feelsboutlisps
Again, in your opinion. And sorry to start blunt because I'm trying to round this out as we're getting nowhere :)
To me, writing my code like it's an AST, amid a ton of parens is not sensible. I've happily not done so in many other languages for over a decade, and I'm very happy with that state of affairs (or at least I'm relatively happy with the modern incarnations of C-style langs, e.g. Rust, Crystal, ES6, and I would be very unhappy if I had to chuck that in tomorrow and write lisp).
Generally agree with your train of thought on abstractions, and see how you arrive at macros. But my take is that it's simply not a good idea to go as far as macros, especially when the syntax sacrifice is so great. If the language is truly missing something, take it up with the language authors.
(I've never encountered a situation in > 6 years of writing Python where I encountered something I could not do and needed macros for).
Again, my basic opinion is I see it as a trade-off, and one that I don't agree with. I think many others feel the same way if they get as far as understanding the purported benefits of homoiconicity. But most aren't willing to argue it on Hacker News and get downvoted to high hell (which is why I used a throwaway).
(I should note meanwhile in another thread someone wrote off the entire JS community as 'full of self-righteous assholes' [0] and got upvoted to top post).
Thanks for the discussion, it was an interesting experiment in arguing these thoughts I've had for a long time, as an 'abandoned' Clojure-curious dev. I'm a bit sad I didn't get any new answers, but appreciate the insight all the same.
I don't agree with them however.
What I'm arguing is that Lispers say that all the parens and lack of other, more expressive constructs are worth it because you get macros. I'm arguing that's a bad trade-off, because 1. that's a big sacrifice, 2. macros aren't a win.
Because people in this thread are attempting to put-forward lisps' macros (and writing code as an AST) as some big win, without acknowledging that it comes with a massive cost. Lisp-y, inexpressive, paren-soup syntax. I'm saying myself (and presumably many others else lisps would be more popular) don't buy the trade-off.
If you like it, and your team like it then great. But don't act like it's definitely win-win, and people who choose not to use lisps just haven't achieved enlightenment yet.
I don't want to. I want a language that has sensible norms.
> As for your theory that macros make code harder to understand, you don't have any proof. In fact, you have negative proof,
Do I?
> as there's plenty of logic,
What logic? Show me. I simply don't believe you, as it's not provable.
> good programming practice
Still not proof. I believe the opposite, that it's not good programming practice to use macros.
> and individual cases indicating that careful use of macros can make code easier to understand.
So anecdotal evidence, not proof.
You have no more proof than I have. My personal experience is that in most mainstream languages, the most common arguments are over invention of frameworks/libs vs using existing ones, and those devs certainly would not be happy having macros thrown in the mix.
I mean, that's provably not true. Or at least not provably true. Let's me throw out at alternative statement: Macros make code harder to understand.
> When I use something like cl-ppcre:do-register-groups, this one word hides all the loop orginization
You don't need a lisp to hide things.
> Or cl-sql:select, which allows programmer to use SQL syntax as part of lisp
Eugh, why would I want SQL interspersed with my lisp.
> [...] gl:with-primitives, which hides glBegin(...); [...] Note, it not just hides, it makes impossible to forget glEnd.
Python has 'with' statements and 'context managers' that do this (make sure some cleanup happens). [1]
> Macros makes life easier [...] such a convinient way to make an abstractions
They might make life easier for the person writing them in the short term. And I can see how when you find a really solid case for a macro and document it well, open source it etc, it can be broadly useful, but then why not add that case to the damn language. Instead you open the floodgates to everyone in your team writing macros that aren't widely understood.
> Otherwise no one would use it.
A lot of people avoid them like the plague in all other languages.
> but nevertheless lisp nostalgia will last forever.
Maybe that's all it is though.
[1] https://docs.python.org/2/reference/compound_stmts.html#the-...
Getting rid of syntax that usefully expresses common cases absolutely is a sacrifice. What was that Turing tar pit thing about making things of interest easy? Lisp is powerful, but its lack of syntax makes it inexpressive.
> It also eliminates many syntactic bugs
How so?
> makes searching & editing code easier for humans
I disagree, code that lacks basic syntax such that programmers end up writing macros, does not make code easier to search and edit.
> makes editor tools easier to create and more broadly useful when they exist
I can see how that would work, because you're writing ASTs like you're a robot, which of course machines can understand better, just not humans.
> eliminates ambiguous precedence completely
That is a totally overstated problem. I've literally never been bitten by this in about 10 years of programming. Everyone in every other language just adds parens by default.
> You begin to notice that syntax itself really is an anti-feature
Having given Clojure I think 'a fair go', I just don't see that happening. Being able to read my teammates code will never be an anti-feature.
I just don't agree with the trade-off ...
But it'll be way simpler to express literally every other day-to-day concept, whereas lisps will continue to be inexpressive, syntaxless, paren-soup.
I think you're in the minority there. I would hope most people agree that Lisp 'sacrifices syntax in the name of homoiconicity'.
If not, then we have different definitions of syntax and I'm not sure any discussion on that is likely to go anywhere.
I guess 'better' is the operative word I question here. You're creating syntax that no-one has seen before. How is that a good thing? Meanwhile in languages like Python, with syntax built-in, people build large apps without ever doing this, making their code far more understandable for the next person that touches it.
> I don't see a meaningful difference here between Lisp and, say, C++.
Agree :) (joke)
> If you have a dysfunctional team writing C++, full of cowboy programmers
At no point am I suggesting we can save ourselves from cowboys ...
> What stops it from happening in functional teams isn't that [...] the language prevents it from happening, but that the team has some kind of working process that allows them to successfully write code as a team.
But people are arguing 'the whole point' of lisps is that you can be free to do this, and that this justifies the 'paren-crazy', syntax-less language trade-off, and I'm yet to see any justification it's necessary to allow this at all.
What I'm saying is that all the lispy parens give you are footguns and all you're saying is that good teams don't use those guns. Well then why give them the guns at all. Why not give them a language with decent syntax instead.
I don't want my teammates writing macros. When the whole programming community constantly talks about situations within regular, more expressive languages (with syntax) like Python et al, where teammates look at each others code and are baffled ... I struggle to see a scenario where inventing syntax through macros is a good idea, and won't make that situation so much worse.
> arbitrary syntax transformation in macros
See above.
> object system as powerful as CLOS
If I wanted object systems, there are plenty of options that don't involve so many parens, and do involve far more expressive syntax than lisps offer.
> and the ability to comfortably use almost any paradigm
I kinda want my team to pick a set of known paradigms. This is not an advantage. I've never used a modern programming language and thought 'this lacks paradigms, if only I could let my team invent some, that none of us will understand 6 months from now'.
> It's not always useful, but you'll be thankful when it is.
From what you've said, I won't. I'll just be upset my teammates invented their own language with macros and whatever paradigms they chose to use that day.
The lisp 'trade-off' (homoiconicity over expressive syntax) just seems like it's looking for power in the wrong places. Power like that is more often bad than good.