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Comment by Archit3ch | Hacker News Reader

Success stories like this make a better argument for "Why Lisp?" than abstract blog posts.

We know macros are awesome, but if you're trying to convert others please provide code, screenshots, or even an interactive web demo.

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> abstract blog posts

If you refer to the blog post that made Top HN yesterday, it is very much backed by actual experience (https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/) and quite a load of code (https://github.com/atlas-engineer/nyxt/tree/master/source).

Good to know! I skimmed yesterday's article.

> the blog post that made Top HN yesterday

Why Lisp? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35852321

Siscog, a decades old Portuguese company using CL for their products.

https://www.siscog.pt/en-gb/products

https://www.siscog.pt/en-gb/news/siscog-sponsors-the-2022-eu...

Just a little thing, this is in Julia

Some have said Python is "enough" of a Lisp, but it's really not. Julia is much closer to being a true Lisp. It has macros sure, but its the overall feel and flexibility of the ecosystem that feels Lispy. At least as much as I've dabbled with Lisp and its history.

Have you tried running `julia --lisp`? That's a full-blown Femtolisp interpreter built right into the REPL! I also recommend playing with `Meta.show_sexpr` which can take any Julia expression and represent it as an S-expression.

For example:

julia> Meta.show_sexpr(:(f(x, g(y,z))))

(:call, :f, :x, (:call, :g, :y, :z))

Lastly, this old doc page comparing and contrasting Julia with Common Lisp is a fun read: https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1.3-dev/manual/noteworthy-dif...

To put it in perspective, Julia is a Dylan like Lisp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dylan_programmi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Dylan

Nowadays still alive as Open Dylan,

https://opendylan.org/

It turns out that Julia is ~a lisp, just with a weird syntax. If you look at the metaprogramming facilities, all expressions are first turned into s-exprs while parsing. There is no problem having a LISP syntax for Julia, and in fact this has been implemented! (https://github.com/swadey/LispSyntax.jl)

https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/metaprogramming/

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