] to fennel and haven't looked back. [1]: https://github.com/Grazfather/dotfiles/blob/master/nvim/fnl/...

If only there was an editor which could act as an interpreter for Lisp directly ...

Wake me up when its authors realize most of us don't want to "hack" our editors. They're still stuck in 1980. We actually have to pay bills and want to spend time with our families and go out in nature.

I appreciate customization; that's why I moved to Neovim and not to a full-blown GUI IDE (and I'll never use those). But that editor you speak of practically requires me to fix the idiocies of plugin authors that can't be bothered to run 7 tests on their code.

I get it, a lot of programmers are cult followers. I was as well. At one point though, pragmatism should prevail. The editor should ideally be non-laggy and not spit warnings after I move from one buffer to another. Just embarrassing.

Re: Why Fennel?

#30

Post by davidcalloway »

fredrikholm wrote: post #17
zitterbewegung wrote: post #4

Linking to this without the fennel-lang.org main page which states the following "Fennel is a programming language that brings together the simplicity, speed, and reach of Lua with the flexibility of a lisp syntax and macro system." is a bad idea. Not having this sentence on your justification is ill advised. Not to detract from the language or anything I have found many programming languages justification to just no…

> Not to detract from the language or anything I have found many programming languages justification to just not have an elevator pitch and I have a hard time understanding why this is the case. But they do have one, that you just copied?

I'm pretty sure the parent comment is pointing out that the quoted sentence from the main page ought to be present in the rationale page that is linked.
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