Does anyone code with LISP?

Simon ORiordan from UK

In answer to the question, I don't programme with Lisp; I would need a very good reason to start, curiosity in this case would not by itself justify the investment of time and effort. Whereas other languages such as Python are commercial, hobbyist, free and fun to learn, which is probably why they succeed.

greldak

Does AutoCAD still use it as its scripting language? I know it used to but I haven't used it in over 20 years.

Kirk 10389821

Using LISP currently... First it is not crazy efficient, and is usually interpreted. But it was the key for me learning OOP at the university in the late 80s. The concept of a function was such that you could subclass your class, and then declare EITHER (before, after, instead of) function, which simply determined when it would execute your code, relative to the original code. CDR = Contents of Destination Register CADR = Contents of Address Register LISP = Lots of Incessant Stupid Parenthesis :-) Wow, you brought a bunch of memories back from a LONG time ago. EMACS uses LISP for macros/extensions. So, one way to learn LISP in a functional way, would be to learn to write extensions for the editor (or read a bunch of them).

irneb

I don't know of many commercial applications, though reading some stuff (perhaps dubious) that may be because companies don't want their competition to know about their competitive advantage. I can only speak from my own experience. Other than some indicating that Lisp is more a university teaching tool, I found it the other way round: At uni I learned Pascal, C++ & Java. I learned Basic & Lisp for myself before I went to uni. And because I do a lot of work in CAD I've been using AutoLisp "in anger" :rolleyes: since the early 90's. Though AutoLisp (and even the Visual Lisp since the late 90's) is far removed from a full-fledged Lisp/Scheme - it still indicates a lot of stuff where other languages (at least of the time) struggled or made the programmer's life difficult. So you can imagine how I find a full Lisp in comparison to something like Java/C#. Only later did I see languages such as Python, which I consider to have come close enough to Lisp to be deemed "as powerful" - to an extent. Linq gives C# "some" of Lisps abilities, but far from all. I'm NOT trying to say any language is "bad" or "inferior" to any other, each one I learned taught me something (at least). And I might even go as far as to say some excel in certain uses. Though I must say that Lisp has yet (for me) to be relegated to a superseded language, it's still the only one which has so much scope, multi-paradigm mix-ability, concise code, decent-to-excellent compiler optimization, ease of patching / debugging on the fly, etc. Remember, Lisp was actually invented "by accident" - it was intended as an intermediate step to inventing a more Fortran-like language which would incorporate all the special constructs and use cases which Fortran lacked at the time. Only that last took too long and people started seeing just how simple Lisp is to use while adding so much power for so little input. This last thing is still an issue today: I can attest to using C# and AutoLisp to do the exact same thing inside AutoCAD. The Lisp code is on average 1/3 of that which I need to actually type into the C# (note not counting the "autogenerated" stuff or the pre-made templates, otherwise it would be more like 1/5) in order for the 2 to do exactly the same thing. Many say less code is not a big issue, but I have to state that my Lisp code tends to take not just less time to type but also a lot less time to debug - it's a near exponential increase in my productivity.

Reese Currie

I program in Emacs Lisp (ELisp) all the time, and love Lisp in that application, so much that I would like to use Lisp for other things. However, I've only used Common Lisp a little bit, for very small things, and almost always opt for something else when I have something that needs to get done. I think the difference is the "atoms". The atoms in Emacs Lisp are geared for text processing and it makes Emacs a very effective text processing framework, for me, anyway. Apparently only 1% of Emacs users actually write ELisp. Common Lisp I guess just doesn't appeal to me as a general purpose language, because in my limited experience with it, the atoms just don't do it for me. Maybe if I gave it a harder push, but in the presence of other options, I tend toward the other options. I would not discourage you from learning Lisp, because it changes how you think about programming and yes, will make you a better programmer in any language for the experience. If you google Paul Graham, he provides some advantages of Lisp; he used it to write I believe Yahoo's Shopping Cart. A more interesting story for me can be found if you google "Lisping at JPL".

stadelma

Maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISP[^]is what ALL here, discussing LISP should read to gain a comon understaning ground AND understand LISP in the larg. i.e Autocad as a CAD systems was able to use LISP, and I (even as a Autocad novice) was able to code new CAD parameterised drawing elements. Not so bad for me 20 years ago. Josef

Rowdy Raider

Not personally but my brother does. There are certain types of research and engineering problems that LISP handles well (which is the type of work he does). The language is fully recursive in nature so imagine using it to solve a problem which is also recursive in nature.

musicm122

You could do some Clojure or Iron Scheme which are both considered dialects of Lisp. Also I'd check out Lisp in the real world. Also these

I haz a Blog. It is Delicious.

Alan Balkany

Haven't used it since my Artificial Intelligence term project in grad school. It was a frame-based system for playing chess endgames. The ability to treat LISP code as objects was convenient for this application. Haven't had the opportunity or inclination to use it since then.

JimmyRopes

Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:

I don't programme with Lisp; I would need a very good reason to start

Me too. That is why I am asking if anyone uses it and for what.

Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:

curiosity in this case would not by itself justify the investment of time and effort.

Ditto

Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:

Whereas other languages such as Python are commercial, hobbyist, free and fun to learn, which is probably why they succeed.

I've thought about looking into Python but just haven't had the time.