Everybody talks about Arc again
Arc walks the blogosphere again.
The LtU article and comments on programming.reddit.com show that there's still some interest in the topic. Although we have all waited a very long time.
Arc currently powers a spam-filter and Y Combinator's Startup News, some kind of reddit.com clone.
John Wiseman says "I used to think people working on new Lisp-like languages were misguided, but after internalizing the idea that Common Lisp is static, and therefore dead, I'm a lot more sympathetic."
I don't think Common Lisp is really dead. People use it for new projects and new libraries. ASDF wasn't there 10 years ago and all important implementations support it. Many libraries and tools became a de facto standard you can use with your favorite implementation.
Dead relatives shouldn't be the only reason to design a new programming language (or new variation of an existing one).
Paul Graham sure likes Lisp. He wrote books about Common Lisp and his financial success is based on it, too. He doesn't seem to be a language zealot as he speaks positively about Python and uses MzScheme for developing Arc. The Lisp family can be sure to gain a fine, new member. Not a black sheep from "misguided people".
posted by Stefan Scholl at
20:03
6 Comments:
The thing I love about the Lisp community is that whether you're a Common Lisper, a Schemer, or even an Arcer, we can all get together and make fun of how much newLISP sucks. :-)
Hi Stefan. Would you be kind enough to expound upon your "black sheep" and "misguided people" comments for us?
Hi Michael!
newLisp is the PHP of the Lisp family. Here are some links:
http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/257#comment-1901
http://www.alh.net/newlisp/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2776
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.scheme/browse_frm/thread/997dc59b8ebb1749/af62130eefafd338
Sorry Stephan, I am still not convinced by your "drive by" comment on newLISP (and of course, unimpressed in the manner you made it). You should try making an argument yourself for a change.
However I did read the link to LtU you provided for michael. And while there are criticisms of newLISP, I did find some good points and good defenses about it. Telling was the exchange between the Kogut guy and frontera000 which concludes with frontera000 saying
"I don't expect a language to be perfect. I expect a language to be useful and not get in the way of hacking. For me newLISP does that. For you, perhaps not."
That cuts to the chase and is convincing to me because it comes from an experienced programmer who has actually used it, not someone like you who *quotes* people who *just* talk about it. The same is done by TV political commentators, but you are worse than they because at least, they are talking about politics -- you are *supposed* to be talking about programming languages, and so you need to hold yourself to a higher standard.
Hi Stefan, and thank you for responding so quickly. I'm still unclear what you mean by "black sheep" and "misguided." You compare newLISP to PHP. I assume this to be an insult, but I know there are some who love PHP. Why disrespect the many people using and enjoying newLISP, unless you're insecure about your own language? Or is it possible you're actually threatened by a black sheep raised by misguided people? ;-)
Hi Stefan. I see that you have taken the time, once again, to bash newLISP and its users on the "Ok, all you crazy coders out there, Tell me what your favorite language is" article on reddit. The article is *not* "What is your *least* favorite language," but you still saw it as an opportunity to vent your language bigotry. You sir, are a languagist! And like all "ist"s (racist, sexist, etc.), your hatred says more about you and your insecurities than anything about the subjects of your hatred. Don't you have anything better to do, Stefan?
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