Java vs Lisp

[gusl]

I'm finally coming around to seeing the virtues of Java. The main one is that it's very easy to read.

In Lisp, the code is very compact, so you need as many comments as code. Programmers are reluctant to write comments in any language, and the result is that much Lisp is write-only code.

Comments

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

I would argue that well-written Lisp is also easy to read, it's just perhaps harder to write Lisp readably, because Lisp is more powerful. For example, good use of obvious macros improves readability. Bad use of macros is a readability nightmare, because first you have to read the macros! And that's 10 times as hard.

Also, I think Lisp which makes judicious use of progn, especially implicit progn, is probably more readable than Lisp which tries to be as "inside-out" as possible... I think some people feel like use of progn is cheating, somehow.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I would say there is a trade-off between power (i.e. conciseness) and readability. It makes sense: redundancy makes things easier to understand.

Of course, I don't want to give up this advantage of redundancy... but the redundancy could be in the comments, specifications, asserts, pre-post conditions, etc.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Java is still a mess compared to Python or Ruby; Obj-C is not bad.

[radiata-prime.livejournal.com]

Hell is having to maintain someone else's closures.

[williamallthing.livejournal.com]

the biggest advantage IMO is that you no longer have to talk to lisp enthusiasts.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Java is primarily a systems language, so it's assumed that code should be organized, clean and well-written. Variable typing is strict. In many procedural languages like php or perl this is not the case, so it's understandable that the code will be like spaghetti. I don't know about lisp, but given that it's an old mature language I'm sure it has seen lots of procedural abuse.

The worst thing about java is that you have to write 2x as much code to do the same thing as in perl, for example. Here are some interesting comparison facts:

• Designing and writing the program in Perl, Python, Rexx, or Tcl takes no more than half as much time as writing it in C, C++, or Java and the resulting program is only half as long.
• No unambiguous differences in program reliability be- tween the language groups were observed.
• typical memory consumption of a script program is about twice that of a C or C++ program. For Java it is another factor of two higher.
• For the initialization phase of the phonecode program (reading the 1 MB dictionary file and creating the 70k- entry internal data structure), the C and C++ programs have a strong run time advantage of about factor 3 to 4 compared to Java and about 5 to 10 compared to the script languages.

[vi-z.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit surprising to hear from you, but I myself use Java.

But you probably agree that Lisp is still better for teaching programming? And what do you think of all the ML family, especially CAML?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I'm not usually a very dogmatic person. :-)

I am usually only stubborn when most people can't see what I see. But Lisp's power is common knowledge.

Teaching programming: no idea. I think people should learn both functional and imperative paradigms.

I am not very familiar with ML, although this may change soon, given my surroundings.

[vi-z.livejournal.com]

I think people should learn both functional and imperative paradigms.

I mean as the first language to teach.

P S Btw I am on Okinawa now :)