Programmer Humor

38240 readers

84 users here now

Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)

Rules:

Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
No NSFW content.
Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

cat_programmer@lemmy.ml

AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml

When people encounter Lisp syntax for the first time (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by yogthos@lemmy.ml to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] barubary@infosec.exchange 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Let's take a step back. I feel this discussion has got off track a bit.

The original claim was that Lisp's reputation as having lots of parentheses was undeserved because it uses the same number of parens as other languages that use () for function calls; Lisp just puts the parens in a different place.

My objection was basically that Lisp also uses parentheses for what in other languages is a declaration, a statement, a block, an operator, etc so just looking at function calls doesn't give you the whole picture.

You said that "Lisp" is actually a family of languages, that Clojure uses fewer parens than other Lisps (I object: still more than non-Lisps), that there are macros for infix expression syntax (I object: non-standard/3rd-party solutions that only help with operators), that parens don't even matter because of structural editing tools (I object: irrelevant, the discussion was about the number of parens, not whether they "matter").

I also disagree with "the total number of parens in your examples is about the same". This is a micro-example, so when the original Lisp (Clojure) code has 4 pairs of parens and the C-style (JavaScript, Perl) version has 2, that's twice the parentheses to me, not "about the same".

I've tried to find a slightly bigger code sample, so I clicked around in the Clojure standard library. Here's a chunk of clojure.string: https://github.com/clojure/clojure/blob/ade22645ba5dbf4c0d8115b19938af96d6fb4cd5/src/clj/clojure/string.clj#L275-L317

(defn ^String trim-newline  "Removes all trailing newline \\n or return \\r characters from  string.  Similar to Perl's chomp."  {:added "1.2"}  [^CharSequence s]  (loop [index (.length s)]    (if (zero? index)      ""      (let [ch (.charAt s (dec index))]        (if (or (= ch \newline) (= ch \return))          (recur (dec index))          (.. s (subSequence 0 index) toString))))))(defn blank?  "True if s is nil, empty, or contains only whitespace."  {:added "1.2"}  [^CharSequence s]  (if s    (loop [index (int 0)]      (if (= (.length s) index)        true        (if (Character/isWhitespace (.charAt s index))          (recur (inc index))          false)))    true))(defn ^String escape  "Return a new string, using cmap to escape each character ch   from s as follows:   If (cmap ch) is nil, append ch to the new string.   If (cmap ch) is non-nil, append (str (cmap ch)) instead."  {:added "1.2"}  [^CharSequence s cmap]  (loop [index (int 0)         buffer (StringBuilder. (.length s))]    (if (= (.length s) index)      (.toString buffer)      (let [ch (.charAt s index)]        (if-let [replacement (cmap ch)]          (.append buffer replacement)          (.append buffer ch))        (recur (inc index) buffer)))))

Total number of pairs of parentheses (not counting doc-strings): 45

My translation of the code to JavaScript:

function trim_newline(s) {    for (let index = s.length; index > 0; index--) {        let ch = s.charAt(index - 1);        if (ch != '\n' && ch != '\r') {            return s.substr(0, index);        }    }    return "";}function blank(s) {    if (s == null) {        return true;    }    for (let index = 0; index < s.length; index++) {        if (!Character.isWhitespace(s.charAt(index))) {            return false;        }    }    return true;}function escape(s, cmap) {    let buffer = "";    for (let index = 0; index < s.length; index++) {        let ch = s.charAt(index),            replacement = cmap(ch);        buffer +=            replacement !== undefined                ? replacement                : ch;    }    return buffer;}

Total number of pairs of parentheses: 15

That's about a factor of 3. Now, you can argue that I shouldn't care about the parentheses, but my point is simply that they're there and you can't really avoid them if you write in anything resembling idiomatic Lisp.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 16 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

You said that “Lisp” is actually a family of languages, that Clojure uses fewer parens than other Lisps (I object: still more than non-Lisps), that there are macros for infix expression syntax (I object: non-standard/3rd-party solutions that only help with operators), that parens don’t even matter because of structural editing tools (I object: irrelevant, the discussion was about the number of parens, not whether they “matter”).

Clojure, uses different types of syntax to denote different types types of data structures, and thus different types of operations, such as statement declaration. I even gave you examples showing that you get the exact same amount of visual information as you do in other languages.

Meanwhile, you object to the very nature of how Lisp works. The whole point Lisps is that you allow the user to easily create whatever semantics they want using macros. This is something that's not possible to do in most languages. If you want some new semantics or syntax you have to wait for the language committee to agree on that.

The big advantage here is that the core language can stay small and focused without having to grow over time. This is what you see happening in practically all mainstream languages. Usage patterns change, applications of the language change, and as a result new syntax continues being bolted on which makes the language ever bigger and harder to learn.

On the other hand, with Lisp approach, you have a small language that's simple and consistent while libraries express different semantics that happen to be needed at the time. As a user you only have to learn the semantics of the libraries used in the project you're working on. As different patterns fall out of use, they don't accrete within the core language. New users don't need to know about random quirks that were popular a decade ago.

Your second objection is also nonsensical because these is how the language used in practice. Pretty much nobody would write code without syntax highlighting, and similarly you wouldn't use s-expressions based language without structural editing. This is a made up argument that's a complete non sequitur. I've even showed you sweet expression alternative syntax that exists and literally nobody uses. If your argument had any merit to it, then that's what Lispers would use.

I also disagree with “the total number of parens in your examples is about the same”. This is a micro-example, so when the original Lisp (Clojure) code has 4 pairs of parens and the C-style (JavaScript, Perl) version has 2, that’s twice the parentheses to me, not “about the same”.

const hypot = (x, y) => Math.sqrt(x ** 2 + y ** 2);

4 parens, 1 ,,1 =, 1 ;, 1 =>, 1 =

(defn hypot [x y]  (infix sqrt(x ** 2 + y ** 2)))

6 parens, 1 [

Clojure version is more consistent with less noise. Ignoring all the other noise you have to add is frankly intellectually dishonest. Whether it's a paren or a comma, or a semicolon, an arrow or an equals sign, it's still syntax. Clojure version has less syntax. That's literally less stuff I need to parse visually and worry about when writing code.

Let's take a look at your JavaScript version more closely, and it immediately becomes obvious that you're not actually saving anything here. You just end up sprinkling more types of control characters in it:

9 {, 15 (, 12 = (for assignment), 16 ; 3 ,, 1 ?, :`

That’s about a factor of 3. Now, you can argue that I shouldn’t care about the parentheses, but my point is simply that they’re there and you can’t really avoid them if you write in anything resembling idiomatic Lisp.

Yeah if you just ignore all the other control characters you had to add instead then you sure saved on parens. Bravo!

Your whole argument is basically treating parens as something different from other syntax characters, which is a nonsensical argument. If you're going to compare syntax then you have to compare all the syntax you have. The only type of syntax that will give you significant reduction would be white space based syntax as seen in Python or Haskell, but that adds its own problems hence why most languages avoid it.