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