The idea doesn't really require Common Lisp; the same thing could be implemented in C with a bit more effort. But for me, any project mostly means Common Lisp as that's the first tool I reach for. I need a scripting language because exposing the full host language is not really scripting, pretending so is a cop out that always comes with unintended consequences. Given the right definitions, Forth reads like the kind of pseudo code most non-programmers would write; and the lack of syntactic fluff makes it a viable alternative for scenarios involving sequential processing, templating etc.
Second Prolog, I have a feeling the same kind of fusing can be accomplished as with Forth. I've seen a couple of attempts, the most recent being in Clojure; but none of them hit the sweet spot for me. Logic by itself doesn't really help any one; but fused to a swiss army chain saw, it's very useful.
Forth is trivial to learn but takes serious effort to master, like Lisp and C. I'm a humble beginner myself when it comes to Forth. A match operator is a possibility, but too much of that will ruin all that's good about Forth. I already added word scoped variables, and I already feel like I'm balancing near the point of negative return.
I'm all about ideas; couldn't care less about individuals, including myself. Spending too much time with other people's work kills your creative spark and creates the super star culture we're currently struggling with collectively. We need more fresh perspectives and less idol/icon worship to get out of this mess.
So, how is blindly trusting authorities working out for you? Honestly now, do you feel comfortable in your world view? Or do you feel more like you're constantly fighting to suppress anything that might rock your boat? What happened to laying your own puzzle and using your brain as more than an answering machine?
I find that the commonly touted opinion that comments should only reflect why, and avoid all duplication; is misguided. The only places where I will elaborate on why is where I can see obvious room for improvement but I'm still waiting for the bigger picture to stabilize, or I'm adding a dependency that I'm not really happy with. Otherwise my comments mostly express the intent of the code in regular prose and have to be updated with the code.
Why is making connections to prior experience, turning knowledge into wisdom, and gaining a unique perspective on truth. It's a completely different game than stacking facts on top of each other. Why is creative, and what is created can never be taken away; how is useless once obsolete.
- Maybe api:s aren't meant to last, maybe rewriting more is the piece missing from the puzzle. Always leaving evolution up to others doesn't really work if we all do it at the same time, and your brain is as good as mine when it comes to recognizing truth.
- Picking frameworks is a bit like picking presidential candidates, the whole game is rigged from the start. Once upon a time software was about solving problems, about working creatively based on your own experience. We can still learn from each other, and share code; but I feel the push towards standardizing on over engineered, general purpose code is misguided; like we're staring at fingers pointing at the moon, arguing which finger is the perfect one.
- New frameworks arise because needs aren't being met by the current status quo, hence we need innovation to get out of here. Where did this obsessive focus on popularity come from, anyway? I couldn't care less who did what, as long as we keep moving forward.
If you're not taking risks you're wasting time, simple as that. I'm always on the look out for roads less traveled, chances to put my experience to the best collective use possible. Not very profitable so far, but I still prefer it to being yet another answering machine.
Reddit is a shark pool from my experience, the contrast to Hacker News is night and day. I pray that 2017 is the year when sharing ideas openly and expressing diverging opinions on Reddit leads to interesting discussions rather than bullying and insults.
The problem with Excel is the wall you hit once you reach a certain level of complexity. If you're looking for a pure code solution, using a data flow library (https://common-lisp.net/project/cells/) takes some of the weight of your shoulders.
I've spent soo much time struggling with Python over the years, traveled across Europe for PyCon and tried to tune into the community. I really wanted it to be the good enough Lisp that Norvig claims it is. But in the end I always come out of it swearing to never touch the inconsistent, arbitrary, pile of exceptions again. Conceptually, it's C++ in scripting language clothes.
No one has any passion for deadlines, slavery is getting old fast. Passion, that's it. Write code that makes your heart pound, and share it openly. Leave the suits to their own misery.
Don't forget mandatory surfing lessons and having to listen to how AWESOME everything is while watching your dorky boss stumble around in five fingers. I figured I'm better of starving...
It has been more than a couple of years in Holland, Portugal and other places. People seem to smoke less when it's legal. And we have enough experience by now to see through the silly propaganda when it comes to health risks. The war on cannabis is about profit and control; there are no health risks to speak of; on the contrary, it helps a lot of people live normal lives without poisoning themselves with stupid chemical cocktails.
Dear God, please kill me now; I can't take any more of this bullshit. How about actually improving the software instead of piling more marketing bling on top?
Agree, without feedback you're coding in the dark and it's way to easy to get caught up in the turd polishing game. Unless you're just trying to squeeze money out of it, then by all means; polish those turds until they shine like Facebook; or better yet, get a life.
Toy problems get toy answers, you'll learn nothing that way. I couldn't care less about traffic lights and elevators, and I can code circles around many.
I was put through that once, it sucks. You're completely ignoring all the wrong turns you took to get there, the number of people involved etc. Expecting someone to just jump into your shoes and pull of the same trick is not very constructive. What if you framed the problem wrong? Maybe this is the candidate that would have helped you come up with a superior solution given enough freedom and time?
Bullshit. Nicotine in itself doesn't harm anyone, that's completely made up. On the contrary, a lot of people would be helped by getting more Nicotine into their system, preferably from eating veggies rather than smoking it.
I went ahead and brain dumped the most obvious multi-threaded solution I could come up with, to get some performance facts to go with all the rumors. It comes out roughly 5x slower than using conditions/restarts. Just in case someone was wondering where we are atm...
The reason, sadly; is that I lack experience with clojure.async, I lost my motivation before I got there; a couple of years ago it was still too experimental for my taste, didn't offer enough advantages over CL, lacked fundamentals like error handling and was tied to the mountain of complexity called JVM.
Do it. I spent years nervously fingering On Lisp on lunch breaks without really getting anywhere. But Paul Grahams early essays kept pulling me back into Emacs, and on each iteration something fell into place. It me took a long time to feel comfortable, but I wouldn't trade the feeling for anything. It's an alien chain saw; chain saws are intimidating enough in themselves, one with completely alien controls and instructions even more so. To paraphrase Graham, power looks weird from below.