Why Janet? (2023)

Post by iLemming » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 10:15 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #233

iLemming wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can replace Java there with pretty much any OOP language, where functions are not first-class citizens, and it will still be true. There are no "false claims" here. The main point is valid. We have orchestrated an entire industry around "objects", while much simpler abstractions have already existed. You probably just have not experienced the "true" nature of Lisp, where you can interactively change any behavior…

> There are no "false claims" here. You wrote: >> The Gang of Four book exists because Java made functions second-class citizens That is a false claim. You asserted a causal relationship between Java and the content of the GoF book that does not exist without time travel. > You probably just have not experienced the "true" nature of Lisp, where you can interactively change any behavior of the running program, directl…

Post by iLemming » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 10:37 PM UTC

veqq wrote: post #239

iLemming wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's platform-dependent isn't it? Otherwise, the practical differences between Lisp dialects are negligible. For me writing either in Janet or Fennel or Clojure feels almost like writing in the same language. Babashka has replaced bash-scripting for me. I don't hate Bash, but why would I ever choose to use a language that has no true REPL, if I don't have to? bb is pretty much Clojure, which is the greatest choice if…

> Clojure is incredibly data-driven, which wins me over Janet. I'm curious what differences you see? I've been all in on Janet, but barely used Clojure. What more data driven aspects does Clojure have .... offer? My mental model/assumption's always been that Janet's Clojure without JVM and (sadly) not so pure. I don't use any of Janet's C interop facilities. I'd love to know what I'm missing

Post by usefulcat » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:15 PM UTC

zipy124 wrote: post #240

usefulcat wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems to scale well This seems hard to say without knowing how large it is. To me, it seems like a relatively small community, far smaller than HN anyway.

You can see how large it is at https://lobste.rs/stats

Post by bmn__ » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:23 PM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #216

bmn__ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here for this comment. Janet would score positively in my mind if the evolutionary dead-end PEG were replaced with a grammar parser that is known to work under all circumstances.

Under what circumstances does PEG not work?

    (pp
      (peg/match
        '(capture
          '{
            :main (* :B)
            :B (+
              (* :A "x" "y")
              :C)
            :A (+
              true
              (* "x" "z"))
            :C (+
              (* :C "w")
              "v")})
        "xzxy"))

Post by aquariusDue » Tue, Jun 02, 2026, 11:27 PM UTC

nlitened wrote: post #86

a-french-anon wrote: post #80

> SETQ is def At first I said "what" out loud, since SETQ doesn't create bindings, it only updates them then I read the doc ( https://janet-lang.org/docs/bindings.html ) and the author is indeed wrong ("bindings created with def are immutable"). He probably meant "SETQ is set". I really want to like Janet, as it seems to be the sweet spot between Guile, Tcl and CL (minus the speed/maturity of SBCL) but I have a visce…

Square brackets’ use is very consistent and rather logical in how they are used in Clojure’s syntax. When round brackets are used, the first element in the list defines how the rest of the list is interpreted, for example: (func a b c) — run a function with its parameters (macro x y z) — expand a macro with its parameters ([p q r] …) — “bare” function body that starts with a vector of parameters, and executable forms…