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Why Fennel?

fennel-lang.org

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Re: Why Fennel?

#101

Post by MonkeyClub »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #88
smnplk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> as it mainly applies to Lisp-like languages that uses parentheses heavily. This is so wrong. Lisp does not use parentheses heavily. It doesent even use more parens than any C like language. I just dont understand the fixation with parentheses. The power of lisps comes from the fact that everything is an expression. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, since I only have experience with functional lisp Clojure, but…

The anti parentheses argument is usually just a straw that people grasp, who have no experience with writing code in lispy languages. A quick superficial jab at something they do not know well, so that they can go on with their day, without having to deal with learning a new thing, that might change their whole view of programming.

Plus, don't forget the secret sauce of Lisp syntax: same number of parentheses, with none of the commas. Nor the semicolons. Nor the brackets. Nor the braces.

Re: Why Fennel?

#102

Post by torginus »

endgame wrote: post #65
torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

Focusing on the runtime's parser is a red herring and I think a common error in lisp advocacy. Even if I didn't the full power of a lisp macro system, it is an absolute joy to manipulate programs written in s-expressions. Being able to cut/copy/paste/jump-[forward/back] by sexpr is really convenient, and often done nowhere near as well in other languages. I think this is because until the invention of tree-sitter and…

It does sound interesting, and I'll look into Lisp, can you give me some advice on what's the best way to learn it?

On your other point, I've programmed in many languages in many years, and mostly I did some in an environment with an IDE, or powerful language-specific tooling (not tree-sitter) that had a proper good understanding of the syntax and semantics of the language used.

Re: Why Fennel?

#103

Post by fredrikholm »

mmcromp wrote: post #94
torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

I tried fennel for a game jam and honestly was pretty disappointed. The way lisp languages are pitched here, I thought I was in for a mind opening experience, but instead the end experience was pretty much identical to lua in ever meaningful way, the only differences felt surface level (I.e. using closures, and parentheses). I'm forever indebt to lisp for giving JS it's saving graces (closures and FN as first class c…

Did you program against a REPL connected to your game, with state maintaining hot reload? Does your editor support working with s-expressions (eg. slurping and barfing)?

Batch processing style programming (write to file, save, run, stop, repeat) in Lisp removes some 3/4 of what the language(s) offer. It's especially so if one is navigating code by text rather than structure, eg. jump-to-next-word instead of jump-to-next-expression.

What is magical about Lisps, esp. the ones that are fully featured in this sense (Common Lisp, Clojure), is that you're programming a running program without losing state when you re-evaluate code.

That is magic. Instead of doing the save-compile-run-setup-conditions-wait-for-result-repeat hundreds of times per session, you run and write the code for your given problem when it arises during gameplay.

On top of that you throw on things like paredit, condition systems and you're and order of magnitude less frustrated and dare I say it, productive, than when you constantly have to churn through constant transitions between the code-in-file and game-in-memory disparity.

For games especially, things like test driven development make no sense because state is so insanely tangled. So you either hope for the best, or you program against a live game. I prefer the second option.

Re: Why Fennel?

#104

Post by sph »

mmcromp wrote: post #94
torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

I tried fennel for a game jam and honestly was pretty disappointed. The way lisp languages are pitched here, I thought I was in for a mind opening experience, but instead the end experience was pretty much identical to lua in ever meaningful way, the only differences felt surface level (I.e. using closures, and parentheses). I'm forever indebt to lisp for giving JS it's saving graces (closures and FN as first class c…

The way to appreciate a Lisp is to use an actual Lisp, not a syntax transpiler for a non-Lispy language.

Common Lisp, Racket or Scheme with a good REPL and editor integration are light years ahead than Fennel which is little more Lua-with-parens.

Re: Why Fennel?

#105

Post by eager_learner »

torginus wrote: post #102
endgame wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focusing on the runtime's parser is a red herring and I think a common error in lisp advocacy. Even if I didn't the full power of a lisp macro system, it is an absolute joy to manipulate programs written in s-expressions. Being able to cut/copy/paste/jump-[forward/back] by sexpr is really convenient, and often done nowhere near as well in other languages. I think this is because until the invention of tree-sitter and…

It does sound interesting, and I'll look into Lisp, can you give me some advice on what's the best way to learn it? On your other point, I've programmed in many languages in many years, and mostly I did some in an environment with an IDE, or powerful language-specific tooling (not tree-sitter) that had a proper good understanding of the syntax and semantics of the language used.

A good text to make you aware of the power of Lisp is "The Anatomy of Lisp" by John Allen (MIT). It's an old text but they don't write books like that anymore.

Re: Why Fennel?

#106

Post by eager_learner »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #56
n4ture wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand the appeal of non-LISPy languages. I get that most people are used to reading it and that they are efficent, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is combersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add those extra parens i…

This doesn't really resonate with people though, as most people are more familiar with C-style notation. Also: >Writing code like this is combersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy Does not make sense in this context, as it mainly applies to Lisp-like languages that uses parentheses heavily.

[dead]

Re: Why Fennel?

#107

Post by eager_learner »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #88
smnplk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> as it mainly applies to Lisp-like languages that uses parentheses heavily. This is so wrong. Lisp does not use parentheses heavily. It doesent even use more parens than any C like language. I just dont understand the fixation with parentheses. The power of lisps comes from the fact that everything is an expression. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, since I only have experience with functional lisp Clojure, but…

The anti parentheses argument is usually just a straw that people grasp, who have no experience with writing code in lispy languages. A quick superficial jab at something they do not know well, so that they can go on with their day, without having to deal with learning a new thing, that might change their whole view of programming.

[dead]

Re: Why Fennel?

#108

Post by tmountain »

jodrellblank wrote: post #24
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…

Crafting interpreters by Robert Nystrom could be a place to start - https://craftinginterpreters.com/ The author posts on HN as ‘munificent’, I think.

Great book—as an entry point for designing languages.

Re: Why Fennel?

#109

Post by dimitar »

torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

And yet people write a ton of XML, JSON or YAML by hand.

Re: Why Fennel?

#110

Post by tmountain »

codr7 wrote: post #8
cardanome wrote: post #5

Fennel is pretty nice. I wish it had gradual typing support though or at least allowed for type annotation for static tooling. Not that dynamic typing isn't a valid choice but with more and more languages getting gradual typing support it is hard to go back. I guess we could build something like Coalton but for Lua.

I've been working on something along those lines in eli: https://github.com/codr7/eli?tab=readme-ov-file#type-checkin...

Nice looking language! What’s the status? Is it stable?
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