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Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

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Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#31

Post by elangoc »

snprbob86 wrote: post #6

As somebody who contributes to ClojureScript, I genuinely do not understand the purpose of this project. If you want a JavaScript with Lispy syntax, there are a few things like http://lispyscript.com/ -- Spiritually similar to CoffeeScript. But if you want Clojure semantics, there is ClojureScript: Very different than a simple transpiler like CoffeeScript. ClojureScript includes a standard library of rich data struct…

I agree. The comments here make me think that the commenters don't know all of the extra ideas that Clojure brings besides a "different syntax" to Lisp. Even just for the immutable, persistent data structures that support value semantics (& distinguishing state from identity), ClojureScript ought to go a long way to helping write better code.

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#32

Post by TheHydroImpulse »

snprbob86 wrote: post #6

As somebody who contributes to ClojureScript, I genuinely do not understand the purpose of this project. If you want a JavaScript with Lispy syntax, there are a few things like http://lispyscript.com/ -- Spiritually similar to CoffeeScript. But if you want Clojure semantics, there is ClojureScript: Very different than a simple transpiler like CoffeeScript. ClojureScript includes a standard library of rich data struct…

Also, I find the Google Closure library to be way too heavy for a transpiled language. It adds it's own library tools and separates itself from traditional JavaScript paradigms. Letting the transpiled language to do just that and doesn't impose it's own run-time restrictions would be perfect. After looking over Wisp real quick, it seems like it does just that.

I was pretty dissapointed with ClojureScript because it generates almost unreadable JavaScript; It includes an extremely heavy library that most people don't use and would never use; It depends on a lot of JVM specific things. For it to be a lot more successful as a compile-to-javascript platform it would need to move closer to native JavaScript than anything else.

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#33

Post by TheHydroImpulse »

mike_ivanov wrote: post #16
pnathan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parenscript seems pretty cool. I tried Clojurescript about 2 months ago and the build process was disturbingly frustrating. :-/ I will take a swing at Parenscript next time I get on that particular project.

> build process was disturbingly frustrating that pretty much sums up my experience with ClojureSctipt as well.

Same here, and also the use of Google Closure was pretty disappointing.

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#35

Post by kyllo »

k2052 wrote: post #25
snprbob86 wrote: post #6

As somebody who contributes to ClojureScript, I genuinely do not understand the purpose of this project. If you want a JavaScript with Lispy syntax, there are a few things like http://lispyscript.com/ -- Spiritually similar to CoffeeScript. But if you want Clojure semantics, there is ClojureScript: Very different than a simple transpiler like CoffeeScript. ClojureScript includes a standard library of rich data struct…

A primary benefit of things like Wisp is it makes it easier for non-clojure users to dive in and learn a clojurescript like language. I like JS and I like Lisps but the learning curve for clojurescript is too much if you don't know Clojure already. Wisp feels much more JS like; with my decent JS and decent Scheme knowledge I feel I could just dive in and play with it. Clojurescript does not leave me with the same imp…

Yeah, I think the concept of sticking a JVM in the middle of the process of generating browser scripts is very strange. Clojure has a lot of JVM specific quirks that don't make sense in the context of Javascript at all. And if you're coming from another Lisp/Scheme dialect, Clojure is definitely nontrivial to learn.

Wisp looks like Javascript was supposed to look before they bolted C syntax onto it. People say that Javascript is like Scheme with C syntax. So Wisp is like Javascript with Scheme syntax. I think this is something I would actually use.

I didn't know about LispyScript either, though. I would have to compare/contrast the two.

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#37

Post by asynchrony »

elangoc wrote: post #30
notb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a disadvantage to me. It's mostly just confusing and the only thing it affords is the ability to use :keywords as functions (:like so) which is just sugar for property access, so["like"]. This is broken, though. The coolest thing about :keywords in Clojure is that they really are functions and you can do things like (map :keywords ontoSomething) to extract the same property out of many things. It don't wor…

What you're not realizing, though, is that each time you use the string "like" as a key for a map/dictionary, you're allocating a new object on the heap. So what if you have many keys, and they're all strings? What if you have many maps that share the same keys? That's a lot of memory to allocate, and strings are an extremely inefficient way to implement what is essentially a unique identifier to address map values.…

Javascript strings are immutable and literals are almost certainly preallocated and stored in a table of constants. Why should using a string keys cause heap allocations?

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#39

Post by prollyignored »

elangoc wrote: post #31
snprbob86 wrote: post #6

As somebody who contributes to ClojureScript, I genuinely do not understand the purpose of this project. If you want a JavaScript with Lispy syntax, there are a few things like http://lispyscript.com/ -- Spiritually similar to CoffeeScript. But if you want Clojure semantics, there is ClojureScript: Very different than a simple transpiler like CoffeeScript. ClojureScript includes a standard library of rich data struct…

I agree. The comments here make me think that the commenters don't know all of the extra ideas that Clojure brings besides a "different syntax" to Lisp. Even just for the immutable, persistent data structures that support value semantics (& distinguishing state from identity), ClojureScript ought to go a long way to helping write better code.

Worse is better.

Wisp, I guess provides readable js as opposed to compiled js. That's a win.

Re: Wisp: a homoiconic JS dialect with Clojure syntax, s-expressions and macros

#40

Post by k__ »

mullr wrote: post #21
killerswan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"without the JVM" ... "Once the JVM compiler is up" Does not compute! :P

Can't quite tell if you're serious or joking. In case it's the former: the ClojureScript compiler is implemented in Clojure, which runs on the JVM. The compiled code is Javascript, which doesn't require the JVM. There have been some discussions about making the compiler hostable from Javascript as well, but it's not possible just yet.

> but the JVM kept me at bay

> ClojureScript compiler is implemented in Clojure, which runs on the JVM

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