What motivates people to learn and use Lisp? Do they do it for an ego boost? e.g. I've learned Lisp ... I'm enlightened (unlike all the ignorant programmers out there) ... I'm so smart ... I'm better than other people!
Which Lisp? Common Lisp isn't so great IMO. Scheme is awesome because of its minimalism, like C done right.
Do people learn Lisp to feel smart?
Yes. Similarly for other esoteric languages such as Haskell. These languages are more like cults than practical tools. The so-called "enlightenment" is obtained from having to endure fundamental idiosyncrasies of these languages. After experiencing the annoying parentheses of Lisp and the incomprehensible "lazy" nature of Haskell, one becomes a better programmer in other languages simply because the cognitive torture stops when one is not using a painful language such as Lisp.
I don't believe in ``smartness'', in my case the motivation were those pictures of anime girls holding copies of SICP.
>>4
How can some anime pictures motivate one to read a computer science textbook?
Forgive my ignorance. I don't understand the significance of anime girls.
anime girls holding copies of SICP.
I miss when it was only associated with Patchouli. When will normalfags stop ruining everything?
>>6
I made some of those images and I am willing to do it again.
>>3
You must be one of those "programming should not be interesting and I or anybody else should only program because it's practical" types of people.
>>2
Scheme elitists seem to have an anti-C agenda, possibly due to the subtle propaganda embedded within SICP.
>>1
I personally decided to learn Lisp, and Scheme in particular because it is a very simple language with good learning materials. I don’t think introducing programming or computer science in a large language is a good idea; it makes it seem that computer science is about searching for features. Forth might be a reasonable alternative for those so inclined.
>>3
If there is a Scheme enlightenment to be had my guess would be that it would simply be due to the learning materials available, and an early experience with exhaustively understanding a programming language. There simply aren’t many books like EoPL and SICP.
It's just fun to program in Lisp
>>10
Exactly. Scheme is attractive for educational purposes because of its simplicity and the relatively large amount of accessible literature available.
One can select among these books according to one's tastes and interests:
* SICP
* The Little Schemer series (The Little Schemer, The Seasoned Schemer, The Reasoned Schemer, The Little Typer, The Little Prover)
* Lisp in Small Pieces
Lisp is incomplete without Lisp Machine. It's there to make you escape the loop of switching between Windows, Linux, Mac. It's God's language. The Ultimate Journey to the One Truth.
>>13
Are Lisp Machines still being manufactured? Where can a Lisp programmer buy one? How much does one cost? I have a budget of $2000.
>>13
false flag?
>>14
Don't think anybody manufactures Lisp Machines anymore, unfortunately. I heard DKS used to sell old Symbolics stock a few years ago, you might try shooting him an e-mail; I assume you're aware they're ~30+y/o hardware and whatnot. You could also find yourself the unofficial port of Open Genera to Linux/x86 if all you want is to experiment with the software (which is what made the Lisp Machines shine, however cool the hardware was); or Portable Genera, but good luck getting your hands on that. Emulators for multiple of the machines exist, with varying degrees of completeness. Interlisp-D, which originally ran on the Xerox D-machines and is very different to the MIT-descended Lisp systems, got open-sourced a couple years ago and is available and maintained as well, for a different perspective.
If that was the objective, wouldn't learning Haskell be a better option?
I am of pretty average intelligence (tested 99 on Mensa website, no joke) and I like Scheme/Lisp because they are *easier* to learn/read than (say) Java/C++/Go
I do it because I like to LARP as a wizard like the one in the cover ofthe book. I also have a tome of AMOP and I like to pretend it's an old grimoire and hold it solemnly in my hands as I chant some incantations from it. I do this as a ritual in which I wear a robe I found at thrift store and a pointy hat I got from a costume shop, not a shitty one for children but a good looking one used for plays.
I learned Lisp after cracking open Paul Graham's ''On Lisp.'' Not sure what image I had of it before that, but I do recall turning my nose up when a friend suggested I learn it.
As I got started, my opinion was "this isn't a real language" because there's so little syntax. Just parentheses and symbols? How the hell is that supposed to work? Then you grok the ambiguity and it starts to feel more like playing with lego.
logo programming language
logo is brilliant, too bad no one remebers it. much more fun then scratch and other such overwrought "educational" toys
>>14,16
The Symbolics DKS operation is a scam run by a former employee who charges outrageous amounts of money to give you a used netbook with Open Genera loaded on it. And unlike Genera, the MIT and LMI systems have been made completely free, and the emulators for the CADR and Lambda are quite polished. You might find, however that these machines are not what you want, as they are quite slow and clunky by modern standards, and likely won't offer you much over what a modern Common Lisp implementation will. I personally think using GNU Emacs and getting into writing Emacs Lisp will offer you a better experience analagous to the whole 'LISP Machine' thing.
I learned Clojure because I wanted
- a functional language that helps me write code with less bugs
- runs on a lot of different platforms
- has a good standard library
If that was the goal, they would be better off learning Python. Learning Lisp will make you feel dumb; it's a very humbling experience.
What if Lisp and Lisp-like languages are simply better or more enjoyable than most other programming languages? The core features of Lisp or Scheme are also very simple. Common Lisp spec is frozen so your all programs just work. Some languages keep on breaking old code. But this doesn't mean that Common Lisp is obsolete because you can extend it and new useful features that are integrated seamlessly with the rest of language.
I haven't used any other programming language that's as coherent as Common Lisp or Scheme. Because of this (and the fact that Lisp syntax is same for almost everything), Common Lisp and Scheme tends to have less mental overhead than many other languages.
Lisp is for wizards.