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Why Fennel?

fennel-lang.org

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Re: Why Fennel?

#61

Post by lerax »

kras143 wrote: post #60

I believe that people who complain about parens have not coded in Lisp (atleast not enough)! Once you get over the "parens", the homogeneity of the language shines through and you will appreciate why some people like me never get over Lisp.

it's kinda funny that whole noise about parenthesis. For a experienced Lisper parenthesis are so meaningless that can be ignored by reading good indented code, however... for a newbie, the amount of parenthesis can be a real nightmare. All that can just be properly solved by using a decent editor that support good parenthesis edition... like emacs. Truly funny. I've been on this community for more than 10 years and always the same thing.

Re: Why Fennel?

#62

Post by HexDecOctBin »

cardanome wrote: post #5

Fennel is pretty nice. I wish it had gradual typing support though or at least allowed for type annotation for static tooling. Not that dynamic typing isn't a valid choice but with more and more languages getting gradual typing support it is hard to go back. I guess we could build something like Coalton but for Lua.

I did find this, though it seems runime only: https://github.com/dokutan/typed-fennel

Maybe a static system can be built upon it.

Re: Why Fennel?

#63

Post by pdimitar »

7qW24A wrote: post #59
pdimitar wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have set it up 50 times and it crapped the bed every time. Before anyone yells "skill issue!", I'll say that if any plugin author can make the editor crap the bed, then the editor is not good. There are degrees to freedom. Complete freedom in such environments is a liability, not an asset. Say hi to the others in the ivory tower. And remind them not to do selective omissions in their supposed counter-arguments to "…

This is a pretty weird hill to die on, boss. Are you suggesting that all of the software written over the years by emacs users (eg gcc) is “ivory tower”? As a community of practitioners we should embrace the idea that not all tools have to be “ideal” for all users. Some people like hacking their editor, and some don’t. If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial softw…

1. I ain't willing to die on any hill. In fact I was 100% certain I'll regret commenting negatively on Emacs. Pretty ardent and devoted fans, it seems.

2. The ivory tower thing is dedicated to the parent poster sounding a bit elitistic and trying to imply I am doing it wrong and he's doing it right -- which I did not deny by the way (which is the really funny part) as my central point was "too much freedom is not good".

3. I completely agree with the notion that not all tools are ideal for all users. I used this sub-thread to express a strong opinion that Emacs allows the "too much freedom" thing that actually becomes much more of a hurdle for those of us that just want to get on with it. I was sure it's going to ruffle feathers which makes me commenting on it fairly stupid, come to think of it, because I was not looking to pick fights, but just to broadcast an apparently unpopular opinion and never engage with replies. Which I failed spectacularly. :D

> If software tools sink to the lowest common denominator, like the vast majority of commercial software, we’ll all be worse for it.

Here's the part where you and I will disagree. Your statement is correct on the outset but I take issue with it because I take it as a hint that Emacs > all other editors. Which cannot be stated as a fact, ever, not for any editor, not just Emacs.

Re: Why Fennel?

#64

Post by n4ture »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #56
n4ture wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand the appeal of non-LISPy languages. I get that most people are used to reading it and that they are efficent, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is combersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add those extra parens i…

This doesn't really resonate with people though, as most people are more familiar with C-style notation. Also: >Writing code like this is combersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy Does not make sense in this context, as it mainly applies to Lisp-like languages that uses parentheses heavily.

Yeah was going to change that part too for something like "Writing code like this is verbose and spans too many lines", but then I just thought it'd be better if it sounded more like the parent comment.

And I understand it doesn't resonate with most, I just wanted to highlight how the initial parent comment was very subjective and not very substantive, some people didn't take the joke so well, I guess it could've sounded a bit passive aggressive. I personally enjoy both C-like and Lisp-like syntaxes and languages, I do have a sweet spot for Forth tho.

But back on topic, Fennel is a great language, working with Love and Fennel is really nice. And if the parentheses can seem off-putting for some, I'd highly encourage to give it a shot as you can quickly get past it and see how comfy it feels to have your statements properly demarkated.

S-expr shine the most when working with XML-like structure. Spinneret[1] was the most fun I ever had working with HTML, every other templating engine feels subpar now that I have tasted that sweet nectar..

[1] https://github.com/ruricolist/spinneret

Re: Why Fennel?

#65

Post by endgame »

torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

Focusing on the runtime's parser is a red herring and I think a common error in lisp advocacy.

Even if I didn't the full power of a lisp macro system, it is an absolute joy to manipulate programs written in s-expressions. Being able to cut/copy/paste/jump-[forward/back] by sexpr is really convenient, and often done nowhere near as well in other languages. I think this is because until the invention of tree-sitter and LSPs (and the former isn't yet widely adopted in editor tech), most editors had regex-based syntax highlighting and some kind of ad-hoc "parser" for a language. This makes them less aware of the language the developer is editing, but was probably a pragmatic design decision by editor implementers: it's easier than writing a full parser and means the editor can still assist even if a program is syntactically ill-formed.

Re: Why Fennel?

#66

Post by yuppiemephisto »

torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

> I’d rather have the language …

check out Lean 4 then. Its syntax system is based on Racket but —instead of parens— implements stuff like [JSX syntax](https://github.com/leanprover-community/ProofWidgets4/blob/d...) and a [maze](https://github.com/dwrensha/lean4-maze)

Re: Why Fennel?

#67

Post by unchar1 »

torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

The first thing that comes to mind is macros.

Re: Why Fennel?

#69

Post by [deleted] »

torginus wrote: post #43

I do not understand the appeal of LISPy languages. I get that the parser is simple and elegant, but I believe the developer (of the compiler in this case) should serve the convenience of the user, not the other way around. Writing code like this is cumbersome and unnecessarily symbol heavy, and reading it isn't really nice as well. I'd rather have the language add that extra complexity into the parser than have me st…

[deleted]
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