C++ sucks for games

[Neo-LISPer]

You mean like your crapola screensaver a dyslexic child would be ashamed of
creating?

You were given examples of commercial Lisp successes, including platform
gaming, now you have to insist on freeware, as if you are making some
point?

If it doesn't puzzle you, how about explaining it to the rest of us?

It's just you, troll. No "us".



followup set

 

[Kenny Tilton]

Don't be a pedant, I like LISP. )

Pedant?

"1. One who pays undue attention to book learning and formal rules.
2. One who exhibits one's learning or scholarship ostentatiously."

Lemme help, I think you want "proselytize". (Now /that/ is being
pedantic, tho you started it with all the big words.)



kenny

 

[Gerry Quinn]

You mean like your crapola screensaver a dyslexic child would be ashamed of
creating?

My 'crapola screensaver' went some considerable way towards buying me a
house. I don't have to rely entirely on my own judgement rergarding its
quality. The opinion of an infantile troll hurling abuse when defeated
in argument is duly noted.

You were given examples of commercial Lisp successes, including platform
gaming, now you have to insist on freeware, as if you are making some
point?

Actually, I've been given ONE example of a very talented team that had
some success using Lisp for part of their code. There's not much
evidence that their success was due to the use of Lisp (bit of a
curate's egg as far as I can see), and it may very well have been
despite it.

The point I was making, however, relates more to the posters on this
games newsgroup who are pushing Lisp as the new wonder-drug for games
programming. They don't seem to be working in the commercial games
industry (unlike the author of the website you claim to be the origin of
your clueless 'parody'). Yet neither is there much evidence that they
have done much in the way of games programming outside of the industry.

You can criticise my software - but have you created ANYTHING AT ALL
that you are not ashamed to put on public display, other than a stupid
troll? You are all mouth and no trousers, Mr. "Neo-LISPer". [I'm not
going to bother deconstructing that name, I think we can all easily
parse the way in which the latest evanescency of pop culture has
provided a hook on which to hang fantasies of infantile omnipotence
emerging without effort from knowledge of the Primal Secret.]

I ask again - if Lisp is so great for writing games, where are the games
written by the Lisp enthusiasts? If chisels are so great for cutting
trees, why are the chisel-using woodcutters shivering in the cold?

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Svein Ove Aas]

I ask again - if Lisp is so great for writing games, where are the games
written by the Lisp enthusiasts? If chisels are so great for cutting
trees, why are the chisel-using woodcutters shivering in the cold?

As a matter of fact, I'm writing one right now. (Along with the.. hmm...
four other projects I'm currently working on. Don't hold your breath.)

It's a clone of the classic (as in old) game called "Gravity Well", but
looks like it's going to be much smaller than the original, code-wise.
Well, such is life...

If you're interested in seeing a real Lisp-based game, tell me so and I'll
slip you a note when it's done.


Oh, and before anyone starts talking about GC pauses, it isn't nearly as
much of a problem as people want to believe. My code only conses on object
creation, not mere state changes; that, combined with my "purify" call at
startup, means even a full GC takes too little time to notice any jitter.

(Yes, I'd like more control of the GC; unpurify, in particular, as it's
leaking memory right now. No, it isn't a big issue, and I could get around
it if it was.)

 

[mikel]

I ask again - if Lisp is so great for writing games, where are the games
written by the Lisp enthusiasts? If chisels are so great for cutting
trees, why are the chisel-using woodcutters shivering in the cold?

Your question reduces to the question of why more people in general
don't use Lisp. The number of people using C variants is much larger
than the number using Lisp variants. Why? I don't think anyone actually
knows that.

I have an intuition that some people just don't take to it. I worked on
a large project once that was at first written in Lisp. The team was a
little less than a hundred programmers, of whom about ten percent were
Lisp programmers.

