Comment by aurelius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aurelius | Hacker News Reader

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> Because some random guys implement their own language in C? Why do we have Python, Ruby, Rebol? There was already PERL or AWK or ... Somebody decided to write their own scripting language. So what?

When a Python advocate wants to do some data processing, do they first write their own Python implementation in C? No. When a Ruby advocate wants to make a Rails website, do they first write their own implementation of Ruby in C? No.

Several fine implementations of lisp already exist that compile down to machine code and, if the lisp community is to believed, have performance "close to C". So why does a lisp advocate feel the need to re-write lisp in C for a project that didn't actually need it? The lisp community would have us all believe that lisp is the "programmable programming language", and all the other rhetoric about how every other language has just stolen ideas from lisp, etc., etc.. They all truly seem to believe that lisp is something special. That's why I find it laughable that someone like Kaz Kylheku, a 15 year veteran of comp.lang.lisp, decided not to implement TXR by using a pre-existing lisp implementation.

> When a Python advocate wants to do some data processing, do they first write their own Python implementation in C?

They write it in C. Checkout the Python world sometimes.

* CrossTwine Linker - a combination of CPython and an add-on library offering improved performance (currently proprietary)

* unladen-swallow - "an optimization branch of CPython, intended to be fully compatible and significantly faster", originally considered for merging with CPython

* IronPython - Python in C# for the Common Language Runtime (CLR/.NET) and the FePy project's IronPython Community Edition

* 2c-python - a static Python-to-C compiler, apparently translating CPython bytecode to C

* Nuitka - a Python-to-C++ compiler using libpython at run-time, attempting some compile-time and run-time optimisations. Interacts with CPython runtime.

* Shed Skin - a Python-to-C++ compiler, restricted to an implicitly statically typed subset of the language for which it can automatically infer efficient types through whole program analysis

* unPython - a Python to C compiler using type annotations

* Nimrod - statically typed, compiles to C, features parameterised types, macros, and so on

and so on...

> So why does a lisp advocate feel the need to re-write lisp in C for a project that didn't actually need it? The lisp community would have us all believe that lisp is the "programmable programming language"

Why don't you understand the difference between 'a lisp advocate' and 'the lisp community'?

> nd all the other rhetoric about how every other language has just stolen ideas from lisp, etc., etc..

Nonsense.

> That's why I find it laughable that someone like Kaz Kylheku, a 15 year veteran of comp.lang.lisp, decided not to implement TXR by using a pre-existing lisp implementation.

I find it laughable that you find it laughable...

Every single Python project you stated simply proves my point. They are Python compilers of some sort. TXR, on the other hand, is a data processing language implemented in its own lisp which is implemented in C. In other words, TXR is an application of lisp, not just a compiler or interpreter like those Python projects you listed. So, all your examples are irrelevant.

TXR didn't need its own dialect of lisp. So, the question remains: why didn't Kaz use SBCL or CLISP? They're good enough for c.l.l. kooks like him to recommend to everyone else, but why're they not good enough for him to use?

It's a tool with some embedded kind of Lisp dialect. There are zillions of it.

> why didn't Kaz use SBCL or CLISP?

Why should he? He can do whatever he want. I personally don't care at all about what he does. Why are you? Kind of strange obsession with comp.lang.lisp. Are you one of the trolls posting there?

> They're good enough for c.l.l. kooks like him to recommend to everyone else, but why're they not good enough for him to use?

Probably he did it to annoy real programmers like you?

> > why didn't Kaz use SBCL or CLISP?

> Why should he?

Kaz invested a bunch of time implementing a whole new backquote implementation for CLISP, but it's still not good enough for him to use CLISP to implement TXR? It doesn't make any sense!

Any right-thinking programmer should care about inconsistencies such as this. If I'm evaluating a programming language, and I see someone in its community writing their own language implementation to support an application that could've easily been written using one of the standard language implementations, then it looks to me like the standard implementations aren't mature enough or trustworthy enough for me to use for my application. Not only that, but it suggests that maybe this particular language isn't as good as its advocates claim, especially if I have to drop back down to C in order to meet certain requirements (e.g., portability, speed, wider understanding, etc.).

