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Why Lisp Is Unpopular

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Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#101

Post by gordianknot »

edu wrote: post #88
gordianknot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never looked at CLOS. But, what I mean is the "dominant metaphor," which I suspect is still lists. I'll just go through my probably plebeian understanding. Arrays are to lists as hashtables are to objects. An array, in my mind, is a list that only contains one type and is indexed with enumerated integers. On the other hand a list can contain any type, but is also indexed with enumerated integers. In JavaScript:…

Ok, I think I get you. But then I think you can't categorize programming languages this way, the default data-structures provided by the language don't characterize it. In fact, it seems to me that you like most JavaScript because it's object oriented, it's dynamic typing and functions are first-class. Features that others languages lack, and not because the "dominant metaphor" is the hash. Casually in JavaScript the…

Built-in data structures are a big point of categorization of langs on my end. To me, the defining feature of Java is its classical structure. If you got rid of classes, you'd have a different language (in the interface sense). And interface is really all I'm talking about.

I'm basically just asserting that objects (should) == hashtables. This is quite literal in JavaScript. Other languages bend the metaphor in different directions, and obscure it to that no one even knows what "object-oriented" really means beyond particular idiosyncratic syntax in this language or that.

PG of course talked about this before, in Why Arc Isn't Especially Object-Oriented:

> I've done a lot of things (e.g. making hash tables full of closures) that would have required object-oriented techniques to do in wimpier languages ...

I'd argue that he was employing genuine object-oriented techniques, but just didn't have classical syntax and didn't consider what he had an "object." Other languages make a point about it, and use special syntax, which fogs the whole thing. Perhaps some people in "OO" mindsets have the kind of naivete that C-only hackers I've met have about first-class functions.

Actually, I just realized the whole reason C++, Java, C#, and co. have "methods" in the first place is just compensation for not having first-class functions you can stick in a hashtable.

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#102

Post by stevecooperorg »

gruseom wrote: post #90
stevecooperorg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't find that lisp, at least common lisp, is particularly concise. Consider lambda functions, one of those things that lisp is particularly praised for; common lisp: (lambda (x) (+ x 1)) C#3 : x=> x + 1 ruby : { |x| x + 1 } python : lambda x: x + 1 Haskell : \x -> x + 1 Just in terms of character count, CL is the longest of the lot. No, the problem with trying to get a lisp under your belt has alredy been…

In my experience, Common Lisp often doesn't come out best at the code snippet level. Where it shines is in building whole systems. After a while one passes an inflection point where one realizes, "Holy cow - what I'm doing now is supposed to be way harder than it is". I probably have this experience every week. You obviously put a lot of sincere effort into learning Lisp and I agree with much of what you say. After a…

It may well be that it only really becomes apparent on larger projects. It's hard to get to that point, though, and maybe that's why the takeup is low.

OTOH, some languages are particularly good on small things, but don't offer much help for large problems.

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#103

Post by pchristensen »

boucher wrote: post #55
pchristensen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure in the Grahammian sense of being a dead-end. "I think that, like species, languages will form evolutionary trees, with dead-ends branching off all over. We can see this happening already. Cobol, for all its sometime popularity, does not seem to have any intellectual descendants. It is an evolutionary dead-end-- a Neanderthal language." - http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html

Though I disagree with most of the conclusions in that essay, and in particular the expectation that Lisp (or a direct descendant) is going to be the language of the future, I still think it's way too early to call the above languages failures, even in the "Grahammiam" sense. Python and Ruby especially are growing in popularity, and I think it's awfully premature to consider them evolutionary dead ends at this stage…

I don't necessarily agree that those languages are dead either. I was just clarifying the point I thought he was trying to make. Plus I wanted to turn pg into an adjective :)

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#104

Post by pchristensen »

gordianknot wrote: post #24
pTymN wrote: post #6

How to make Lisp popular (or as popular as Lisp will ever get): 1) SBCL working very well on the big three PC platforms. 2) Bindings + easy installation for popular libraries. 3) Education (pg's articles, everything on planet.lisp.org) 4) Solid debugging, perhaps with things like breakpoints. There is much activity on all 4 problem items that I identified above, so Lisp IS getting more popular. I don't know if progra…

Noise != usage. Don't confuse attention with popularity. I think about the language and post comments about it on forums and read great Lisp code (e.g. Arc), but I'd never actually use it for anything non-trivial. Why? Because I write web apps and existing Lisps don't make that easier or more fun. The only (!) thing Lisp has to do is efficiently and absolutely abstract away XML, CSS, and JavaScript. No Lisp is going…

Weblocks does this (sort of). I've just read about it, not actually used it much.

http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/ui-dsl.html

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#105

Post by Zak »

jrockway wrote: post #36
gordianknot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes Lisp a "smart" language?

