I remember wanting to learn lisp. I got stuck and reached out to the community for help.
And found them to be very hostile.
I decided I had better things to do with my time.
And found them to be very hostile.
I decided I had better things to do with my time.
There were (probably still are) a few assholes and zealots on comp.lang.lisp, but they were easy enough to ignore (killfiles are your friends). I think some people also got a bit testy and short there because of the trolls. People like Jon Harrop liked to go on there and basically say, "You're all morons and lisp is useless garbage here's why..." as a way of promoting F#. It was incredibly obnoxious, and I recall during his time as a troll there people becoming overly sensitive to other posts that looked like trolling but were meant in earnest. This would have been off-putting if you got caught in the crossfire.
I tried learning CL back in 2006 and read a quickstart guide from the #lisp IRC channel. It had sentences in it like:
“ Using a plain text editor without any runtime connection to your Lisp implementation just because you think you prefer its keybindings is stupid and self-defeating.”
And
“Follow these directions or risk our wrath, or at least unsympathetic attitudes!”
The document, mercifully, doesn’t appear to exist any more. Maybe when I called them on it at the time they realized that maybe there’s a better way and changed it. But it definitely made a poor first impression.
The attitude of these communities has changed a lot since then. It has been 14 years since then! Right now, #lisp and #emacs and their Reddit counterparts r/lisp and r/emacs are a very pleasant, friendly, and supportive community. For those looking to becoming a part of the Lisp or Emacs community, I strongly recommend giving #lisp, #emacs, r/lisp, and r/emacs a chance.
I started 4 years ago. They are very helpful and friendly.
Just approach them with a genuine interest.