Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bumbada 1698 days ago
That is because it is a little secret. It is a secret hidden in the open.

We program in C#, we program in swift, C and C++, but we continue using so much Lisp as I did 20 years ago or way more.

With Lisp you don't need to write only Lisp, you can write swift or any other language in Lisp, as we do.

When people ask what programming languages we use, even competitors, we just tell them. They don't listen.

They just can't really understand. They probably believe we use Lisp because we depend on obsolete technology because they are under the influence. The influence of snake oil salesman that want to sell them their new shiny language.

For them anything new is shiny and old means dusty because things degrade over time, but computer languages do not.

If competitors can't "get it", much better for us. They probably believe that we try to deceive them and that in reality we are using this new language-paradigm of the week that solves all the problems. Let them.

Lisp guys have nothing to sell you but probably the software they create. And if they have a powerful tool, they are not that interested on you knowing their secret.

2 comments

> Lisp guys have nothing to sell you but probably the software they create. And if they have a powerful tool, they are not that interested on you knowing their secret.

This level of claim is indistinguishable from fiction.

and yet we have a company that kind of said that recently (https://lisp-journey.gitlab.io/blog/lisp-interview-kina/):

> I really like the Common Lisp world. *I would like it to be more popular, but at the same time, it is a differentiator for us*.

they reached to us so we add Kina on awesome-lisp-companies. But how many more think the same? And still, they evidently put little effort in making CL more "popular", because they have no interest. They found enough open-source libraries, they work on a hard problem, they form their developers and operators in-house, they develop their own Lisp-like language for the browser… and they silently use the power of SBCL.

This, this right here is the attitude I’m referring to. From now on all I’m gonna say is “GitHub or GTFO.” Show me all this lisp you’re writing, or at least tell me the fantastic product you’ve built with it or GTFO.