Metaprogramming capabilities. Most people seem to prefer keyboard macros or cut-n-paste to actually writing language-level macros. Anyway, Lisp (and many other languages) gives you a lot of tools to make programming more thinking-intensive and less typing-intensive. Since typing is easy and thinking is hard, it follows that many people will prefer the language that makes you type. JMHO.

I suspect there's a good bit of truth in your statement. I feel compelled to point out that it's incredibly short-sighted of programmers to think that way. Programmers spend a lot more time reading code than writing it, and it's hard to read code that doesn't use the right abstractions.

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#106

Post by pchristensen »

emfle wrote: post #80
jrockway wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem Lisp has is that very few people are forced to use it. If you look at the average programmer, he doesn't want to think about programming, he just wants to press keys an go home. So a language that requires you to think instead of type is not something that he is going to flock to. I think the sad reality is that most programmers aren't very smart, so smart languages will never become popular. I'm…

I think most people prefer languages that let them think about the problem they are trying to solve, rather than think about what the macros expand to, or what happens when they call that continuation.

Or what happens in that subroutine.

Or the performance characteristics of that library.

Or the fencepost cases of a loop.

Or which exceptions to handle.

...

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#107

Post by gruseom »

emfle wrote: post #100
gruseom wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Nobody would ever write a macro to solve a problem . No wait: on second thought, I surrender to how completely dumbfounded I am by this comment. I'm calling Kenny...

The point is that "requires you to think " is not a feature, it is a bug, because that thinking could be put to better use on whatever it is the program is trying to solve. Everything else being equal, this means that language features that can be used without much thinking will do better than language features that can't.

So programmers who work with objects and methods don't have to think about them, while programmers who work with macros do? Sorry, but this just seems ludicrous to me.

Perhaps what you mean is that when a construct is unfamiliar to a programmer then they have to think harder about how to use it?

http://www.google.com/search?q=blub

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#108

Post by gordianknot »

KirinDave wrote: post #97
gordianknot wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noise != usage. Don't confuse attention with popularity. I think about the language and post comments about it on forums and read great Lisp code (e.g. Arc), but I'd never actually use it for anything non-trivial. Why? Because I write web apps and existing Lisps don't make that easier or more fun. The only (!) thing Lisp has to do is efficiently and absolutely abstract away XML, CSS, and JavaScript. No Lisp is going…

I can't help but think that people who want to replace HTML+CSS+JS haven't written a widely used web application before, because the idea seems so absurdly impractical and would become such an incredible time sink.

I'd tend to agree on those who want to replace HTML/CSS/JS with some other abstraction. What I'm suggesting is that they're arbitrarily divided and should be unified under one syntax, which then compiles into the served "bytecode." JSON would probably make the most sense. But, as you suggest, it would take some time to get it right. So I'm sticking to doing it by hand, all divided up, for now. Maybe after our startup launches...

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#109

Post by mattjones »

stevecooperorg wrote: post #57
mattjones wrote: post #22

"Unpopular" needs to be further qualified. Rather than ask, "Why is Lisp unpopular?", ask, "Why is Lisp unpopular for X?". Lisp is actually reasonably popular for some things, and it's those things to which existing dialects are best adapted. Being well adapted to Y often means not being especially well adapted to X, even if it's for subtle reasons. It's like asking, "Why are Arctic foxes ( Alopex lagopus ) not very…

OK, I'll bite; (mapcar #'why-is-lisp-unpopular? (list system-administration enterprise-applications web-applications embedded-software mobile-phone-apps blogging-software compiler-writing configuration-files)) ;)

I don't know the specific reasons why CL and Scheme are not very popular for those things; my general answer is that they're adapted to other things (like classrooms and smart students' brains). My point is that it's very hard to figure out, and so the best bet is probably to let a new dialect evolve in response to the demands of one or some of those environments.

Re: Why Lisp Is Unpopular

#110

Post by pchristensen »

gruseom wrote: post #90
stevecooperorg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't find that lisp, at least common lisp, is particularly concise. Consider lambda functions, one of those things that lisp is particularly praised for; common lisp: (lambda (x) (+ x 1)) C#3 : x=> x + 1 ruby : { |x| x + 1 } python : lambda x: x + 1 Haskell : \x -> x + 1 Just in terms of character count, CL is the longest of the lot. No, the problem with trying to get a lisp under your belt has alredy been…

In my experience, Common Lisp often doesn't come out best at the code snippet level. Where it shines is in building whole systems. After a while one passes an inflection point where one realizes, "Holy cow - what I'm doing now is supposed to be way harder than it is". I probably have this experience every week. You obviously put a lot of sincere effort into learning Lisp and I agree with much of what you say. After a…

The best demonstration of that "big system" effect that I've seen, that's easy and small enough to read and comprehend, is the database[1] or unit testing[2] chapters in Practical Common Lisp. They show good examples of using macros and HOFs to completely remove boilerplate code, and that it's simple enough to do it for even simple boilerplate.

[1] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-a-simple-database....

[2] http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/practical-building-a-unit-te...

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