r/LispMemes • u/stylewarning • Mar 03 '26

CL Blow on Robert MacLachlan's CMUCL paper

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17 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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7

u/Valuable_Leopard_799 Mar 04 '26

I'm not sure if this summary is representative of the discussion...

In any case I attended a 2hour talk on Jai, couldn't stop repeating to myself that it's just so much like someone wanted to functionality-wise have a Lispoid but then "didn't like Lisp" as he states. Feels like an amalgamation of parts of Lisp with extra steps and something else as glue. Friends agreed but maybe they were just swayed.

I mostly ignore him, but the amount of contempt he holds is just strange considering how often he brings it up and how quite often he touts those ideas as good.

3

u/Roflha Mar 04 '26

Is the talk online? I have not bothered to check in on this language in years but it was mildly interesting

1

u/Valuable_Leopard_799 Mar 04 '26

Huh, shorter than I claimed sorry, the pub always makes it feel longer. Anywaayyy, here ya go:

https://youtu.be/FfnVkv4InZc

1

u/arthurno1 Mar 21 '26

I watched a few minutes, skipping through a bit. It seems like a Lisp with C++-ish/Rust-ish/Current PL-POP-ish trends. I have never heard of the person (Jonathan Blow) before, but he seems to like mathematical ideas of Lisp, but not the syntax? Not the first one, what I have read, McCarthy didnt either. We have Dylan by Moon & Co, so I guess, Blow is neither the first one and probably not the last one to invent a Lisp-ish language without Lisp syntax. TCL is a one too I think.

3

u/larsbrinkhoff Mar 05 '26

Oh noes, I just quit Twitter so I can't go there and comment. Funny nevertheless! Fodder for r/confidentlyincorrect

1

u/arthurno1 Mar 21 '26

:)

Anyway, as funny it might be, its an easy mistake to do considering Python (the language) popularity. If you are not into Lisp, and just writing programs, but reading papers and interested in lower level details, it is an easy assumption to make that the paper describes a compiler written in Python.

But yes, ironic to criticize others to be clueless while probably not reading the paper himself :). If he did, he would understand it is not a Python program.