this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Lisp

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does lisp have a future? (noob (don't take too seriously)) (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by Cloundx01@alien.top to c/lisp
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------ First, Why i think lisp is awesome -----

Hello, apologies for a clickbait title, I'm a casual programmer, i used emacs lisp about a year or two, i had frustrations with it, i had fun with it to the point where I'd rather configure emacs that play any video game, and i decided to try common lisp and i realized that i actually feel more comfortable programming in lisp than i do in python.

By "more comfortable" i mean i find it easier to translate my thoughts into code in lisp rather than python, because:

  1. of a fact that i can modify a state of a program while a program is running with is REALLY underappreciated feature btw, that means my thoughts are already in-sync with a program state, and i don't have to rethink how program will execute from start to finish. ~~(if non-lisp languages also did that i would be really happy, but for some reason only lisp does that as far as i know)~~

  2. its just a simple syntax. i find it harder to remember syntax sugar than i do keywords. also keywords are easy to auto-complete with a code editor.

  3. interactive repl. combine `point 1` with the fact that the code in your editor buffer and your repl is also synced in with the program state, its just really intuitive, it feels like its always supposed to be this way

------ now going back to a point of a post -------

Hearing about a history of lisp you heard the words like "pioneer of..." "used to be..." "inspired this-and-that-modern-programming-language.exe" gave me an impression like they are talking that lisp is antiquated language. All of a IT fields that lisp was a captain of, for example, AI development, is now lead by python. the community is comparatively small. i can tell that by glancing at subreddit numbers, its not looking that hot:
r/lisp 38k / 71 online
r/Common_Lisp 6.9k / 13 online
r/rust 256k / 865 online
r/C_Programming 147k / 137 online
r/Python 1.2m / 761 online
r/java 307k / 150 online
...
Technically speaking i can still find all the libraries and compilers i need, and free educational material is also good. But i think not having enough people, means less people that talk about it, means diminishing return on people interested in a subject, means it can hit a point of no return where it is too little people to make any practical use of lisp, because not enough manpower to maintain it, and no job opportunity. Idk this last part might be a delusional thinking, but this is genuinely what i think could happen. I think people need to talk more about lisp, if I'm correct of my assumption. Peace!

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[–] stylewarning@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

lisp has been just about to die for longer than many programming languages have existed.

it's a very robust language with great documentation and implementations, and there are still lisp jobs out there paying money to write cool software.

[–] Acebulf@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The lisp community has no hype behind it, sure, but the language has enough libraries that this isn't going to stop you from doing anything. At the end of the day, if you want to follow the latest trends, nothing stops you from doing that, but you won't find it here. If you're looking to make things that work, then Lisp is fine, as are most general purpose languages.

On a sidenote, if you want some wanky stats that support Lisp, consider that lisp ranks above industry titans like Typescript. https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/ Means absolutely nothing, but I found that funny.

[–] dzecniv@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

also in this one/ https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#technology "lisp" is above Clojure OCmal Julia Erlang F# Fortran Ada...

[–] jd-at-turtleware@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

When I've started learning lisp around a decade the same of sentiment was present. In fact I hear it less frequently that the language is dead compared to back then. As prof Edmund Weitz put it: "Lisp ain't dead, it just smells funny" (after Frank Zappa) :)

[–] Shinmera@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It does if you donate to my patreon so I can keep making cool stuff in it: https://patreon.com/shinmera

For a different answer, a tool like a programming language has a future as long as people keep finding it useful. If that very pragmatic answer isn't enough and you have more esoteric ideas of what a future is, such as it needing to be capitalistically viable, then you're driving a harder bargain. There's still a future in that, too, though. Even without specific companies using it, there's plenty of opportunities as a consultant to implement solutions using lisp. And if a future to you means it needs to be mainstream popular, then you're going to have to somehow come into the possession of millions of dollars to fund and lobby various companies and educational systems to use it.

Personally I'm not really sure what this humm-hawwing really solves. Just make cool stuff and enjoy your time?

[–] Cloundx01@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I like your bluntness :D

I've seen your work before, i will consider it.

[–] nomocle@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Sorry, wrong question. Ask the real one:

"For how many decades did Lisp survive without being dismissed as inferior to newer languages?"

[–] Decweb@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lispers know their time is too valuable not to use lisp.

[–] Cloundx01@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh? what is that supposed to mean?

[–] agumonkey@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

lisp is a nicer material to build stuff on

lots of features, more options, good performance

there's also a good culture, i work with people used to php and the abstraction level and cleanliness is abysmal

[–] ThemosTsikas@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE18841CABEA24090&si=X_q6Z6YFwzanamtj Classic MIT lectures

[–] digitalghost0011@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

The company I work at uses Clojure and while we’re small it has some pretty big adopters as well. Walmart labs, Nubank, I think Atlassian uses it a bit.

Lisp in general also seems to have a foothold in quantum computing research, if that ever gets big it’ll have an early-mover advantage.

[–] flaming_bird@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Standard Common Lisp has no notion of futures or promises, or asynchronous programming in general. For libraries that implement these concepts, you can try https://github.com/orthecreedence/cl-async-future or https://github.com/orthecreedence/blackbird.

/s

[–] bitwize@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's an iron law of software development that the more you can prove at compile time, the fewer bugs will creep in at run time. The future of software development will look a lot less like Lisp and a lot more like Rust. Strong static typing with parametric types is table stakes for a modern language. Ideally you want static object lifetime management too. Inasmuch as Lisp can adopt these things it still might be a niche contender.

[–] wolfgang@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

The future of software development will look a lot less like Lisp and a lot more like Rust.

There is no singular future of software development. Languages like Python will not be replaced by those with fancy static type systems. It's only Java and friends who will eventually be replaced by Scala, Rust etc.

[–] tuhdo@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except that the "perfect" software is all wrong when the next day, the software requirement turns 180 degree. That's why you need software environment that is resistance to changes and a dynamic development environment will never go away.

[–] wolfgang@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I don't necessarily disagree, but what you're saying is commonly brought up as an argument in favor of static typing as well.

[–] thank_burdell@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Your reason #1 was my main appreciation point for smalltalk and squeak, back in my undergrad CS days. Edit the code for how your ide behaves on the fly? Neat!

Now, lots of tools offer that sort of thing. But back in the day it was really cool.

[–] tuhdo@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I dpn't see lots of tools offer that feature in a simple manner. Take Python, for example, if your script crashes during the run, so you lose your running state to investigate what the problem is, fix it on the fly, and resume.

[–] dzecniv@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

lots of tools

as tuhdo answered, do you know lots of tools that offer to restart your program from any point in the stack, after a bug occurred, possibly saving you hours of re-computing? demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBBS4FeY7XM That's really a CL power IMO.

[–] notwithoutpurpose@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

Lisp is dead because it's easy to write and hard to read. Readability is overwhelmingly the most important property of programming languages. I think it's a solved problem though, so I actually think Lisp is the future of programming. (Parenthesized prefix notation, more specifically.) Fun fact: Lisp's readability problem has nothing to do with parentheses!

[–] Manifoldsqr@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

I don’t think so. Lisp will never be a popular language. Lisp did have an impact but now a days it’s not used by a lot of people and among those who use the language only use it to build toy programs. There’s only a few companies who use it such as Rigetti and hrl labs