Name: Anonymous 2007-08-25 10:54 ID:lqezIUF6
This is ridiculous. Tim has written tutorials for one Ruby/ObjC bridge and built another himself. Now he’s doing a “domain-specific” variant of Lisp geared specifically towards Objective-C because there’s a need for it.
Lisp fans often ascribe the absence of its success (or at least widespread acceptance and acknowledgement) to there not being one true Lisp. I consider this bullshit. Lisp is not only a programming language, it is its own branch of programming languages. One language isn’t going to fit all – even if you subscribe to the notion that out of all the languages, Lisp is the best (and I personally don’t), there will need to be room for variation.
How would one harm Lisp’s progress? For starters, one way would be to make sure there’s only one Lisp variant, and demand that all resources spent on anything anywhere near Lisp is pooled there, ridding the world of hundreds of useful influences of Lisp to other languages or of other languages to Lisp, and coming off looking like complete asshats for not letting people use whatever they wish of the collective knowledge of humanity in their own projects without needing to ask anyone for permission. This is a dead certain way of harming Lisp’s reputation, in return also harming uptake and interest.
Get off your high horse and let people do what they wish. If you want “one true Lisp”, why not join the existing efforts to do so? And if you disagree with them, well, aren’t you glad there’s more Lisps than “one true Lisp”?
Lisp fans often ascribe the absence of its success (or at least widespread acceptance and acknowledgement) to there not being one true Lisp. I consider this bullshit. Lisp is not only a programming language, it is its own branch of programming languages. One language isn’t going to fit all – even if you subscribe to the notion that out of all the languages, Lisp is the best (and I personally don’t), there will need to be room for variation.
How would one harm Lisp’s progress? For starters, one way would be to make sure there’s only one Lisp variant, and demand that all resources spent on anything anywhere near Lisp is pooled there, ridding the world of hundreds of useful influences of Lisp to other languages or of other languages to Lisp, and coming off looking like complete asshats for not letting people use whatever they wish of the collective knowledge of humanity in their own projects without needing to ask anyone for permission. This is a dead certain way of harming Lisp’s reputation, in return also harming uptake and interest.
Get off your high horse and let people do what they wish. If you want “one true Lisp”, why not join the existing efforts to do so? And if you disagree with them, well, aren’t you glad there’s more Lisps than “one true Lisp”?