During development, the Lisp programmers wrote idiomatic Lisp code. The
C programmers wrote highly unidiomatic Lisp code. When the majority of
programmers were working in Lisp, there were many complaints that the
system was too slow. After a fork later on, there were two versions of
the system, one written by C programmers in C++, the other written by
Lisp programmers in Lisp. The Lisp system was faster, had better support
for system updates, was written by a team one tenth the size of the C++
version, and crashed less (but the C++ version, in its favor, was
smaller in memory).

One of the smartest (and stubbornest) Lisp programmers I've ever known
tried for a while at every engineering meeting to explain to the C
programmers why their Lisp code was slow. It never seemed to make any
difference. Indeed, they tended to take the position that they did not
want to alter the style of their code.

I was a C programmer before I was a Lisp programmer, and that's true of
most Lisp programmers I know. I know no C programmers who were Lisp
programmers first. However, I also know a fairly large number of C
programmers who had ample opportunity to become Lisp programmers, and
didn't, and who did not write idiomatic Lisp code even when they had
been writing Lisp code every day for two years.

I also thought it was notable that the C programmers tended to describe
the differences between Lisp and C in terms of syntax; the Lisp
programmers tended to describe the difference in terms of semantics. To
put it another way, the C programmers tended to argue that if you
changed the syntax of Lisp to look like C, it would be C. The Lisp
programmers tended to argue that if you changed the syntax of C to look
like Lisp, it would still not be Lisp.

It seems to me that many people just don't don't take to it. Those who
do, seem to take to it very quickly after a brief exposure. Those who
don't react that way probably never will take to it. If the
abovementioned project is representative, that's probably most C
programmers.

It is as if you either have the Lisp gene, or you don't. It seems like
most people don't. If that's true, then it would explain why many more
people use C variants than Lisp variants, and that would in turn explain
why there are many more games written in C than in Lisp.

This explanation says nothing about whether C or Lisp is technically
superior; the result would be the same no matter which position is true,
and even if neither position is true.

 

[Pascal Bourguignon]

Your question reduces to the question of why more people in general
don't use Lisp. The number of people using C variants is much larger
than the number using Lisp variants. Why? I don't think anyone
actually knows that.

I have an intuition that some people just don't take to it. I worked
on a large project once that was at first written in Lisp. The team
was a little less than a hundred programmers, of whom about ten
percent were Lisp programmers.

During development, the Lisp programmers wrote idiomatic Lisp
code. The C programmers wrote highly unidiomatic Lisp code. When the
majority of programmers were working in Lisp, there were many
complaints that the system was too slow. After a fork later on, there
were two versions of the system, one written by C programmers in C++,
the other written by Lisp programmers in Lisp. The Lisp system was
faster, had better support for system updates, was written by a team
one tenth the size of the C++ version, and crashed less (but the C++
version, in its favor, was smaller in memory).

One of the smartest (and stubbornest) Lisp programmers I've ever known
tried for a while at every engineering meeting to explain to the C
programmers why their Lisp code was slow. It never seemed to make any
difference. Indeed, they tended to take the position that they did not
want to alter the style of their code.

I was a C programmer before I was a Lisp programmer, and that's true
of most Lisp programmers I know. I know no C programmers who were Lisp
programmers first. However, I also know a fairly large number of C
programmers who had ample opportunity to become Lisp programmers, and
didn't, and who did not write idiomatic Lisp code even when they had
been writing Lisp code every day for two years.

I also thought it was notable that the C programmers tended to
describe the differences between Lisp and C in terms of syntax; the
Lisp programmers tended to describe the difference in terms of
semantics. To put it another way, the C programmers tended to argue
that if you changed the syntax of Lisp to look like C, it would be
C. The Lisp programmers tended to argue that if you changed the syntax
of C to look like Lisp, it would still not be Lisp.

It seems to me that many people just don't don't take to it. Those who
do, seem to take to it very quickly after a brief exposure. Those who
don't react that way probably never will take to it. If the
abovementioned project is representative, that's probably most C
programmers.

