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On Lisp

paulgraham.com

41–50 of 107 posts

Re: On Lisp

#41
post #27

What percentage of the techniques in this book are also applicable to Clojure programming? I don't know a lot about how the two macro systems differ.

A fair amount of the examples involve mutation; a practice that Clojure discourages. A lot of the macros are very instructive, however.

Re: On Lisp

#42
Any advice or link for someone new to Lisp like me? Also, is there any good open source project using Lisp that I can fork/download and tinker with? I'm still having problem wrapping my head around Lisp. Even implementing some simple algorithms in Lisp took some time for me.

I think this is due to the fact that I learned to program in C. Nowadays I work mainly with python/ruby/javascript, but I got the feeling that I could improve myself as a programmer by learning Lisp.

Re: On Lisp

#43
Has anyone every tried to visualize lisp with a treemap? Maybe that would take care of the massive indentation problem that makes lisp so hard to read (for me).

Re: On Lisp

#44

Instructions for printing it with lulu: http://www.lurklurk.org/onlisp/onlisp.html . I did this about a month ago and the copy I received was great.

Just tried to do this, and found that the cover image size doesn't seem accurate anymore. What did you do for the cover?

Re: On Lisp

#45

Has anyone every tried to visualize lisp with a treemap? Maybe that would take care of the massive indentation problem that makes lisp so hard to read (for me).

It's 2013, and the top comment on a story about Lisp (on HN, a site written in Lisp) is complaining about syntax? Seriously, how much time did you actually spend learning/using Lisp before giving up because it had a "massive indentation problem"?

Re: On Lisp

#46

Has anyone every tried to visualize lisp with a treemap? Maybe that would take care of the massive indentation problem that makes lisp so hard to read (for me).

What do you mean by indentation problem?

In practice, everyone just uses emacs to indent, no problem.

Re: On Lisp

#47
post #45

Has anyone every tried to visualize lisp with a treemap? Maybe that would take care of the massive indentation problem that makes lisp so hard to read (for me).

It's 2013, and the top comment on a story about Lisp (on HN, a site written in Lisp) is complaining about syntax? Seriously, how much time did you actually spend learning/using Lisp before giving up because it had a "massive indentation problem"?

Surely expressing personal issues with Lisp's syntax is valid, especially if a possible solution is offered. If you see at least some of the larger codebases written in Lisp, it is natural to be overwhelmed by the level of indentation, which will cause the code to wrap under many editor setups.

Re: On Lisp

#48

Any advice or link for someone new to Lisp like me? Also, is there any good open source project using Lisp that I can fork/download and tinker with? I'm still having problem wrapping my head around Lisp. Even implementing some simple algorithms in Lisp took some time for me. I think this is due to the fact that I learned to program in C. Nowadays I work mainly with python/ruby/javascript, but I got the feeling that I…

You could have a look at the software below Hacker News. It's written in the Arc Lisp dialect (which itself is implemented on top of the Racket Lisp dialect).

Apart from Racket, Clojure is also a nice Lisp to get started with. It runs on the JVM.

I'd advice against learning Common Lisp as your first Lisp these days, even though Common Lisp is what On Lisp is about.

Re: On Lisp

#49
post #48

Any advice or link for someone new to Lisp like me? Also, is there any good open source project using Lisp that I can fork/download and tinker with? I'm still having problem wrapping my head around Lisp. Even implementing some simple algorithms in Lisp took some time for me. I think this is due to the fact that I learned to program in C. Nowadays I work mainly with python/ruby/javascript, but I got the feeling that I…

You could have a look at the software below Hacker News. It's written in the Arc Lisp dialect (which itself is implemented on top of the Racket Lisp dialect). Apart from Racket, Clojure is also a nice Lisp to get started with. It runs on the JVM. I'd advice against learning Common Lisp as your first Lisp these days, even though Common Lisp is what On Lisp is about.

I'd advise exactly the opposite. While clojure and racket are excellent languages, they are very different from one another and CL. Telling someone to learn python or ruby if they ask about learning lua isn't a good advice, is it?

Re: On Lisp

#50
post #47
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2013, and the top comment on a story about Lisp (on HN, a site written in Lisp) is complaining about syntax? Seriously, how much time did you actually spend learning/using Lisp before giving up because it had a "massive indentation problem"?

Surely expressing personal issues with Lisp's syntax is valid, especially if a possible solution is offered. If you see at least some of the larger codebases written in Lisp, it is natural to be overwhelmed by the level of indentation, which will cause the code to wrap under many editor setups.

I've heard people complain about parentheses, but indentation isn't usually the issue. I challenge you: I looked at your personal website, and you seem to claim experience in Java and C. Show me a large codebase in Lisp and a large codebase in Java or C where the Lisp codebase is dramatically less readable than the Java or C codebase due to indentation.
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