What Urbit is - Hackdot

Re:What Urbit is by lisper on Wednesday June 01, 2016 @11:10PM (#11820117)

> I think we'll have to disagree about whether or not Lisp is a typed language.

That seems like a peculiar position to take in light of your self-avowed and (apparently) carefully cultivated ignorance of Lisp. If you don't know Lisp, how would you know if it's typed or not?

BTW, here's a clue. (Spoiler alert! You may learn something about Lisp by reading the following.):

  Welcome to Clozure Common Lisp Version 1.10-r16479M  (DarwinX8664)!
  ? (type-of (sqrt -2))
  (COMPLEX (SINGLE-FLOAT 0.0 1.4142135))
  ? (sqrt 'x)
  > Error: The value X is not of the expected type NUMBER.

> anyone writing a new functional language would be best advised to not have that problem.

I am reminded of this koan:

  In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
  "What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
  "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-tac-toe", Sussman replied.
  "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.
  "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman said.
  Minsky then shut his eyes.
  "Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
  "So that the room will be empty."
  At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

> Hoon does not have macros

Most languages don't.

> a pure typed language doesn't need macros.

Of course. No language needs macros. That's why most languages are serviceable despite not having them.

> favor us with a lecture

You should be careful. As you yourself have just observed, losing your ignorance is a one-way street. The more you let me teach you, the closer you get to the edge.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:What Urbit is by yarvin9 on Wednesday June 01, 2016 @11:53PM (#11820245)

Actually, if you watch the video of the LambdaConf talk, I believe you'll see me deride Lisp as having (and needing) dynamically typed atoms.

I had no idea the concept of an atom had indeed degenerated all the way into complex numbers, which to me and to all decent Americans will always be a "cons" cell. Obviously I had not reckoned with the full and complete degeneracy of Clozure Common Lisp Version 1.10. Or something. If I knew Lisp, I could perhaps condemn it correctly.

In any case, sir: you are misinformed. A "dynamic" type system isn't actually a type system. At best, it's a sort of crutch for retired Jedis who can barely swing their obsolete, one-ended lightsabers.

Or do you wish to become enlightened? Come visit our library, old Jedi. At urbit.org, we have all the enlightenment you need. The age of Lisp was glorious, true. But much time has passed and much we have learned. The times change, uncle, and we must change with them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:What Urbit is by lisper on Thursday June 02, 2016 @01:36AM (#11820594)

> A "dynamic" type system isn't actually a type system.

I didn't say it was. I said Lisp was a typed language. Different claim. Lisp can be either dynamically or statically typed, though dynamic typing is more common. See:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3323549/is-a-statically-t...

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Lisp-dynamically-typed

But see my earlier warnings about the possibility of losing your carefully cultivated ignorance.

If you really want to play with fire, read these too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_system

http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2010/08/what-to-know-before...

Pay particular attention where it says, "Type systems are commonly classified by several words, of which the most common are ... dynamic ..."

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