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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

"as sexy as Scheme"?! No way.

Seriously, it's ridiculous how long this is carrying on. It's the same debate heard in all ages, all political groups, etc. The debate against change. They're used to their PHP, and are, begrudgingly, willing to accept that LISP has some "neat things", but as of yet refuse to admit that their syntax is idiotic, and their language handicapped. So they try to "put lipstick on a pig."

I'm going down... I know. But it just takes so much more effort to translate the above into a well thought out, persuasive argument, and in the end it would have been ignored anyway by those who like to cling to their language just because they know it well.

The point is not to argue some kind of replacement of scheme for PHP. Or one language's superiority to another. The point is to show its possible to write functional, good looking PHP. Letting the "neat things" of LISP influence the way you write in other languages. Internalizing concepts that are first class in other languages by trying to adapt them to a language where they aren't first class is a great way to learn. Learning and being influenced by other's great ideas is how all languages and communities make progress. This is why Scala is such an incredible language to experience. It was shameless in its influences and its desire to merge OO and FP. Making connections between disparate languages like the layman's PHP and the academian's Scheme is exercise for the mind.

I agree that this is a neat thing that the folks who write PHP have done, good for them (no sarcasm), they've improved their impoverished language a little bit, like giving a starving kid a bicycle.

It's just hard sometimes for me to keep my mouth shut when I see articles titled "PHP as sexy as Scheme", even when rationally I know that the author probably didn't really mean that literally. To me, it's like someone saying "DOS like OS X, now with 32-bit graphics!"

"The point is to show its possible to write functional, good looking PHP"

If you say curly braces and type prefixes can ever be pretty... ;-)

Lisp is not just a collection of neat ideas - it's a cohesive whole more or less found around those neat ideas. It's damn hard to take out those ideas and to put them in a language that was not designed around them without corrupting them beyond recognition.

And mind you I label myself as a Python enthusiast, not a Lisper. But I know what my tools can and what my tools can't do.

Are sure you are replying to the right message?

And yes. This "my language is better than yours" "debate" is completely misguided and utterly brainless. It is also endless fun to have because just about any argument can be made.

One can't start a discussion on how the Apple II was superior to the TRS-80 these days anymore or how the MSX was a soul-less machine designed by a committee. People have to find other topics to start endless passionate discussions.

All we need to do is to keep the discussion civilized, something akin to keeping our playground clean.

You are missing the other side of the argument. How ubiquitous/easy to setup/find cheap hosting for is lisp? Not very. That is why people still use php even when they "know better" - I feel those same people can leverage these new capabilities to write even cleaner code whilst living with the compromise. That is not a "blind spot" or out right denial it's pragmatism at it's finest.

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