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

Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 192 posts

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#11

Post by alex_lav »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #8
sirsuki wrote: post #4

When I tried to introduce s-expressions to a DSL my co-workers nearly lynched me. The parenthesis were so violently hated I sunk into a deep hole and still haven’t came back out of it.

It really is kind of frustrating isn't it? Because anyone who's put any real effort into learning Lisp knows that the parentheses are not what's hard to understand, actually. You don't even have to read them, really. So when people complain loudly about parentheses in Lisp that just tells me they probably never made any real effort to learn it, and are actively opposed to trying. It's not a productive starting point…

Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#15

Post by alwaysbeconsing »

fwip wrote: post #7
capableweb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really fun (sad) to see this, I've seen it so many times myself too. You show how something would be with s-expressions, compared to something, and all they can focus on is how many parenthesis there are. But when you sit down and count, they're the same amount as the code was when it wasn't s-expressions, just in different locations. And when you remove the parenthesis, they can kind of understand the code, ki…

One option that might be suitable for a DSL, is implicit parens based on whitespace. A newline opens a new paren, and the paren closes when it reaches another line with the same indentation e.g: (defun factorial (x) (if (zerop x) 1 (* x (factorial (- x 1))))) could be rewritten as defun factorial (x) if (zerop x) 1 * x (factorial (- x 1))

Whitespace significance might be the choice even more controversial than Lisp parens. For myself, I appreciate both, but those that do not, really do not.

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#16

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

alex_lav wrote: post #11
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is kind of frustrating isn't it? Because anyone who's put any real effort into learning Lisp knows that the parentheses are not what's hard to understand, actually. You don't even have to read them, really. So when people complain loudly about parentheses in Lisp that just tells me they probably never made any real effort to learn it, and are actively opposed to trying. It's not a productive starting point…

Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?

They're not. But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. Also, in a professional setting, I find it a bit unprofessional and rude to poo poo technical ideas over trivialities.

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#17

Post by alex_lav »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #16
alex_lav wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?

They're not. But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. Also, in a professional setting, I find it a bit unprofessional and rude to poo poo technical ideas over trivialities.

> But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion.

I don’t like the parenthesis. I’m not flaunting anything. Is it “flaunting” to calmly and respectfully share an opinion? To you it’s trivial, to me it’s not.

It seems like you’re interested in creating conflict with people that don’t like a thing that you like. Which, I would cast this behavior as unprofessional, tbh.

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#18

Post by nsajko »

fwip wrote: post #7
capableweb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really fun (sad) to see this, I've seen it so many times myself too. You show how something would be with s-expressions, compared to something, and all they can focus on is how many parenthesis there are. But when you sit down and count, they're the same amount as the code was when it wasn't s-expressions, just in different locations. And when you remove the parenthesis, they can kind of understand the code, ki…

One option that might be suitable for a DSL, is implicit parens based on whitespace. A newline opens a new paren, and the paren closes when it reaches another line with the same indentation e.g: (defun factorial (x) (if (zerop x) 1 (* x (factorial (- x 1))))) could be rewritten as defun factorial (x) if (zerop x) 1 * x (factorial (- x 1))

Existing SRFI: SRFI 49 "Indentation-sensitive syntax":

https://srfi.schemers.org/srfi-49/srfi-49.html

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#19

Post by dang_flame »

alex_lav wrote: post #11
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is kind of frustrating isn't it? Because anyone who's put any real effort into learning Lisp knows that the parentheses are not what's hard to understand, actually. You don't even have to read them, really. So when people complain loudly about parentheses in Lisp that just tells me they probably never made any real effort to learn it, and are actively opposed to trying. It's not a productive starting point…

Counterpoint: why are people under any obligation to try?

[dead]

Re: Steel – An embeddable and extensible Scheme dialect

#20

Post by dang_flame »

alex_lav wrote: post #17
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. Also, in a professional setting, I find it a bit unprofessional and rude to poo poo technical ideas over trivialities.

> But they're also not required to flaunt their own ignorance as though it's a well-formed opinion. I don’t like the parenthesis. I’m not flaunting anything. Is it “flaunting” to calmly and respectfully share an opinion? To you it’s trivial, to me it’s not. It seems like you’re interested in creating conflict with people that don’t like a thing that you like. Which, I would cast this behavior as unprofessional, tbh.

[dead]
Post reply on HN