Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

rundragonfly.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 18 posts

Re: Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

#5

Post by abstractbill »

Ixiaus wrote: post #3

Cool post, I never new about newLISP before this; just checked out the language and it looks really cool!

Beware. It isn't cool. It rehashes some awful mistakes that were made in the design of early Lisp languages - in particular dynamic scope.

It's a shame, as some effort has clearly been put in to making newLisp something that people can get up-and-running with very quickly. But with the language itself being broken, this effort is wasted.

Re: Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

#6

Post by itistoday »

abstractbill wrote: post #5
Ixiaus wrote: post #3

Cool post, I never new about newLISP before this; just checked out the language and it looks really cool!

Beware. It isn't cool. It rehashes some awful mistakes that were made in the design of early Lisp languages - in particular dynamic scope. It's a shame, as some effort has clearly been put in to making newLisp something that people can get up-and-running with very quickly. But with the language itself being broken, this effort is wasted.

Also, beware of trolls making comments like the above.

newLISP's "coolness" is a matter of opinion, not some sort of objective fact.

So the next time you hear someone telling you something "isn't cool, stay away from it", don't let them make up your mind for you.

Thankfully I didn't listen to the bullshit and discovered a beautiful language in newLISP, and today it's my favorite language to code in. Its dynamic scope goes hand-in-hand with its interpreted nature is what makes it so great for rapid web development.

Re: Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

#8

Post by abstractbill »

itistoday wrote: post #6
abstractbill wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware. It isn't cool. It rehashes some awful mistakes that were made in the design of early Lisp languages - in particular dynamic scope. It's a shame, as some effort has clearly been put in to making newLisp something that people can get up-and-running with very quickly. But with the language itself being broken, this effort is wasted.

Also, beware of trolls making comments like the above. newLISP's "coolness" is a matter of opinion, not some sort of objective fact. So the next time you hear someone telling you something "isn't cool, stay away from it", don't let them make up your mind for you. Thankfully I didn't listen to the bullshit and discovered a beautiful language in newLISP, and today it's my favorite language to code in. Its dynamic scope…

The word "troll" used to mean something very specific: A person who would post opinions that he or she didn't actually hold, but which were very likely to result in comical outrage from others.

The modern meaning seems to have drifted towards "someone who disagrees with me" :(

In any case, I don't care too much about making up peoples' minds for them. A great deal has already been written about how dynamic scope is a Bad Thing. I'd just like people to be aware of that before diving into newLisp.

Re: Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

#9

Post by itistoday »

vdm wrote: post #7

When I see 'Dragonfly' on HN, I think of DragonflyBSD. http://www.dragonflybsd.org/ Did you even Google the name?

Yes. The word Dragonfly is used to describe many things, have you Googled it? It's used by so many companies and projects that qualifying it (DragonflyBSD, Dragonfly Web Framework, etc.) is practically a requirement.

Why Dragonfly? Because newLISP's clever logo is a Dragonfly made out of parenthesis:

http://www.newlisp.org/index.cgi?page=Art

Re: Dragonfly 0.60 - a newLisp web framework

#10

Post by itistoday »

abstractbill wrote: post #8
itistoday wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, beware of trolls making comments like the above. newLISP's "coolness" is a matter of opinion, not some sort of objective fact. So the next time you hear someone telling you something "isn't cool, stay away from it", don't let them make up your mind for you. Thankfully I didn't listen to the bullshit and discovered a beautiful language in newLISP, and today it's my favorite language to code in. Its dynamic scope…

The word "troll" used to mean something very specific: A person who would post opinions that he or she didn't actually hold, but which were very likely to result in comical outrage from others. The modern meaning seems to have drifted towards "someone who disagrees with me" :( In any case, I don't care too much about making up peoples' minds for them. A great deal has already been written about how dynamic scope is a…

Sorry, by "troll" I meant someone who spreads misinformation, whether deliberately or unknowingly through ignorance. Perhaps I'm misusing the word, if so, my apologies.

A great deal has already been written about how dynamic scope is a Bad Thing.

What most people don't like about dynamic scope has to do with its use in compiled languages. newLISP isn't compiled and so many of those criticisms aren't applicable.

Dynamic scope because makes newLISP fast (lexical scope adds a great deal of overhead). newLISP also doesn't need lexical scope because it has ways of doing lexical scope on a need-to-use basis (see the 'letex' and 'expand' functions). Most of the time you don't need to worry about it, and oftentimes dynamic scope is a nice thing to have, too.

So please, do dive into the issue of scope, it's an important one, but do so fully informed about it. At least with regards to newLISP, it's certainly not a show stopper.

Post reply on HN