CL Lickspittles

[B. Pym]

(let ((x 5))
(mapcar (function (lambda (y) (+ x y)))
'(3 5 7)))
==> (8 10 12)

Programmers who are human get tired of typing and seeing
"(lambda" as an indication of an anonymous function. They
wish that something shorter like "(fn" could be used.
However, disciples of CL are willing and eager to make it even
longer by putting "(functon" in front of it---despite the fact
that doing so is a pleonasm; "lambda" is a macro that expands
to "(function (lambda".

CL lickspittles always try to make their code as ugly
and bloated as possible.

Daniel Weinreb, 24 Feb 2003:

Having separate "value cells" and "function cells" (to use
the "street language" way of saying it) was one of the most
unfortunate issues. We did not want to break pre-existing
programs that had a global variable named "foo" and a global
function named "foo" that were distinct. We at Symbolics
were forced to insist on this, in the face of everyone's
knowing that it was not what we would have done absent
compatibility constraints. It's hard for me to remember all
the specific things like this, but if we had had fewer
compatibility issues, I think it would have come out looking
more like Scheme in general.

Jeffrey M. Jacobs:

The CL effort resembles a bunch of spoiled children,
each insisting "include my feature or I'll pull out, and
then we'll all go down the tubes". Everybody had vested
interests, both financial and emotional.

Jeffrey M. Jacobs:

CL is a nightmare; it has effectively killed LISP
development in this country. It is not commercially viable
and has virtually no future outside of the traditional
academic/defense/research arena.

Bernard Lang:

Common Lisp did kill Lisp. Period. (just languages take a
long time dying ...) It is to Lisp what C++ is to C. A
monstrosity that totally ignores the basics of language
design, simplicity and orthogonality to begin with.

[usuario]

(let ((x 5))
(mapcar (function (lambda (y) (+ x y)))
'(3 5 7)))
==> (8 10 12)

Programmers who are human get tired of typing and seeing "(lambda" as an
indication of an anonymous function. They wish that something shorter
like "(fn" could be used. However, disciples of CL are willing and eager
to make it even longer by putting "(functon" in front of it---despite
the fact that doing so is a pleonasm; "lambda" is a macro that expands
to "(function (lambda".
CL lickspittles always try to make their code as ugly and bloated as
possible.
Having separate "value cells" and "function cells" (to use the "street
language" way of saying it) was one of the most unfortunate issues. We
did not want to break pre-existing programs that had a global variable
named "foo" and a global function named "foo" that were distinct. We at
Symbolics were forced to insist on this, in the face of everyone's
knowing that it was not what we would have done absent compatibility
constraints. It's hard for me to remember all the specific things like
this, but if we had had fewer compatibility issues, I think it would
have come out looking more like Scheme in general.
The CL effort resembles a bunch of spoiled children,
each insisting "include my feature or I'll pull out, and then we'll all
go down the tubes". Everybody had vested interests, both financial and
emotional.
CL is a nightmare; it has effectively killed LISP development in this
country. It is not commercially viable and has virtually no future
outside of the traditional academic/defense/research arena.
Common Lisp did kill Lisp. Period. (just languages take a long time
dying ...) It is to Lisp what C++ is to C. A monstrosity that totally
ignores the basics of language design, simplicity and orthogonality to
begin with.

Well, I'd say Scheme and CL are both today equally bloated.
Scheme looks minimal, but the truth is that in order to be
usable, you depend on tons of modules.
You'll need either SRFI's and/or ICE-9's on Guile to do anything decent;
even for SICP you need two SRFI's (203 and 216) to do the exercises
under Chicken Scheme.

With Scheme you are lost on a sea of submodules and SRFI's.

With CL you might use closer-mop from QuickLisp if you like
objects to behave universally the same and that's it.

With MCClim your GUI will work on most libre CL implementations,
and QuickLisp will handle any dependency seamlessly. Fire and forget.

Also, for the 3 major books, a plain CL compiler (SBCL, CCL or ECL)
will work as is.

- Common Lisp: An Interactive Approach <-novices
- A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation <-advanced
- Paradigms On Artifical Intelligence Programming <- almost expert

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

Post by usuario
Well, I'd say Scheme and CL are both today equally bloated.
Scheme looks minimal, but the truth is that in order to be usable, you
depend on tons of modules.

So what would you consider to be a usable language that wasn’t “bloated”?