It is as if you either have the Lisp gene, or you don't. It seems like
most people don't. If that's true, then it would explain why many more
people use C variants than Lisp variants, and that would in turn
explain why there are many more games written in C than in Lisp.

This explanation says nothing about whether C or Lisp is technically
superior; the result would be the same no matter which position is
true, and even if neither position is true.

Read this site:
http://www.reciprocality.org/
http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/index.html

 

[Christopher C. Stacy]

The point I was making, however, relates more to the posters on
this games newsgroup who are pushing Lisp as the new wonder-drug
for games programming.

I ask again - if Lisp is so great for writing games, where are the games
written by the Lisp enthusiasts? If chisels are so great for cutting
trees, why are the chisel-using woodcutters shivering in the cold?

People have already patiently provided many technical questions
to your questions. Responding to the closing paragraph of your
latest message, above, I make the following observations.

1. Here you pretend to be restating your most recent question,
but it is subtly different than what you asked before.
You asked, "If Lisp is so great, where are the games?"

My first response was I might deign to answer your questions
if you paid me to do so. This was intended to discourage you,
but also to point out the logical fallacies of your line of
inquiry. (It also was intended to convey a hint that maybe
most Lisp programmers are busy doing something that they
think will make money.) At this point, I'm just responding,
gratis, and finally, on the hopes that you'll get at a
satisfactory answer and quit pestering us.

First, there can be no objective meaning of "good" without a lot
of context. In your most recent restatement of your question, you
clarify that you mean "good for games". However, in an attempt to
define "good for games", detailed technical explanations have been
already provided to answer any concerns you might have in that area.
You have ignored or rejected those responses.

Second, you further assert that a programming language is only good
for games if this is evidenced by there being lots of games written
in it already. I don't see the clear logic in that. It is already
well-known that Lisp has not been the most popular language, and that
there is a tradition of writing games in C. But that history does
not speak to the technical merits or "good" possibilities.
It mainly speaks to the fact that most people are uneducated
in the benefits of Lisp. This has been explained to you several times.
You have ignored or rejected those responses.

2. Your analogy to chisels and woodcutters is an unfounded non-sequitor.

3. This conversation was begun on October 25, by someone writing a list
of percevied defficiencies in the C++ language with respect to
game programming. (He didn't mention Lisp, but he cross-posted to
the lisp and c++ newsgroups. Looked like kind of a troll, to me,)
You entered the fray the next day, with:

What is it about Lisp that makes novices fall in love with it?
They don't actually *produce* anything with it, mind you,
but they insist on telling the world how superior it is to
every other language.

People answered both of those for you honestly, but you didn't really
want to hear the answers. There have been about 700 messages, and I bet
that all the relevent technical information has already been exchanged
between whatever people might have been interested in the various camps.
Almost all of the recent messages in the thread from "your side" have
been from you alone, and they are not really technical.
So there is no point continuing.

Your objection to using Lisp boils down to the fact that you are
already committed to using C++, because you have made an investment
in the existing tools that you like, and it's too expensive to consider
using something else (especially if you have to develop it yourself).
Since that's your criteria, you have a forgone conclusion,

As far as I know, there are not a lot of tools and library support
specifically for writing games in Lisp. What you fail to appreciate
is the contention on the part of most Lisp programmers that because Lisp
is such a superior language, appropriate tool chains are easy to create,
relative to languages like C++. So if people were interested in using
Lisp for games, they would do that. (This "roll your own" outlook,
which has its dual aspects, is based on different set of assumptions
than most software engineers have.) It's what the Naughty Dog story is
about. However, since neither they (nor anyone else) has not given away
to you that proprietary technology, which is the basis of their competitive
advantage, you reject that.

Indeed, it is _not_ useful technology to you, since you don't have it!

My 'crapola screensaver' went some considerable way
towards buying me a house.

