Lisp: it's not about macros, it's about READ (2012)

Re:Lisp: it's not about macros, it's about READ (2012) by nnq on Monday July 18, 2016 @06:38AM (#12114237)

Is this based on real world examples (like, Lisp projects that you know have failed because the code has turned into an unmaintainable mess), or just using your intuition to extrapolate along the lines of "uh, this language is very flexible, most people are idiots and use excessive flexibility to hang themselves ergo this language would lead to unmaintainable code"?

...because by the same reasoning you could reach the conclusion that all dynamic languages lead to unmaintainable code, therefore nobody should use them :)

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Re:Lisp: it's not about macros, it's about READ (2012) by marcosdumay on Monday July 18, 2016 @01:48PM (#12116764)

To some extent, that is true.

Take some Python lib that does heavy use of reflection and peek at it's source code.

Those features do make code harder to maintain. But with Lisp you not only have more powerful metaprogramming features, you also have a community that embraces and recommends their use, instead of weighting their usefulness against their maintenance cost.

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