#perl6 about Lisp Mentality and Usability - Fortune [possible satire]

pmuriasrindolf: what is Park/Spark?
rindolfpmurias: http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/projects/Park-Lisp/
rindolfpmurias: it's still incomplete.
rindolfAnd I haven't updated it.
pmuriasrindolf: if you like lisp/perl6 projects you might consider helping with a common lisp elf backend
rindolfpmurias: Common Lisp.
rindolfpmurias: thing is I think both CL and Scheme suck.
rindolfI like Lisp as a concept.
rindolfArc is nice, but has too many implementation problems.
rindolfAnd missing features.
vixeyArc is not nice
rindolfI want to give a presentation to the Perl Mongers about "Foreign Languages: Lisp"
rindolfvixey: I like it.
rindolfThough I hate that "(not)" has become "(no)"
rindolfit's so non-English.
vixeyit's just Tcl with horrible syntax
rindolfvixey: but it's missing a lot of exciting features.
rindolfWhich PG deemed as unnecessary.
rindolfDoesn't look like the 100-years language to me.
rindolfWhich is why - Spark!
pmuriaswhy not just write an s-expression p6 dialect?
rindolfpmurias: could be.
rindolfpmurias: it's another approach.
rindolfBut some things make sense in Lisp and not in p6.
rindolfFor example, Perl does not like to use + for string or list concat.
rindolfWhile Python does and it seems to be OK in Arc too.
rindolfAnd in CL you have (concatenate) (yuck!).
pbuetow(((hehe)))
pmurias+ for strings sucks
Auzonseconded.
vixeyrindolf: If you don't like CONCATENATE you can just rename it
rindolfvixey: yeah.
rindolfvixey: but I'd rather not rename concatenate because then people won't understand my code.
rindolfvixey: as TimToady said people hate abstractions.
vixeyyes they will rindolf
rindolfThey want things to work out of the box.
vixeyA program is many many totally newly defined procedures
vixeyjust renaming one thing is nothing in the context of a big program
rindolfvixey: "let's spend 3 days creating a new language, and 1 day implementing the solution with it."
TimToadyif it would take 10 days without the new language, it's worth it
rindolfTimToady: yeah.
rindolfTimToady: but this is the CL mentality.
vixeyno it's not
rindolfSometimes you can take 1 day to write an API.
vixeyCL is too diverse you cannot generalize like that
rindolfvixey: I meant a common idiom there.
rindolfI think I'll /quit and do something productive.
rindolfLike work on Spark.
vixeyanother quote:
vixeyhow to write any computer program in two easy stages:
vixeyDesign and implement the programming language which would be best for solving the problem.
vixeyWrite the program in the language you’ve just implemented.
rindolfvixey: or just use Perl which is the best for everything.
vixeyheh
TimToadythe second step is obvious--the best language for the job is one that does the job on a null input
* pmichaudnotes that vixey's algorithm is somewhat recursive
TimToady"All rules of thumb are false, including this one."
pmuriasrindolf: when you feel like writing Common Lisp backends, contact me or mncharity ;)
Channel#perl6
NetworkFreenode
TaglineLisp Dialects (Scheme, Common Lisp, Arc, Spark) Mentality and Usability
Published2008-07-07