You like to cite your screensaver (with your tool chain), while the Lisp
people like to cite Naughty Dog (with their tool chain). You give as
your ultimate evaluation criteria the fact that you have helped pay for
your house with your screensaver. Therefore, the proper form of analysis
would be to ask whether you made more money with your screensaver than
Naughty Dog did with their line of games and the approach they took.
But that's for you to ponder, because the folks on comp.lang.lisp
are already convinced of the answer to that comparison,
and they believe they know how it generalizes.

Please rest easy now, and have fun writing your games in the sure
knowledge that for you, C++ does not suck for games, and Lisp sucks.

You began by asserting right up front that "Lisp programmers don't
actually *produce* anything". Given that C++ is much more popular
than Lisp, it requires no advocacy effort from you. And if some
people be misled into thinking that Lisp could be better for games,
why should that bother you? Perhaps you ought to examine your feelings
and see if you can figure out why you are so upset with Lisp programmers.
But please go do it by yourself.

 

[Christopher C. Stacy]

People have already patiently provided many technical questions
to your questions.

I meant "answers to your questions", of course.

Or did I?

 

[=?iso-8859-1?q?H=E5kon_Alstadheim?=]

Read this site:
http://www.reciprocality.org/
http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/index.html

Wow. I didn't know about this work. Thanks for sharing. Now I know why
thinking back to seventh grade upsets me, and I know where to look to
rediscover my strength. All those wasted years, makes me want to cry.

This thing ties in nicely with the Thomas Hylland Eriksen work that
was mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, "Tyranny of the Moment"
<http://folk.uio.no/geirthe/Tyranny.html>.

 

[Gerry Quinn]

It is as if you either have the Lisp gene, or you don't. It seems like
most people don't. If that's true, then it would explain why many more
people use C variants than Lisp variants, and that would in turn explain
why there are many more games written in C than in Lisp.

C++ is not a C variant, unless you just mean syntax. So I'm not quite
sure what you mean by the "C programmers" who you said were programming
in C++.

This explanation says nothing about whether C or Lisp is technically
superior; the result would be the same no matter which position is true,
and even if neither position is true.

Although it could be argued that a language (here you seem to be talking
about C) that everyone can use is better than a language that only some
can use. However, that aside, a certain possiblility arises...

I'm not trolling - this is a serious if nasty question: could it be that
the reason the majority of C programmers reject 'idiomatic Lisp' is
because they see what you call 'idiomatic Lisp' as simply bad
programming practice?

After all, some people seem to have a 'spaghetti' gene, and can code
stuff that works after a fashion, but which lesser mortals can't
understand or maintain. Maybe Lisp is on the same chromosome.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Gerry Quinn]

My first response was I might deign to answer your questions
if you paid me to do so. This was intended to discourage you,
but also to point out the logical fallacies of your line of
inquiry. (It also was intended to convey a hint that maybe
most Lisp programmers are busy doing something that they
think will make money.)

They don't seem to be doing it with Lisp.

First, there can be no objective meaning of "good" without a lot
of context. In your most recent restatement of your question, you
clarify that you mean "good for games". However, in an attempt to
define "good for games", detailed technical explanations have been
already provided to answer any concerns you might have in that area.
You have ignored or rejected those responses.

So you are admitting that Lisp is, in fact, not good for games?

Second, you further assert that a programming language is only good
for games if this is evidenced by there being lots of games written
in it already. I don't see the clear logic in that. It is already
well-known that Lisp has not been the most popular language, and that
there is a tradition of writing games in C. But that history does
not speak to the technical merits or "good" possibilities.
It mainly speaks to the fact that most people are uneducated
in the benefits of Lisp. This has been explained to you several times.
You have ignored or rejected those responses.

There seem to be plenty of Lisp enthusiasts. The elephant in the living
room is that they seem to produce very little finished software. Deal
with it.