But any right-thinking programmer already knows that lisp is not worth wasting any time on. It's dead, and people like Kaz, and projects like TXR, are going to make sure it stays that way.

I am not convinced that CLISP can be used to write another programming language which is itself completely BSD-licensed.

See here:

http://sourceforge.net/p/clisp/clisp/ci/default/tree/COPYRIG...

CLISP's licensing is somewhat confusing and appears to dictate the license to the application. So, for example, I probably wouldn't use it for a commercial, closed-source application. For the same reasons, it cannot be used for a BSD-licensed application.

(However, I did use CLISP for the licensing back-end of such an application: that back-end runs on a server and isn't redistributed. Things you don't distribute to others cannot run afoul of the GPL.)

CLISP's license lets you make compiled .fasl files, and these are not covered by its copyright (unless they rely on CLISP internal symbols). However, that is where it ends. Memory images saved with CLISP are under the GPL. (Memory images are the key to creating a stand-alone executable with CLISP!) If you have to add libraries to CLISP itself, you also run into the GPL. I believe that this would cause issues to the users of TXR, which they do not have today. For a user to be able to run the .fasl files, they need CLISP, and of course that has to be distributed to them under the GPL terms, and you can't add C libraries to that CLISP without taining them with the GPL.

You can wrap TXR entirely in a proprietary application, including all of its internals: the whole image, basically. This wouldn't be possible if some of its internals were the CLISP image.

Regarding the GPL, I do not believe in that any more. I will not use this license for any new project. It is not a free software license in my eyes. Free really means you can do anything you want; any restriction logically means "not entirely free". Proprietary products that use free code do not take away anyone's ability to use the original. The problem with the FSF people is that they regard the mere existence of something as offensive. "It's not enough that there is a free program; we must litigate to death the non-free program which is based on the same code before we can be happy."

I think your views on the GPL are spot on. At least we can agree on that.

the 'right-thinking programmer'. How bizarre.

The kook here is you, and I can prove it: you have a bizarre view that developers should be divided into political parties based on programming language, and code strictly to the party lines. Bizarre views make the kook.

TXR does need its own dialect of Lisp because Common Lisp isn't suitable for slick data munging: not "out of the box", without layering your own tools on top of it.

This is a separate question from what TXR is written in. Even if TXR were written using SBCL, it would still have that dialect; it wouldn't just expose Common Lisp.

That dialect is sufficiently incompatible that it would still require writing a reader and printer from scratch, and a complete code walker to implement the evaluation rules of the dialect. Not to mention a reimplementation of most of the library. The dialect has two kinds of cons cells, so we couldn't use the host implementation's functions that understand only one kind of cons cell. So, whereas some things in TXR Lisp could be syntactic sugar on top of Common Lisp, with others it is not so.

Using SBCL would have many advantages in spite of all this, but it would also reduce many opportunities for me to do various low-level things from scratch. I don't have to justify to anyone that I feel like make a garbage collector or regex engine from scratch.

So, the reasons for not using "SBCL" have nothing to do with "good enough". It's simply about "not mine".

TXR is a form of Lisp advocacy.

TXR is also (modest) Lisp research; for instance I discovered a clean, workable way to have Lisp-1 and Lisp-2 in the same dialect, so any Lispers who are paying attention can stop squabbling over that once and for all.

It pays to read this:

http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf

Why we have Lisp today with all the features we take for granted is that there was a golden era of experimentation involving different groups working in different locations on their own dialects. For example, the MacLisp people hacked on MacLisp, and it wasn't because Interlisp wasn't good enough for them. Or vice versa.

That experimentation should continue.

> So, the reasons for not using "SBCL" have nothing to do with "good enough". It's simply about "not mine".

Kaz, the C programming language isn't yours either. My point is that Common Lisp is supposed to be a general purpose programming language with power far greater than a primitive language like C, but you chose to implement TXR in C simply because C makes it much easier for you to accomplish your goal than Common Lisp. I'm just trying to point out the obvious, which nobody from c.l.l. seems willing to admit.

Bizarre.

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