Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005)

Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by gruseom on Thursday January 01, 2009 @03:39PM (#416657)

This is so wrong in so many ways, but I think the ur-mistake, the one that leads to all the others, is writing an article like this in the first place. You like Ruby? You like Ruby. Use it! Why write a whole article trying to justify how you feel? It's as if the author is trying to give himself (and others) permission not to use Lisp.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by pg on Thursday January 01, 2009 @06:36PM (#416789)

He is saying something. Something false, I believe, but not meaningless. There is a certain style of programming that was once only possible in Lisp. The author is claiming that you can program that way in Ruby, or close enough.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by gruseom on Thursday January 01, 2009 @07:02PM (#416804)

Oh, I don't think it's meaningless, just that the arguments are bad, and seem to have been invented in order to justify something that doesn't really need justifying.

Now I suppose someone is going to ask me what arguments are bad. Two examples: 1. "The most common use of LISP macros is to avoid typing lambda quite so much" - obviously false; 2. Using Lisp to model a Ruby example of "mini-language" demonstrates Lisp's power, not Ruby's.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by strlen on Thursday January 01, 2009 @08:21PM (#416865)

I think the definite false part is 'ruby is a[n acceptable] Lisp' - which is false. One could have a language with a ruby like syntax and co-routines and be a Lisp.

One could probably argue that Perl6 is a Lisp with CFGs a first order language primitive (which is in essence what macros allow), c.f. Greenspun's Tenth.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by ii on Thursday January 01, 2009 @06:40PM (#416796)

It works both ways. Don't you like Ruby? You don't like Ruby. Don't read articles about Ruby!

I for one may use Ruby as a scripting language for my next project, I want to see more articles like this.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by gruseom on Thursday January 01, 2009 @06:54PM (#416799)

Don't read articles about Ruby!

I usually don't! This is an article about Ruby and "LISP". I read articles about Lisp. This one is mistaken, I think, mostly because the author hasn't used Lisp to do much, but writes about it anyway.

But I really don't mean to carp about the article. Ruby makes him happy, that's great.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by ii on Thursday January 01, 2009 @07:29PM (#416825)

I see your point. But, please, let's encourage people to write more articles about what they think is right. Even if the article is wrong it's still good that it was written.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by qqq on Thursday January 01, 2009 @04:50PM (#416699)

Suppose you're right. He is trying to give himself permission to not use lisp, so he feels better. Then writing this helps him use ruby (as you advise). so it's good that he wrote it. (but no need for you to read it).

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by gruseom on Thursday January 01, 2009 @06:14PM (#416776)

Very clever, except that you miss the point, which is that he has to concoct a bunch of bogus arguments in the process, and those are not so good.

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Re:Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) by qqq on Thursday January 01, 2009 @06:23PM (#416780)

Oh, that's bad then.

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