Tor in a safer language: Network team update from Amsterdam • Hacker News Board

Re: Tor in a safer language: Network team update from Amsterdam

#251

Post by lispm » Sun, Apr 09, 2017, 7:55 PM UTC

JepZ wrote: post #250

lispm wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope you realize that you are arguing against an explicitly subjective statement. Yes. > Nevertheless, please elaborate. What do YOU think is the difference here between feeling and looking? Do you mean that your favorite editor (or the majority of editors) better supports outside parenthesis? Lisp has a two-level syntax. The first level is the syntax of s-expressions. On top of s-expressions we have the actual L…

Is there any good starting point to use lisp in the same way as I would use go? I mean I write web servers and command line tools in go. As an editor I use vim. Some time ago I used DrScheme (now Racket) to write Scheme but I never found it to fit easily into my workflow/use-cases. So I would I like to use the language with the following workflow (100% terminal): - write code with vim: vim main.lisp - simply compile…

I wouldn't propose to do it in Lisp. Batch programming is done better in languages like Go, especially if you are already feeling comfortable with a batch workflow. You can write web servers and command line tools in Lisp, but it would be a huge investment to learn that and it is not clear if it pays back for you.

Essentially for anything slightly complex one would use an interactive programming style and 'only' deliver the application in a batch style.

Racket is more oriented towards batch programming, compared to popular Common Lisp development environments.

Re: Tor in a safer language: Network team update from Amsterdam

#252

Post by kazinator » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 2:35 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #251

JepZ wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any good starting point to use lisp in the same way as I would use go? I mean I write web servers and command line tools in go. As an editor I use vim. Some time ago I used DrScheme (now Racket) to write Scheme but I never found it to fit easily into my workflow/use-cases. So I would I like to use the language with the following workflow (100% terminal): - write code with vim: vim main.lisp - simply compile…

I wouldn't propose to do it in Lisp. Batch programming is done better in languages like Go, especially if you are already feeling comfortable with a batch workflow. You can write web servers and command line tools in Lisp, but it would be a huge investment to learn that and it is not clear if it pays back for you. Essentially for anything slightly complex one would use an interactive programming style and 'only' deli…

Lisp is terrific for batch programming (too).

You can edit a Lisp program strictly in files, and run a build step to produce a clean image which is tested, using a REPL just as a debugger, to "go in" and find out what is wrong.

Re: Tor in a safer language: Network team update from Amsterdam

#253

Post by lispm » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 5:14 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #252

lispm wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't propose to do it in Lisp. Batch programming is done better in languages like Go, especially if you are already feeling comfortable with a batch workflow. You can write web servers and command line tools in Lisp, but it would be a huge investment to learn that and it is not clear if it pays back for you. Essentially for anything slightly complex one would use an interactive programming style and 'only' deli…

Lisp is terrific for batch programming (too). You can edit a Lisp program strictly in files, and run a build step to produce a clean image which is tested, using a REPL just as a debugger, to "go in" and find out what is wrong.

If he uses a REPL, it is no longer batch programming. The plain edit/compile/run cycle is best left to other languages.

Re: Tor in a safer language: Network team update from Amsterdam

#254

Post by kazinator » Mon, Apr 10, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #253

kazinator wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lisp is terrific for batch programming (too). You can edit a Lisp program strictly in files, and run a build step to produce a clean image which is tested, using a REPL just as a debugger, to "go in" and find out what is wrong.

If he uses a REPL, it is no longer batch programming. The plain edit/compile/run cycle is best left to other languages.

Ok, so the definition of batch programming means that debugging is only allowed by print statements (or other side effects from which we infer what happened in an actual run of the program and work backwards). For instance, using a breakpoint debugger on C isn't batch.

Still, Lisp is good for that. I've debugged Lisp programs with print statements and it was at least as good an experience as debugging programs in other languages using print statements.

For instance, if we compare to C, C has no trace, and generally no easy way to wrap any function with a wrapper that takes the arguments. Ecosystems built around C, like the Linux kernel, have developed things like that: Linux has a function tracing thing in it (more than one, I think).