Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by iLemming 655 days ago
> I found it impossible to read and frustrating and tedious to write.

Perhaps you've done it wrong? To read any Lisp code one needs a REPL. And you don't typically type directly in it, you connect to it and eval things from source files. Once you get connected to a REPL, you can eval any expression and sub-expression, and with practice, you'd learn to grok the code without a REPL.

And for writing Lisp, you only need structural editing support in your editor. Once you find basic commands - moving structures around is far more enjoyable process than writing things in an unstructured language.

I am far more productive using Clojure instead of Java and Clojurescript instead of Javascript, Fennel instead of Lua, etc. - it's easier to read, easier to modify, easier to maintain. But, yeah, it does require some practice, just like any other skill.
1 comments
radix7 655 days ago
I am well aware of the benefits of a REPL, and find it pretty essential for learning any language. It didn't help me grok clojure any better, though.

I'm not sure what you mean by structural editing support. I usually find things like autocomplete or automatic parenthesis to be more of a nuisance than a help.

link
iLemming 655 days ago
> find it pretty essential for learning any language

No, REPLs in other languages are not equal to REPLs in Lisp dialects. I bet what you are describing is not the same workflow that an average Clojurian would use. In other languages you typically type directly into the REPL console. With Clojure, you typically connect your editor to a running REPL instance and then manipulate things directly from the source code - you basically write the program, while living inside it - your codebase becomes a living, breathing, maleable entity.

Structural editing has little to do with autocomplete, it's just a way to manipulate expressions - move them around, raise them, transpose them, wrap/unwrap, etc.

I suppose you tried to understand Clojure by looking at the code, and that could be challenging - without proper REPL and structural editing support, it may not be the same joyful experience that many Clojurians know.

link
radix7 654 days ago
Yes, I've heard this sales pitch before. Yes, I used an actual REPL tied to an editor, among other configurations. I found it rather underwhelming. I tried a few other lisp dialects as well, but had the same experience. Interactivity is great, but it doesn't make up for the language itself.
link
iLemming 654 days ago
"Underwhelming"? Seriously? I don't think you actually tried the real thing, have you? I don't know about you, I find it extremely satisfying, when you can run a basic Puppeteer or Playwright script and then explore the DOM structure directly from your editor, without having to copy/paste, move or change your code, or even using devtools (everything controlled from your editor), and then navigate the page interactively from your editor and execute pieces of code (that run in the browser) without any preliminary ritual, even without having to save the file.

Or you'd run a curl command once and continue exploring the data - parsing slicing, dicing, grouping, sorting any way you like, or even have it visualized in the Portal tool with charts and graphs.

Look, I'm currently writing tests for a thing, while my IDE is connected to a service running on a Kubernetes pod in the cloud - I can eval any function that affects the execution of the service, I can explore the db tables, change the routes and re-run the tests - all that without having to restart the pod, without having to deploy anything, without even having to save any files (if I don't have to).

Lisp REPL-driven development gives you immediate feedback, allows you to modify and debug running programs on-the-fly, allows you to experiment, it's great for understanding language features interactively, and it's a real, tangible productivity boost - it's superb for rapid prototyping.

> Interactivity is great, but it doesn't make up for the language itself.

The language is what allows that great interactivity and exploratory programming. I mean, I get it - while it may initially appear challenging to read, much like how sigma notation for loops in mathematics can be difficult to comprehend, with practice it becomes intuitive. One wouldn't go to math.stackexchange to complain about sigmas and other mathematical symbols being unintuitive, would they?

link
lispm 654 days ago
Strange, I use Lisp and type to a REPL all the time. Now you tell me that is a feature of other languages, not of Lisp?
link