Lisp project of the day

vindarel

It's great but some chosen libraries are a bit too random or early. You can look at a curated list of Common Lisp libraries here: https://github.com/CodyReichert/awesome-cl/

jksmith

"An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age." Heavy opinion: Combined with AI, there is a story for unified app development. Something like Ada for the L1 and trust reciprocation, then something that creates app domain vocabularies for L2 development. That of course would be lisp.

lispitillo

Sorry, but I don't get the meaning of your phrasing. I think that to use AI you must be very explicit and clear about what you want to design, and if Lisp provides some advantages one should define accurately the specific tool to use and when, how, and why.

I recall Norvig mentioning that other computer languages have taken many ideas from Lisp, those languages are also in the new civilization. Just to give an example: destructing-bind, apply and others are now done in javascript with a shorter syntax, and javascript without macros has excellent speed.

Jtsummers

The quoted portion is a reference to an XKCD strip from earlier this century, https://xkcd.com/297/, which is a reference to Star Wars.

Their use of L1 and L2 should be read as "L" as "level" L1 is lower level, L2 is higher level. They're suggesting using Ada (or some other well-suited language) for the lower level trusted systems language and Lisp for the application language.

What it has to do with AI, I don't know. People want AI everywhere now.

lispitillo

Perhaps instead of coding many small one day projects one could program one day projects that compose with each other. For example, I was thinking about developing a library that implements a version of J in Common Lisp (but I think fuel is lacking) so that, for example, the one day project named random-sample could be just:

  randomSample =: 4 :'(x ? #y){y' NB. can't repeat.

  randomSample =: 4 :'(? x # #y){y' can repeat.

 So that, in many cases,  one day projects could be reduced to one or two lines definitions (for those that know J that is the caveat).

monospacegames

I think they're showcasing existing projects instead of making a new one each day.

lispitillo

Thanks, it seems you are right. The random-sample project seems so short that I thought it was a one day project and that the other would be also short projects.

v9v

Not J, but there is an APL compiler made in Common Lisp here: https://github.com/phantomics/april

lispitillo

Thanks for the April reference. In the post [1] there are just 11 comments and also it seems that the intended audience could maybe two dozen people!, not very encouraging to create a J in Common Lisp.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22225136

null

[deleted]

z_open

[flagged]

dimitar

Can you give an example? I can't speak for all possible lisps but Common Lisp and clojure have great string built-ins:

https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/strings.html

https://clojuredocs.org/clojure.string

z_open

printf("x = %6d\ny = %.8E\n", x, y) ;

What's the equivalent lisp?

mrcode007

(format t "x = ~6d~%y = ~.8E~%" x y)

taeric

The "format string" capabilities of common lisp are quite advanced. https://gigamonkeys.com/book/a-few-format-recipes is a fun overview.

rscho

You seriously thought that lisps had no printf equivalent ?!

zck

Someone else has given you the Common Lisp version. Here's one for Clojure:

  (printf "x = %6d\ny = %.8E\n" x y)

If I've understood everything right, and your example is in C, the format string in Clojure is identical to the one in your comment.

rootnod3

I am 99% percent sure that for most of your use-cases Common Lisp has a way to do it and/or is flexible enough to change the language so that it is possible. You are talking about one of THE most malleable languages to exist. Literally a programmable programming language.

assimpleaspossi

Are you aware that this very site is programmed in Lisp?

iLemming

I can't hit reply on the top level comment anymore (it's flagged and now is 'dead'). I just wanted to say that is a text-book example case of how to tell the world "I am a dilettante in my field".

Experienced pros usually recognize when they don't know something well enough to critique it meaningfully. The harshest critics often have the least hands-on experience - while people who've actually built substantial systems in various technologies tend to be more measured in their assessments.

You can sense all of the psychological patterns in that paragraph - frustration displacement, confirmation bias, cognitive shortcuts, social signaling, Dunning-Kruger effect, etc.

I guess it's quite normal, if I start reflecting on my own history of comments on HN, Reddit and other forums, perhaps I will find a few examples from my own past of knee-jerk reactions such that comment.

We all have technologies we've formed opinions about based on limited exposure, early bad experiences, or just cultural osmosis. I bet if any of us looked back, they'd find comments where they'd be responding more to the reputation of a technology or the perceived attitudes of its community rather than deep technical experience.

The key difference is usually how the criticism is framed. Compare:

- "Lisp is impractical for real work" (broad dismissal)

- "I struggled with Lisp's syntax when I tried it briefly" (personal experience)

- "I haven't used Lisp much, but I'm curious how you handle XYZ" (honest engagement)

Forums like HN reward quick, confident takes over nuanced "it depends" responses. The incentive structure almost encourages this behavior, even from people who know better in calmer moments. As we gain experience, we often become more aware of what we don't know and more cautious about sweeping statements.