what do lispers think of clojure?

11-20-08, 07:30 PM

gavino

11-22-08, 01:36 AM

Jon Harrop

gavino wrote:
> [..]

Clojure is Lisp's best chance of success for people who earn their living. I
thought Rich's presentation was very compelling, making it sound like
Clojure is the pinnacle of dynamic programming languages.

11-22-08, 03:16 PM

Giovanni Gigante

> Clojure is Lisp's best chance of success for people who earn their living. I
> thought Rich's presentation was very compelling, making it sound like
> Clojure is the pinnacle of dynamic programming languages.

One more specific thing I am curious about: how fast Clojure is?
IMHO one of the wonderful things of Common Lisp is that, while much
higher-level than C, it can provide a comparable execution speed (with
properly optimized code).
I have seen benchmarks saying that clojure is faster than python. But
how does it compare to C (or optimized CL)?

giovanni

11-22-08, 04:48 PM

j.oke

On Nov 22, 4:16 pm, Giovanni Gigante <g> wrote:
> how does it compare to C (or optimized CL)?

You don't need to know this.

If you already use CL, your are all fine.

If you don't, it's the best chance to get in touch.

Clojure (in fact) has been created as an excuse to (temporarily)
exchange a Java Lisp to Common Lisp.

Clojure Lisp (CL) in fact abbreviates to the same letters as Common
Lisp (CL), got it?

The definite answer to this whole question / experiment / future will
be a definite win over all of Currently Existing Languages, so in the
end we will:

All Be Happy (TM)

-JO

P.S. We also ensured that some out standing people (AKA Jon Harrop /
gavino / etc) give as much advertising as possible, in order to have
involved all different kinds of coders / programmers / etc, and we are
doing really well...

11-25-08, 12:50 AM

Mirko

On Nov 21, 8:36 pm, Jon Harrop <j> wrote:
> gavino wrote:
> >[..]
>
> Clojure is Lisp's best chance of success for people who earn their living.. I
> thought Rich's presentation was very compelling, making it sound like
> Clojure is the pinnacle of dynamic programming languages.
>
> --
> Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.[..]

Yep, his enthusiasm is infecting. I was a bit disappointed with two
aspects:
- no complex number support (because Java lacks it)
- cannot run yet on Android (for reasons way over my head)
(although one should never be disappointed with a remarkable piece of
work that is being given to the community)

Mirko

11-25-08, 01:57 AM

Jon Harrop

Mirko wrote:
> On Nov 21, 8:36Â pm, Jon Harrop <j> wrote:
>> gavino wrote:
>> >[..]
>>
>> Clojure is Lisp's best chance of success for people who earn their
>> living. I thought Rich's presentation was very compelling, making it
>> sound like Clojure is the pinnacle of dynamic programming languages.
>
> Yep, his enthusiasm is infecting. I was a bit disappointed with two
> aspects:
> - no complex number support (because Java lacks it)

This is just another shortcoming of the JVM. No tail calls is my pet peeve.

> - cannot run yet on Android (for reasons way over my head)
> (although one should never be disappointed with a remarkable piece of
> work that is being given to the community)

Right.

11-25-08, 09:41 AM

Rock

On Nov 25, 1:50 am, Mirko <MirkoVuko> wrote:
> On Nov 21, 8:36 pm, Jon Harrop <j> wrote:
>>
>
> Yep, his enthusiasm is infecting. I was a bit disappointed with two
> aspects:
> - no complex number support (because Java lacks it)
> - cannot run yet on Android (for reasons way over my head)
> (although one should never be disappointed with a remarkable piece of
> work that is being given to the community)
>
> Mirko

Yeah, no complex number support! Very disappointing when I found out.
I even had an exchange with Rich Hickey on the issue. He says he's got
nothing against complex numbers obviously, but he hasn't got the time
to implement them, and for performance reasons it looks like it has to
be done in Java. I wanted to give it a try, but I am definitely no
Java programmer, so I've happily come back to good old Common Lisp.
I'm a mathematician and complex numbers are VERY important, and I
think CL (with few other languages) has got the best support in this
respect.

11-25-08, 11:48 AM

Mirko

On Nov 25, 4:41 am, Rock <roccoro> wrote:
> On Nov 25, 1:50 am, Mirko <MirkoVuko> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
> Yeah, no complex number support! Very disappointing when I found out.
> I even had an exchange with Rich Hickey on the issue. He says he's got
> nothing against complex numbers obviously, but he hasn't got the time
> to implement them, and for performance reasons it looks like it has to
> be done in Java. I wanted to give it a try, but I am definitely no
> Java programmer, so I've happily come back to good old Common Lisp.
> I'm a mathematician and complex numbers are VERY important, and I
> think CL (with few other languages) has got the best support in this
> respect.