2. Your analogy to chisels and woodcutters is an unfounded non-sequitor.

3. This conversation was begun on October 25, by someone writing a list
of percevied defficiencies in the C++ language with respect to
game programming. (He didn't mention Lisp, but he cross-posted to
the lisp and c++ newsgroups. Looked like kind of a troll, to me,)
You entered the fray the next day, with:

He mentioned Lisp in his name.

And it's as true today as it was true then, as the thread can testify.

People answered both of those for you honestly, but you didn't really
want to hear the answers. There have been about 700 messages, and I bet
that all the relevent technical information has already been exchanged
between whatever people might have been interested in the various camps.
Almost all of the recent messages in the thread from "your side" have
been from you alone, and they are not really technical.
So there is no point continuing.

My questions weren't technical for the most part, so I don't see the
relevance of "answers to technical questions".

Your objection to using Lisp boils down to the fact that you are
already committed to using C++, because you have made an investment
in the existing tools that you like, and it's too expensive to consider
using something else (especially if you have to develop it yourself).
Since that's your criteria, you have a forgone conclusion,

I don't have any objection to using Lisp. I don't have any desire to
use it myself, but since advocates have been claiming that it either
gives them super-powers, or allows their innate superiority to come
forth, I am interested in checking out this to ensure I am missing
nothing. Thus, I ask the questions: "You say you have super powers,
have you saved the world recently?" or "Okay then, have you rescued a
cat from a tree in the last month?". And if the answer to the latter is
also no, I can safely pass on the magic juice.

As far as I know, there are not a lot of tools and library support
specifically for writing games in Lisp. What you fail to appreciate
is the contention on the part of most Lisp programmers that because Lisp
is such a superior language, appropriate tool chains are easy to create,
relative to languages like C++. So if people were interested in using
Lisp for games, they would do that. (This "roll your own" outlook,
which has its dual aspects, is based on different set of assumptions
than most software engineers have.)

If you re-read that a few times, you'll understand where I am coming
from. "Oh yes, it's so easy I don't bother to do it" seems a fair
translation of the above.

It's what the Naughty Dog story is
about. However, since neither they (nor anyone else) has not given away
to you that proprietary technology, which is the basis of their competitive
advantage, you reject that.

Indeed, it is _not_ useful technology to you, since you don't have it!


You like to cite your screensaver (with your tool chain), while the Lisp
people like to cite Naughty Dog (with their tool chain). You give as

The difference (apart from the fact that I can cite my own work, modest
as it may be) is that I am just one of many. And of course, there is no
comparison between me and Naughty Dog - there are many equivalents of
Naughty Dog using C++. When I asked about small games and screensavers,
I was pointing out the apparent absence of results from the individual
enthusiasts, who don't at least suffer from the problems associated with
hiring a team of Lisp programmers, and who can make do with basic tools.
[And of course, it's so incredibly easy to make your own, right?]

your ultimate evaluation criteria the fact that you have helped pay for
your house with your screensaver. Therefore, the proper form of analysis
would be to ask whether you made more money with your screensaver than
Naughty Dog did with their line of games and the approach they took.
But that's for you to ponder, because the folks on comp.lang.lisp
are already convinced of the answer to that comparison,
and they believe they know how it generalizes.

That's a silly comparison. The point I am making is that Naughty Dog
seem to be just about the only team making modern games with Lisp (and
reading their post-mortem it's doubtful that it brought them benefits
overall).

Please rest easy now, and have fun writing your games in the sure
knowledge that for you, C++ does not suck for games, and Lisp sucks.

You began by asserting right up front that "Lisp programmers don't
actually *produce* anything". Given that C++ is much more popular
than Lisp, it requires no advocacy effort from you. And if some
people be misled into thinking that Lisp could be better for games,
why should that bother you? Perhaps you ought to examine your feelings
and see if you can figure out why you are so upset with Lisp programmers.
But please go do it by yourself.

