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Re:I hate almost all software (2011) by astrange on Monday February 06, 2017 @11:34PM (#13587045)
> In contrast Emacs, understood as a text-mode Lisp machine, is at odds with this approach. The code you write is as first class as the code you run from whatever module you import. Everything is alive, integrated, and can be changed.

I think it's really interesting that Lisp developers like everything to be powerful, but only one of these exists:

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

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

Not that I like writing in least-power programming systems (let's say Python here), but it's easier to trust anyone else's programs in them.

Re:I hate almost all software (2011) by shakna on Monday February 06, 2017 @11:55PM (#13587153)
Most LISPs don't give you the most power. They are usually GC'd, and usually don't have access to directly modify memory, like you can with anything in the realm of C.

The foot-gun the give you is expressiveness, which allows you to make code unintelligible, rather than power to do anything that you feel like. (I'm not aware of any surviving LISP that would allow you to modify the structure of how cons cells are generated, for example).

There's certainly power in expressiveness, but it isn't the godlike power of C, where you can potentially damage hardware.

That, I think, is why we don't have a "Rule of most power".

Re:I hate almost all software (2011) by lispm on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @04:11AM (#13588151)
Most actual Lisp systems can access random memory and define C-like memory structures. Otherwise they would not be able to integrate with other software.

See for example:

http://www.sbcl.org/manual/index.html#Foreign-Function-Inter...

Re:I hate almost all software (2011) by dleslie on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @12:30AM (#13587313)
I dislike when things are called rules, but are neither natural constraints or enforced by authority; these are, at best, suggested behavior.