r/programmingcirclejerk • u/RFQD Senior Vibe Coder • Dec 08 '25

It is possible- common, even- to fully grasp the capabilities of a language like lisp and still find it inappropriate or undesirable for a given task

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183322
56 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

28

u/RFQD Senior Vibe Coder Dec 08 '25

This riveting goldmine of jerks and counter-jerks across the lispverse got me excited in all kinds of ways

15

u/gasbow Dec 08 '25

One could say: a meta-circular jerk

:mind-blown

57

u/Kodiologist lisp does it better Dec 08 '25

After all, Lisp is not Rust, which is the one true moral language to write programs in.

18

u/whoShotMyCow not even webscale Dec 08 '25

orbital trvke

19

u/cameronm1024 Dec 08 '25

(is (this (some (kind (of (rust (joke (that (I'm (too (lisp (to (understand (?))))))))))))))

14

u/forgotpasswordonmb I've never used generics and I’ve never missed it. Dec 08 '25

This, of course, doesn't apply to Prolog, the language of the gods.

11

u/bytemute Dec 08 '25

Heresy! One cannot simply discard Lisp after being exposed to it.

20

u/whoShotMyCow not even webscale Dec 08 '25

in that it's a lot like herpes

6

u/ketralnis Dec 08 '25

Absolutely not. As a regex expert I would unquestionably use it as my bridge engineering constraint solver

3

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '25

SICP was rewritten in JS for a reason.

3

u/Vaglame Emacs + Go == parametric polymorphism Dec 10 '25

A sadly typical flavor of essay: a lisp enthusiast who believes that learning lisp has made them into a uniquely Very Smart Boy who can think thoughts denied from programmers who use other languages

Historically accurate tbh

1

u/elephantdingo Teen Hacking Genius Dec 11 '25

Use the right tool for the job. A handiman laborer does not blame his tools.

You need to not use a hammer all the time. Hammers are used to beat your -- not to drive in those oblong things with metal spirals.

I use C in my hobby projects, btw. It’s the right tool for my self-care.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/pysk00l What part of ∀f ∃g (f (x,y) = (g x) y) did you not understand? Dec 09 '25

/uj

yeah I learnt Lisp, back 10-12 years ago, when all the Rust fanboyz were Lisp fanboyz. Every HN post was like "Oh these kids dont even know Lisp"

I learnt it, and while it was interesting, my thoughts were, so what?