81–90 of 143 posts
So I've read that they wrote it in Lisp at Paul Graham's request or to win favor. Does anyone know if writing your startup code in Lisp still has that benefit?
that said a language can push you to the moon or help you crash faster, team culture and fit will matter more IMO
It was announced in comp.lang.lisp most early adopters were lisp users. The first Reddit drama was when Paul Graham was caught having a sock puppet account to defend his arguments :)
The current reddit seems to be written in js/python. I can see the logic behind js since its a lot easier to find devs and thanks to all the hard work of the engineers behind v8 its not a slow language. I do not understand why python was chosen though. If you need more speed you would go with c++ and not python which is the slowest popular language. Anyone got any insight into why python was chosen?.
I have a theory (which nobody I ever met shares) that the visually most beautiful language is the one that long-term results in the fastest development of a project: Visual noise is like inflation. A constant tax on what you do. But you barely notice it. But it accumulates because it is constantly leading to slightly worse and more complex code. Since it is harder to focus on a noisy something in front of you, you ma…
So I've read that they wrote it in Lisp at Paul Graham's request or to win favor. Does anyone know if writing your startup code in Lisp still has that benefit?
It was announced in comp.lang.lisp most early adopters were lisp users. The first Reddit drama was when Paul Graham was caught having a sock puppet account to defend his arguments :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why python was chosen. But I contributed a tiny bit of code to reddit back when it was open source and chatted with reddit engineers on IRC, so I do know the official justification (as of 2010ish) for reddit sticking with python: Websites are mostly IO bound anyway. The hot parts like markdown formatting and templating are already c modules. So the performances gain for rewriting in a compiled language a…
That seems reasonable to me, even today. Am I off-base?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure why python was chosen. But I contributed a tiny bit of code to reddit back when it was open source and chatted with reddit engineers on IRC, so I do know the official justification (as of 2010ish) for reddit sticking with python: Websites are mostly IO bound anyway. The hot parts like markdown formatting and templating are already c modules. So the performances gain for rewriting in a compiled language a…
That seems reasonable to me, even today. Am I off-base?
With the "new" reddit they replaced most of the frontend with javascript and it really shows. That's not to say I like sites that use too much javascript but python is slow enough just parsing and filling html templates, seemingly.
The current reddit seems to be written in js/python. I can see the logic behind js since its a lot easier to find devs and thanks to all the hard work of the engineers behind v8 its not a slow language. I do not understand why python was chosen though. If you need more speed you would go with c++ and not python which is the slowest popular language. Anyone got any insight into why python was chosen?.
It was chosen because at the time because python was much more mature and productive. They didnt use Django, but as an example Django is still more productive than any Node framework I've tried thus far, too, and we have types now. :)
https://web.archive.org/web/20060206185841/http://reddit.com...
Why they moved away from CL:
"If Lisp is so great, why did we stop using it? One of the biggest issues was the lack of widely used and tested libraries. Sure, there is a CL library for basically any task, but there is rarely more than one, and often the libraries are not widely used or well documented. Since we're building a site largely by standing on the shoulders of others, this made things a little tougher. There just aren't as many shoulders on which to stand."
And why Python was chosen:
"So why Python?
We were already familiar with Python. It's fast, development in Python is fast, and the code is clear. In most cases, the Lisp code translated very easily into Python. Lots of people have written web applications in Python, and there's plenty of code from which to learn. It's been fun so far, so we'll see where it takes us."
So, basically, they were happy with CL except for lack of libraries, and because they also knew Python already, and they knew there were more libraries for Python, they picked it. Simple as that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who’s been involved in both, it’s not like the language you pick doesn’t make a difference, but I’d say that there are other factors that vastly overshadow it. For example, one thing we were told when choosing to write in a lisp was that we’d have problems finding developers. It turned out to be true in that we received fewer applications, but compared to the same process with a more mainstream language, I…
Many of the most famous "done in Lisp" products I know of have the delightful feature that it's not Lisp itself that provides a solution that other languages can't . Rather: 1) Developers who like Lisp tend to be really smart, well-read, and well-educated. 2) Lisp streamlines these developers' thought processes, allowing them to get more done with less, fast. For example, the early Naughty Dog games written in GOOL/G…
You just described key Lisp features that aren't in C++. It's almost the entire point of using Lisp.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Arc I believe.
OMG, Paul Graham actually released Arc in some form? I thought he never finished it. I was going to make snarky comment about how between spez and PG, Lisp must actually be extended-release brain poison for people in executive management positions; now I wonder if spez just knows PG personally and takes his advice.