Comment by enbugger

2 months ago

If only Lisp had better presense in modern code editors. Emacs is not enough, especially on Windows where it is super slow. I think this is what actually stops newcomers to start with Lisp and not Python

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enbugger

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embedding-shape  2 months ago

> I think this is what actually stops newcomers to start with Lisp and not Python

What stops newcomers is knee-jerk reactions about the (lack of) syntax, it's scary to see something that doesn't look like Algol, because everyone who does mainstream programming uses Algol-like languages.

Introduce lisp to anyone who knows programming since earlier, and 99% of them will have a adverse reaction to s-expressions, before they understand what's going on. Once they understand, it makes a lot of sense obviously, but not everyone even has that kind of open mindset where they could understand if they wanted to.

  • psychoslave  2 months ago

    Symbolic expression is one thing, I would personally find it rather cool to have more first class expression as building block everywhere. However I'm not found of using explicit parentheses all around. Even mandatory curly/square brackets are superfluous with a properly defined syntax ruleset.

velox_neb  2 months ago

My crackpot theory is that what stops newcomers is how unergonomic "(" and ")" are to type on typical keyboards. If mainstream lisp dialects used square brackets instead, we'd all be programming in it!

  • embedding-shape  2 months ago

    > If mainstream lisp dialects used square brackets instead, we'd all be programming in it!

    You've almost convinced/nerd-sniped me to write a(nother) new lisp where we'll be using brackets for forms and lists and no parenthesis in sight. It's a wild theory.

    • oifjoijoifj  2 months ago

      It's just a reader macro, parse out quotes, other reader macros, then replace [ -> (, ] -> ) in the rest and throw into (read).