I'm not upset at all, I just like to throw cold water on silver bullet
merchants. If they have something real they'll be stronger for it. And
if they don't, it will save their victims time.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Raistlin Magere]

I'm not trolling - this is a serious if nasty question: could it be that
the reason the majority of C programmers reject 'idiomatic Lisp' is
because they see what you call 'idiomatic Lisp' as simply bad
programming practice?

After all, some people seem to have a 'spaghetti' gene, and can code
stuff that works after a fashion, but which lesser mortals can't
understand or maintain. Maybe Lisp is on the same chromosome.

Hi,

you might remember that last time I discussed about self-adaptive software
on this thread with you I was what I would like to think as reasonable and
polite (not saying you are either).

However paragraphs like the one above, especially after a very long thread
which has entered into some technical detail (not much but some) cannot be
considered anything else but Trolling - no matter whether you are saying "I
am not trolling".

Let's be honest excellence is the realm of few people not of the masses by
this I am not saying that only few people are "excellent" but that given an
area of expertise only few people are actually excellent at it. So in a way
just that fact that "many" can use something could be thought as a proof of
mediocracy rather than of "merit" and I think this is a serious statement
that you should consider.
After all, many people do not understand the general theory of relativity or
for that matter not even newtonian physics so maybe what many people think
is not relevant.
But I am not trolling, honestly (or am I).

Anyway I will not reply to this e-mail as I have already spent enough time
on this thread, however you might want to consider some of the points made
by Christopher C. Stacy and especially just drop this topic it is not worth
it.

Thanks.

Follow-up set and please excuse me as I wasn't able to follow the
golden-rule of "Do not feed the troll".

 

[Chris Capel]

I'm not trolling - this is a serious if nasty question: could it be that

the reason the majority of C programmers reject 'idiomatic Lisp' is
because they see what you call 'idiomatic Lisp' as simply bad
programming practice?

After all, some people seem to have a 'spaghetti' gene, and can code
stuff that works after a fashion, but which lesser mortals can't
understand or maintain. Maybe Lisp is on the same chromosome.

The difference between Lisp code and spaghetti code is that anyone who can
understand well-written Lisp can understand any well-written Lisp.
Spaghetti code can't be understood easily by *anyone* except the person
that wrote it.

BTW, I'm not speaking absolutely, but the trends are clear.

Chris Capel

 

[Philippa Cowderoy]

I'm not trolling - this is a serious if nasty question: could it be that
the reason the majority of C programmers reject 'idiomatic Lisp' is
because they see what you call 'idiomatic Lisp' as simply bad
programming practice?

I can't speak for lisp, but most of the people I've talked to about my
Haskell code don't have any serious objections on those grounds. A few
insist that the (statically-typed, Java-and-C++) OO way is better even
when it's quite clearly a worse fit, something which I tend to ignore
because I'm fully aware of the problems I'd avoided.

After all, some people seem to have a 'spaghetti' gene, and can code
stuff that works after a fashion, but which lesser mortals can't
understand or maintain. Maybe Lisp is on the same chromosome.

I could be snarky about syntax, but otherwise I'm tempted to disagree
strongly.

One thing notable about Haskell code btw, is that every experienced
Haskell coder I've talked to about it finds it significantly easier to
reverse engineer and otherwise understand Haskell code than other
languages they've coded in, even when they have more experience in the
other languages. But Haskell tends to meet a block in people, largely
around the twin points of recursion and abstraction. I suspect lisp hits
the same problems.

 

[mikel]

C++ is not a C variant, unless you just mean syntax. So I'm not quite
sure what you mean by the "C programmers" who you said were programming
in C++.

Feel free to describe C and C++ with whatever words you prefer to the
words "C variant".

Although it could be argued that a language (here you seem to be talking
about C) that everyone can use is better than a language that only some
can use. However, that aside, a certain possiblility arises...

