Lisp: More is less • Hacker News Board

Re: Lisp: More is less

#121

Post by Ygg2 » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 9:15 AM UTC

nickik wrote: post #116

Ygg2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however that is a terrible reason to discard the language for 'large scale' production use I think article by `large scale` means something that needs lots of people working on it. I can see how several programming departments might form their own lisp-tribes that can't speak to each other because they disagree over tiny details (or engaged in power play).

The same thing can happen in any language and with any detail. Power play normally is political not really about language. Also one could easly argue that macros help with this situation because the 'right way' can be encoded in a macro and then you can require everybody to use it. That seams a better solution then long documents that explain in detail how X is done (because the langauge can reduce the code dublicati…

Or just use a language that has one way of doing things? C++ with it's pre-compiler magic, and several (three or four ) ways to define a variable is a rather bad example.

Things like this are bumps on a road, where your organization is a car with bad suspension. Sure, bad suspension will cause problems down the road, but no reason to drive your car through rocky terrain.

Re: Lisp: More is less

#122

Post by Mikera » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 3:05 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #28

brandonbloom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just restrict the use of macros Precisely. The problem with the lisps of old was entirely cultural. People would go do crazy wild things and then not bother to interoperate with the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the Clojure community has lots of experimentation, but ultimately produces a large number of stable, quality, reusable libraries. Large scale C++ teams often require approval for operator overloading or "da…

Lisp has had widely different uses: * a teaching language * a research tool * an application programming language Lisp has been already in times when the technology you are using today was still under invention. Lisp existed before Smalltalk, C, C++, Java, ... thus often technology was developed in an unstable surrounding where inventions are just being made. Lisp also had to keep track of the changing IT landscape.…

I don't think you can credibly describe Java/JVM as a small ecosystem.... there's nothing else remotely close in terms of the combination of runtime platform capabilities and the number of available open source libraries.

Re: Lisp: More is less

#123

Post by innguest » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

roma1n wrote: post #114

innguest wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair and not to mischaracterize the situation, I have been programming in lisp for at least 5 years in personal projects, so it's not like I had to learn it now and I also did not convert from Ruby to lisp. I never liked Rails. I don't like anything that focuses on files, because in my mind the fact that code needs to be saved in the filesystem is simply incidental, so no code should rely on that fact; but Rail…

I was under the impression that Clojure has been designed around immutability, and Racket not so much... ?

But it sits on top of mutable Java libraries.

Re: Lisp: More is less

#124

Post by innguest » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #111

innguest wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair and not to mischaracterize the situation, I have been programming in lisp for at least 5 years in personal projects, so it's not like I had to learn it now and I also did not convert from Ruby to lisp. I never liked Rails. I don't like anything that focuses on files, because in my mind the fact that code needs to be saved in the filesystem is simply incidental, so no code should rely on that fact; but Rail…

I would like to hear more about your reasons for choosing Racket over Clojure.

Clojure is Java. I fundamentally disagree with everything Java. Java is also clunky. The environment that needs to be installed and maintained for Clojure is a lot more complex and subdivided than the one for Racket (which is an all-in-one batteries-included deal). I believe Clojure might be a good option for those coming from Java, if they want to breathe a little, but if I'm already free, it would be a step backwards for me. Racket is a true Scheme (regardless of whether they like being called that).

Also, I already knew Scheme and its simplicity is very appealing to me. If there's a feature lacking, I can implement it. Not true for Clojure, which lacks several important foundational features (TCO, continuations...).

Why would you choose Clojure over Racket? (I'd only be interested in hearing the reasons someone that isn't a Java programmer would have).

Re: Lisp: More is less

#125

Post by innguest » Fri, Jan 24, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

samth wrote: post #110

innguest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're a team of 6 programmers, 3 of which code Typed Racket. We all started here as Rails devs and got tired of it. I'm always pushing to invest time in research for better solutions and our team seems to be open to that (after weeks of discussion, though - we're no heaven). Typed Racket is the solution we found after surveying the field. Our management has recently told us they believe we're now a good-sized team gi…

Since you don't have any contact info in your profile, I'd love to talk to you about your use of Typed Racket, and whether there's anything you can tell us about how to improve it. Feel free to email me at samth@cs.indiana.edu Always happy to hear of people using my software. :)

We've talked a bunch on IRC - thanks for making my life easier. :)