Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#1

Post by smanek » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 3:54 PM UTC

Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure
postabon.posterous.com

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#2

Post by icey » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:01 PM UTC

You could probably get rid of the "(fixed)" in your title; I bet most people didn't see your original submission, and the ones that did will know what happened.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#3

Post by smanek » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:07 PM UTC

icey wrote: post #2

You could probably get rid of the "(fixed)" in your title; I bet most people didn't see your original submission, and the ones that did will know what happened.

Thanks. Sorry for the trouble before. I had an old personal wordpress blog that I'd originally posted this on - but there were some technical issues with upgrading WordPress to a modern version.

Just reposted the same content on Posterous.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#4

Post by ricree » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:12 PM UTC

The fact that he proposed removing map, reduce, filter, and lambda from Python 3.

In the case of map and filter, is there any compelling reason to use either of those instead of list comprehensions or generator expressions?

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#5

Post by tjr » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:13 PM UTC

After that, I was planning to dig into some specifics about the best way to manage/deploy a production Common Lisp webapp, which I hope would help a new Lisper get off the ground.

Looking forward to that.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#6

Post by smanek » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:26 PM UTC

ricree wrote: post #4

The fact that he proposed removing map, reduce, filter, and lambda from Python 3. In the case of map and filter, is there any compelling reason to use either of those instead of list comprehensions or generator expressions?

Nope - just a style thing. You don't need lambdas either - named functions are just as powerful.

But I often think 'functionally.' Since I have options, I'd rather go with a language that allows me to program how I think - instead of being forced to translate my thought into its semantics.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#7

Post by pcof » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:31 PM UTC

I predict you will get a great deal of pythonic fire. Nevertheless, I find it very nice that you plan to deal with the specific libraries you're using in the next posts. The greatest problem in adopting CL seems to be the extremely decentralized (not to say disorganized) library spacs.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#8

Post by WilliamLP » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:32 PM UTC

Basically: I started with my conclusion, and then went through all the other options and rationalized them away until it seemed like my choice was based on objective reasoning.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#9

Post by maxtilford » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:36 PM UTC

ricree wrote: post #4

The fact that he proposed removing map, reduce, filter, and lambda from Python 3. In the case of map and filter, is there any compelling reason to use either of those instead of list comprehensions or generator expressions?

Obviously, map and filter are better because ... ah, hmm, I don't know.

I think it is a matter of language design. Higher order functions are not as prominent in Python as say, Haskell, where map & friends are generally preferred for composability. Lispers prefer map & friends just because list comprehensions add all that messy syntax.

If I were a Python programmer, I would probably use list comprehensions, since they seem to be the preferred idiom.

Re: Why I chose Common Lisp over Python, Ruby, and Clojure

#10

Post by riobard » Wed, Dec 02, 2009, 4:39 PM UTC

ricree wrote: post #4

The fact that he proposed removing map, reduce, filter, and lambda from Python 3. In the case of map and filter, is there any compelling reason to use either of those instead of list comprehensions or generator expressions?

A single, non-nested list comprehension or generator exp is basically map(filter). You need nesting to get filter(map).

e.g.

    map(expensive_call, filter(cond, seq))

equals

    [expensive_call(each) for each in seq if cond(each)]

but

    filter(cond, map(expensive_call, seq))

equals

    [each for each in [expensive_call(x) for x in seq] if cond(each)]

note because of "expensive_call", it's inefficient (and silly) to do

    [expensive_call(each) for each in seq if cond(expensive_call(each))]

So map/filter combination gives more flexibility than list comprehension, and for functional-thinking minds, it's just so natural to think in abstract terms of passing functions around. List comprehension is pretty syntactical sugar to do similar things, but it forces you think about the "how to do" instead of "what to do".

That said, it's not really "compelling" though -- there is no real "compelling" reason to switch from one Turing-complete language to another given that you can do the same thing eventually. But hey, it's the itches that drive us nuts, isn't it? :)

Just my 2 cents