FRESH

Hacker News

Home

Hyperpolyglot Lisp: Common Lisp, Racket, Clojure, Emacs Lisp

144 points by veqq

by sinsudo

2 subcomments

I know that the purpose of the page is to compare syntax of common lisp, racket, clojure, and emacs lisp. But some examples could be more idiomatic, for instance instead of
```
  (defun add (a &rest b)
    (if (null b)
        a
        (+ a (eval (cons '+ b)))))
```
One should avoid eval and use endp instead of null:
```
   (defun add (a &rest b)
        (if (endp b) a
            (apply #'add (+ a (first b)) (rest b))))
```

by vindarel

2 subcomments

Notes on CL:
- why nothing on the "compiler" line? Everytime you load a snippet or a file with SBCL, it compiles it (to machine code). There's also compile-file.
- interpreter: likewise, all code is compiled by default with SBCL, not interpreted, even in the REPL. To use the interpreter, we must do this: https://github.com/lisp-tips/lisp-tips/issues/52
- command line program: the racket cell shows the use of -e (eval), the same can be done with any CL implementation.
- since the string split line introduces cl-ppcre, one could mention cl-str :D (plug) (much terser join, trim, concat etc)
- ah ok, for dates and times, flattening a list, hash-table literals… we need more libraries.
- more files operations: https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/files.html
- emacs buffers: now compare with Lem buffers 8-)
- posix-getenv: I'd rather use uiop:getenv (comes in implementations).
- uiop:*command-line-arguments*
- exit: uiop:quit
- uiop:run-program (sync) / launch-program (async)
- java interop: with LispWorks or ABCL (or other libraries)
my 2c

by sinsudo

1 subcomments

The page indicates that there is not function for documentation in common lisp, but

  (documentation 'documentation 'function)
      "Return the documentation string of Doc-Type for X, or NIL if none 
        exists. 
        System doc-types are VARIABLE, FUNCTION, STRUCTURE, TYPE, SETF, and T.

 Also http://rosettacode.org for computer tasks implemented in many computer languages to allow you compare syntax and code.

by kickingvegas

1 subcomments

Perhaps related, I'm maintaining a "cheatsheet" to let Python programmers see what an Elisp equivalent to typical Python functions/methods are.
https://kickingvegas.github.io/elisp-for-python/

by eamonnsullivan

3 subcomments

Clojure 1.6, Emacs 24.5... These are pretty old versions, at least of those.

by ethagnawl

0 subcomment

This is really neat.
Something I've been meaning to do is try putting together a cross-lisp package manager -- if only because it'd be fun. Maybe it would favor code that could be readily run or eval'd or maybe with some sort of clj/cljs type dynamic dispatch for anything implementation specific.

by ecto

1 subcomments

Great chrestomathy! I opened a PR for my lisp, Loon: https://github.com/clarkgrubb/hyperpolyglot/pull/139

by arikrahman

1 subcomments

Would be interesting to see how Jank is coming along in this space as well.

by FergusArgyll

0 subcomment

As someone who's not a programmer but has beginner - medium python & C skills. I'm in middle of learning lisp (elisp to be precise) and it feels like reading poetry. It's a transcendent experience that's hard to explain. Such beautiful concepts. Everything flows in a way it doesn't in C based langs

by anthk

0 subcomment

Emacs has cl-lib
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/cl.html

by FrustratedMonky

3 subcomments

Nice comparison.
But makes me think we'd be better off if we all just focused on a single one, and grew it, made it better. Not having 4 versions of something almost identical. Fragmentation can hurt adoption.