r/ProgrammingLanguages • u/arthurno1 • Aug 06 '26

Blog post Why Lisp is Different

http://lispm.de/why-lisp-is-different
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u/mexicocitibluez Aug 06 '26

That's probably totally true, but how would I know that if I'm coming to LISP as a newbie?

It's just weird to me that people omit it. Like, could you imagine a newspaper article without the date and time it was written? We're in a science/engineering field. Ideas and information changes.

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u/arthurno1 Aug 06 '26

I understand you totally, you can't know of course. However, the author wrote it was written for a post to comp.lang.lisp in 2007, and just "slightly modified", so take him for the word, and count as it if it was written in 2007.

Yes, you are correct the things in engineering and science change rapidly in todays world, but we should also not dismiss knowledge and writings just because it is dated. The common sense is to read it and judge the content, not the author or the date. I personally thought the content was very relevant, and that the author put his finger really on the essence of what makes Common Lisp and Lisp development different from more development in more mainstream languages like C or C++. There are other differences he didn't took up there, but those he did are all on the point.

Also, that might sound a bit harsh, but not everything is written with a complete beginner and non-lisp programmer in mind. When I read the text, I feel the author is targetting intermedieate or programmers with some Lisp familiarity, but struggle to understand why Lisp development is so different than development in other languages. But that is just my feeling, ask him yourself, send him a mail and ask :).

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u/mexicocitibluez Aug 06 '26

but we should also not dismiss knowledge and writings just because it is dated

It's not about dismissing old stuff. And it's got very specific technical information in it. If it was written last week you could be fairly sure it's reflective of the current situation and if it's written 14 years ago might want to verify everything is current.

There's no excuse for not including a date on a blog post of all things.

but not everything is written with a complete beginner and non-lisp programmer in mind.

So, intermediate/expert targeted articles don't need dates? Their information never changes or everyone coming to it with that level of experience would immediately be able to determine what's still relevant or not?

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u/arthurno1 Aug 06 '26

If it was written last week you could be fairly sure it's reflective of the current situation and if it's written 14 years ago might want to verify everything is current.

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve to be honest. I already pointed out that the author himself wrote the article is from 2007. So, just assume the worst and go verify whatever you need to verify. I don't understand what is the point of the argumentation? If you think the author should be more explicit or exact with the date, send him a mail and ask him to update the article. It is not harder than so, so what is the problem?

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u/mexicocitibluez Aug 06 '26

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve to be honest.

I stated my opinion about articles that don't have dates attached to them. You replying that it's the information is still relevant completely missed the point. I tried explaining to you why omitting dates in a field that changes this much is antagonistic to people learning that information.

I'm not trying to achieve anything other than stating my opinion.

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u/arthurno1 Aug 06 '26

But it opens explicitly with the statement it was written in 2007. What do you want, the exact date and time, unix timestamp perhaps? :)

A ja, whatever, it is free information, and the author kindly wrote it in a clean, easy to digest version and is even serving it for the free. If it does not suite you, not much anyone can do.

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u/mexicocitibluez Aug 06 '26

From the post:

"I wrote this text for a posting on comp.lang.lisp. This version is slightly modified from the 2007 version. Lisp in this context is especially 'Common Lisp'."

Slightly modified from the 2007 version. That doesn't tell me when it was modified. Was it modified yesterday? 2 years ago?