FWIW I go between DrRacket and Sublime Text as necessary. Sublime is of course faster for typical writing & editing tasks. But when working on code-related things, the DrRacket REPL is useful.
38 karma · joined July 24, 2013
Please name another programming language whose inventor has described it as having “a lot of stupid in it.”
It’s no longer a matter of fashion. It’s a matter of authoritative opinion.
As I allude there, Paul Graham’s writings about Lisp (mostly in Hackers & Painters) helped persuade me to explore Lisp languages. (Those writings have also persuaded many others.)
In particular, Arc's reliance on Racket persuaded me to take a serious look at Racket. So leaving aside quibbles about what “on top of” means — is Clojure not built “on top of” the JVM? Python “on top of” C? — Paul’s choice of Racket was influential in my choice too. (As it has been for many others.)
As for software being “built in [one’s] head,” that seems facially true of any software. The core thesis of “Beating the Averages” is that the tool you choose to get it out of your head and into the world matters. Having now had my own Lisp revelation, I not only buy Paul’s thesis, but I even think it could be strengthened: Lisp permits the implementation of a whole category of ideas that aren’t possible in other languages.
Moreover, Paul wrote that essay nearly 14 years ago. Since then, Lisps have gotten somewhat more popular (Clojure has led the pack). But as I say in the article, as a group, Lisps remain way behind the programming mainstream. So ultimately, my goal is not to evangelize for Racket and exclude other Lisps. I know Racket better because that’s what I use. But more people using all of them would be a great thing.
Bear in mind that creating Pollen was a side mission of the main project: making the website http://practicaltypography.com. The existing tools weren't good enough, so I ended up making my own. I looked at using TeX. No one had anything nice to say about its HTML capabilities. So I moved on.
Pollen does less than TeX. But it also demands less (in terms of setup & learning curve). Authors who need everything TeX can do aren't going to be interested in Pollen. But that's OK — they already have TeX.
TeX has been mentioned several times — I don't mind that comparison at all, since my thinly-veiled ambition is to create a contemporary successor to TeX. Contemporary = optimized for web publishing + better "macro" language (Racket) + shallower learning curve.
That said, TeX got a lot of things right. Especially the basic notion that a book (or other publication) should be represented as a program, and that authors should be able to freely intermix text and code. With digital books, I think it's essential.
(PS on Racket: HN was built with Arc, which was also built with Racket.)
Yes, there is something you can do to support me — well, forget me, I'm not important. But the question I'm interested in is important. So if more people started thinking about the question, started having conversations about the question, tried to answer the question (on HN or elsewhere), that would be great.
The question is this:
Based on its 20-year track record, is the W3C equipped to keep the web competitive over the coming 5, 10, and 20 years? (And if not, what should replace the W3C?)
The issue of "20-year track record" is important. The W3C has been around long enough that it can be — it must be — evaluated by its performance, not by its promises.
Furthermore, the notion of "competitive" is increasingly important, as alternative media platforms make inroads against the web (as I discuss in the article)
Bottom line, I want the web to win. And it's not winning. It's falling behind. But we need to be willing to ask the hard questions about how it got here. We need to hold the W3C's feet to the fire. We need to agitate for the web we want. Because in the end, it's not the W3C's web, it's not Google's web, it's OUR web. And if we don't like the web we end up with, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.