Re:The Janet Language
by eggy on Saturday February 18, 2023 @02:41PM
(#34850291)
Quite the opposite. Learning a Lisp or an Array language will build your skills and make you a better programmer. Syntax should fade as a criteria as you become proficient in various PLs.
sum of a list (not running sum, but total. Should equal 10, not 1, 3, 6, 10):
Lisp:
(+ 1 2 3 4)
J/APL[0]:
+/1 2 3 4
Python:
Sum = sum([1,2,3,4])
print(Sum)
They all do the same. I prefer the conciseness of J/APL and Lisp in this case, and the application of a function over the list or vector. The beauty of the REPL is that you see the result without a 'print' statement.
Solving problems in these other languages will influence how you program in your base language as well, and usually for the better. I am also guilty of syntax bias. I prefer LFE (Lisp Flavoured Erlang)[3] over Elixir and Gleam. Gleam[1], another language that runs on the Erlang VM (BEAM), had a more ML syntax, but then it chose to join the syntax popularity contest and move to a more Algol/C/Rust syntax. I prefer vanilla Erlang over it too.
sum of a list (not running sum, but total. Should equal 10, not 1, 3, 6, 10):
Lisp:
J/APL[0]: Python: They all do the same. I prefer the conciseness of J/APL and Lisp in this case, and the application of a function over the list or vector. The beauty of the REPL is that you see the result without a 'print' statement.Solving problems in these other languages will influence how you program in your base language as well, and usually for the better. I am also guilty of syntax bias. I prefer LFE (Lisp Flavoured Erlang)[3] over Elixir and Gleam. Gleam[1], another language that runs on the Erlang VM (BEAM), had a more ML syntax, but then it chose to join the syntax popularity contest and move to a more Algol/C/Rust syntax. I prefer vanilla Erlang over it too.
[0] https://www.jsoftware.com/#/ [1] https://gleam.run/ [3] https://lfe.io/