I'm not trolling - this is a serious if nasty question: could it be that
the reason the majority of C programmers reject 'idiomatic Lisp' is
because they see what you call 'idiomatic Lisp' as simply bad
programming practice?

No.

 

[Wade Humeniuk]

I'm not upset at all, I just like to throw cold water on silver bullet
merchants. If they have something real they'll be stronger for it. And
if they don't, it will save their victims time.

I am certainly all for that statement. However the world is run with help
from the silver bullet merchants. When C++ was just starting out it was the
silver bullet advocates that got it going. About 1993 we started working
with the first beta version of the DEC VMS C++ compiler, because someone
advocated for it to management. They convinced them things would be more productive
and would allow code reuse. (Neither of which came true). I tend to believe that
the majority of the Lisp users are mature enough to not make exaggerated promises
and that may be part of the problem. Many people do not wish to hear the unvarnished
truth, they want to hear things like "Free software will solve the world's woes".
The silver bullet merchants are the myth promoters and as a programmer who would prefer
to use Lisp it is crappy that it has been painted it with too many falsehoods.

I would say that when Lisp did not deliver during the AI boom (no language could
of delivered the (now) outlandish claims) it got targeted for all the
political reasons. Thankfully the people involved are either leaving or forgetting.


Wade

 

[Thomas F. Burdick]

C++ is not a C variant, unless you just mean syntax. So I'm not quite
sure what you mean by the "C programmers" who you said were programming
in C++.

It is when used by most C programmers. AFAICT, there is a small
vanguard of C++ users that write what I consider to be good,
idiomatic, modern C++. I would expect these same programmers to learn
to write idiomatic Lisp when thrown into a Lisp shop, for the reason
that they've already had to learn a very new style when they learned
to write idiomatic C++. I'd expect they will generally go nuts with
macros (in a good way). That's what happened with me, at least. I'm
not saying which language they'd prefer, but they should be able to
adapt to writing in Lisp.

 

[Gerry Quinn]

However paragraphs like the one above, especially after a very long thread
which has entered into some technical detail (not much but some) cannot be
considered anything else but Trolling - no matter whether you are saying "I
am not trolling".

I really am not trolling.

Let's be honest excellence is the realm of few people not of the masses by
this I am not saying that only few people are "excellent" but that given an
area of expertise only few people are actually excellent at it. So in a way
just that fact that "many" can use something could be thought as a proof of
mediocracy rather than of "merit" and I think this is a serious statement
that you should consider.

I wasn't talking about "excellence". I was talking about "good practice".
They are different things.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Gerry Quinn]

The difference between Lisp code and spaghetti code is that anyone who can
understand well-written Lisp can understand any well-written Lisp.
Spaghetti code can't be understood easily by *anyone* except the person
that wrote it.

Fair enough, if that is the case. Probably all languages look like
spaghetti until you know them.

You might want to reconsider whether Naughty Dog is a suitable exemplar
of Lisp useage, however, given the comments on the engine code in the
Gamasutra post-mortem. And is the pronounced tendency of even
successful Lisp projects to get re-written in another language
*entirely* due to PHBs who are afraid of not being able to hire Lisp
users?

I only ask. You Lisp-ers can best answer it among yourselves.

- Gerry Quinn

 

[Gerry Quinn]

It is when used by most C programmers. AFAICT, there is a small
vanguard of C++ users that write what I consider to be good,
idiomatic, modern C++. I would expect these same programmers to learn
to write idiomatic Lisp when thrown into a Lisp shop, for the reason
that they've already had to learn a very new style when they learned
to write idiomatic C++. I'd expect they will generally go nuts with
macros (in a good way). That's what happened with me, at least. I'm
not saying which language they'd prefer, but they should be able to
adapt to writing in Lisp.

If by the above you mean - and I suspect you do - those programmers
whose obsession with 'generic programming' has caused them to lose sight
of the basics of object orientation, the Lisp community is welcome to
them as far as I am concerned.

- Gerry Quinn