Um, I it was from that conversation on that I learned about the
aforementioned deficiency.

But in all fairness to Rich, considering the anal (meaning very
detailed, and mathematically correct) implementation of complex
numbers in CL, I am not surprised he punted.

11-25-08, 03:43 PM

Xah Lee

On Nov 25, 1:41 am, Rock <roccoro> wrote:
> On Nov 25, 1:50 am, Mirko <MirkoVuko> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
> Yeah, no complex number support! Very disappointing when I found out.
> I even had an exchange with Rich Hickey on the issue. He says he's got
> nothing against complex numbers obviously, but he hasn't got the time
> to implement them, and for performance reasons it looks like it has to
> be done in Java. I wanted to give it a try, but I am definitely no
> Java programmer, so I've happily come back to good old Common Lisp.
> I'm a mathematician and complex numbers are VERY important, and I
> think CL (with few other languages) has got the best support in this
> respect.

Native support of complex numbers in a general purpose language of
today, is absolutely necessary!

Java being a pain in the ass in so many ways, doesn't have complex
numbers as a native datatype.

However, luckily there are few roburst 3rd-party open source java
packages that does it. See:

â€¢ Complex Numbers in Java
http://xahlee.org/java-a-day/ex_complex.html

So, if Clojure doesn't want to be another toy, it must support it.

maybe the author doesn't have time, maybe it's complex, maybe it must
be implemented in java for speed or whatnot, but that's not the user's
problem. In short, have it in Clojure out of the box soon, or be
assured Clojure won't have a future. (trust me on this)

See also:

â€¢ Proliferation of Computing Languages
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/new_langs.html

Xah
âˆ‘ http://xahlee.org/

â˜„

#10

11-25-08, 04:31 PM

Thomas F. Burdick

On 25 nov, 16:43, Xah Lee <xah> wrote:

> Native support of complex numbers in a general purpose language of
> today, is absolutely necessary!

How do you figure? It seems more like native support for complex
numbers were more valued 20-30 years ago. The GP languages with such
support date from then ... off the top of my head, I can't think of a
single such language "of today".

#11

11-25-08, 05:20 PM

Bakul Shah

Thomas F. Burdick wrote:
> On 25 nov, 16:43, Xah Lee <xah> wrote:
>
>> Native support of complex numbers in a general purpose language of
>> today, is absolutely necessary!
>
> How do you figure? It seems more like native support for complex
> numbers were more valued 20-30 years ago. The GP languages with such
> support date from then ... off the top of my head, I can't think of a
> single such language "of today".

C99?

#12

11-25-08, 05:50 PM

Rock

On Nov 25, 6:20 pm, Bakul Shah <bakul+use> wrote:
> Thomas F. Burdick wrote:
> > On 25 nov, 16:43, Xah Lee <xah> wrote:
>
> >> Native support of complex numbers in a general purpose language of
> >> today, is absolutely necessary!
>
> > How do you figure? It seems more like native support for complex
> > numbers were more valued 20-30 years ago. The GP languages with such
> > support date from then ... off the top of my head, I can't think of a
> > single such language "of today".
>
> C99?

Python?

#13

11-25-08, 05:54 PM

Rock

On Nov 25, 6:50 pm, Rock <roccoro> wrote:
> On Nov 25, 6:20 pm, Bakul Shah <bakul+use> wrote:
>>
>> Python?

And let me add that it's not just a matter of supporting complex
floats. CL and Scheme have always been able to support a full numeric
tower. You've got complex rationals and gaussian integers just as much
as you have complex floats. That is really cool, I believe. I think
it's a big mistake on Clojure's part to underestimate this fact.

Just my 2c.

Rock

#14

11-25-08, 09:05 PM

Rock

Nice post here on the topic. I feel EXACTLY the same way :)

http://hans.fugal.net/blog/2008/11/1...re-dsp-longing

#15

11-25-08, 09:25 PM

joswig

On 25 Nov., 22:05, Rock <roccoro> wrote:
> Nice post here on the topic. I feel EXACTLY the same way :)
>
> [..]

Maybe you like this:

http://xach.livejournal.com/199225.html

David McClain uses Common Lisp for signal processing software.
Recently he wrote about
speed ups in his software after Martin Simmons gave some hints
about how to use the LispWorks foreign function interface...

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