this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Post about programming, interesting repos, learning to program, etc. Let's try to keep free software posts in the c/libre comm unless the post is about the programming/is to the repo.
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Be kind, keep struggle sessions focused on the topic of programming.
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Of course my assessment isn't objective. Talking about a programming language based on aesthetics and readability is inherently subjective, as I'd hope anyone reading this could figure out for themselves. If you like LISP, keep using LISP. My perspective is my own.
I understood LISP well enough to get a high grade in a 300-level college course dedicated entirely to teaching LISP under a school and a professor that were both highly rated for teaching comp sci. I learned LISP. I applied LISP. I did not like LISP.
I knew another guy who insisted that I hadn't given LISP enough of a chance, that the only way to properly learn it was through a book called Practical Common LISP. I read this book. I worked through it. It gave very little attention to drilling basic concepts. It introduced macros almost immediately. It did not make it any easier for me to parse LISP code. I did not find it helpful. I still did not like LISP.
Yet another LISP advocate told me that I only thought I didn't like LISP because both of the above methods were bad, and the only proper way to learn LISP was through the book Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs. Maybe I'll try that one someday, but I'm getting a bit tired of trying to learn the language only to be told I'm doing it wrong.
I'm sorry, it wasn't right of me to berate you like that.
My first real intro to lisp was using Emacs, so writing lisp had a direct practical advantage to being able to customize and run tools in the editor.
I also read SICP as well. The first few chapters do help in understanding lisp in relation to it being a metaphor for organizing computer programs but it isn't a deep dive into the language itself.
I just felt unreasonably frustrated when people bring up the paranthesis (Language of Idiotic Superfluous Paranthesis) since balancing sexps is a very surface level view of the language that basically never comes up after the growing pains stage (and using an editor that automatically balances parens and allows you to manipulate sexps as a unit). It would be like deriding all of Python because it uses indentation to separate blocks of code and calling it unreadable.
We're cool