Common Lisp “solves” most language-level problems by providing metaprogramming capabilities via lisp-style macros. (Almost) any language feature you would want can be implemented with lisp macros, and many such features already have been. So you don’t have to worry whether or not lisp has “for i in…” loops, or pattern matching, or generics, or virtually anything else, because if it doesn’t, you can write it! Plus if it’s really a good feature somebody has probably already made a library for it (if it’s not already part of the standard).

One of the most extensive examples of this is Coalton, which is an ML-style statically typed EDSL for Common Lisp.

There are metaprogramming features in a few other languages: template haskell, C pre-processors, even macros in Rust or Julia. But these all fall very short of lisp-style macros because those languages are not (truly) homoiconic, which makes the macros awkward to write and integrate into the language. This kind of metaprogramming is rarely employed, and when it is only for heavy duty tasks, and even then is generally discouraged as a last resort/special circumstance. But lisp macros are very easy to write because it’s the same as writing any other piece of lisp code. This results in macros being used often for smaller lightweight abstractions in the same way you write a small function.

The other big pro of lisp is image based development. But that’s not so much solving a problem in other languages as it is simply a feature that they don’t (and pretty much can’t) have.

And all of this is done in a language with less syntactic and semantic primitives than almost any other language, including the other “simple” ones like Python, Ruby, Elixir, etc.

I understand the general job market, but what about lisp prevents you from pursuing personal ventures with it?

Yeah Clojure is like the monkey’s paw of Lisp weenies. It adds many modern day niceties that are lacking in standard Scheme or Common Lisp, but also changes enough things to make it feel very un-lispy. I go back and forth as to whether or not I even consider it Lisp (Richard Stallman doesn’t).

But I do know that I’d rather write Clojure than any other non-lisp language.

I’d also recommend people try ABCL, which is Common Lisp on the JVM , or Parenscript which is Common Lisp that compiles to Javascript.

Lisp

It solves so many problems new languages have been invented to try and solve, while being simultaneously simpler than most

Emacs Orgmode

codeberg

it’s like github but non-corporate free software

it’s very polished and featurful

it’s built upon/by the same devs as forgejo, which is open tech to self host your own git server (with federation potentially coming), so supporting one supports the other

Interesting, what made you switch? I’ve never used nix but they are very similar.

Care to point me towards these lemmy guix posts?

Thanks! I’ve changed quite a few things in my setup over the years, but gruvbox is one of the very few mainstays (that and mpv).

Yep! If you’re applying and need a non-trivial number of locations checked/maps generated, you can check out the prgoram here.

Note that it says you can install it with guix, but it hasn’t actually been merged into master yet, so for now you do need sbcl and the dependencies (etiher via quicklisp or however else you snag them).

Nice to see a measured (though somewhat pro go) article about a big language’s strengths and weaknesses from someone whose been real world using it for long enough to experience the evolution of the language.

I’ve always liked go, and also think it made fundamentally good decisions and has evolved in a way that respects the original philosophy (e.g. adding generics, but only after massive consideration).

Reddit had an enormous hate totem for go, more than virtually any other language imo, and I always thought that was strange. Curious what people here think.

Obsidian is not free software?! How could anybody even browsing this community consider obsidian?

GNU Guix

Been really enjoying Memmy. Has been getting updates at a super fast pace and already feels pretty good and featureful. More to go but the dev work has impressed me.

Thanks for pointing that out! The more math in the federation the better I say.

Thanks for the plug! I’m honestly pretty surprised that neither the math community on lemmy.world nor lemmy.ml has had much activity since r/math has been and still is private. Where are all the reddit math lovers getting their fix? I know I miss mine.