

Lisp as an Alternative to Java (2000) [pdf] - talles
http://www.flownet.com/gat/papers/lisp-java.pdf

======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8446368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8446368)

------
golergka
> Prechelt compared multiple implementations of the same task by multiple
> programmers in order to control for the effects of differences in programmer
> skill.

It would be interesting to compare these programmers' salaries as well. I
think that a lot of companies would still make a completely rational decision
to stick to Java after such an analysis.

~~~
kyllo
Rational, yes. Prudent, no. As a corporation, developer salaries is not where
you want to be trying to save money in your budget, because having your
software produced by low-quality talent is cause you to spend much more money
on maintaining poorly designed and poorly tested codebases in the long run.
Hence why it's 2015 and we still have people working in COBOL, and writing
Java code that interfaces with it.

And several of Paul Graham's essays mention this--using a language other than
Java (or C++) can actually be an advantage in hiring because those are
languages that many people learn _just_ to get a job, so the quality of the
candidate base is lower on average, whereas if you're hiring for a Lisp
hacker, you're going to get applicants who are genuinely passionate about
programming. Then you also get the benefit of Lisp being a more expressive
language that's faster to develop features in.

~~~
scarmig
Doesn't the result of this argument rest on empirical evidence more than
anything?

There must be some point at which the salary/talent tradeoff doesn't make
sense. Take a team of half a dozen developers each with a million dollar
salary. They'd be the best of the best, sure, but it's probably not the best
deployment of resources.

Alternatively, consider a team of dozen unpaid interns. They're also probably
too expensive.

Figuring out the correct mixture of talent and money is a hard problem, and
companies are built on getting that right. And although it might be a good
ego-stroke to think "expensive awesome programmers provide a lot more value
than cheap competent programmers," it needs evidence, and the evidence for it
probably varies in different contexts.

~~~
taeric
There are plenty of worse things to rest on besides empirical evidence.
Indeed, it is a shame that empirical evidence is not more heavily weighed, for
some of us.

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arh68
If anyone wants to read either of Lutz Prechelt's papers, see the original
C/C++/Java [1] and the Perl/Python/.. followup [2]. I wish the program sources
were available, if only to see if any of the Perl submissions are as readable
as Norvig's lisp [3].

[1]
[http://www.ebhakt.info/dl/Comparejavaandc_D9F7/compare_java_...](http://www.ebhakt.info/dl/Comparejavaandc_D9F7/compare_java_c.pdf)

[2] [http://page.mi.fu-
berlin.de/prechelt/Biblio/jccpprtTR.pdf](http://page.mi.fu-
berlin.de/prechelt/Biblio/jccpprtTR.pdf)

[3] [http://www.norvig.com/java-lisp.html](http://www.norvig.com/java-
lisp.html)

------
melling
How good was Java's JDK 1.2 JIT? Probably not good.

~~~
jerven
Jit came with 1.3.1 if I recall. Of course the real question is if lisp is
that good why aren't more people using it? Including the people who know about
lisp and java?

~~~
espadrine
> _if lisp is that good why aren 't more people using it?_

Rewrites being uncommon, companies use the language that they started in.
Start-ups use hyped languages that are considered good for the job in the
current environment, in order to attract interest and inspire trust in their
judgement.

Languages that were frowned upon can go back into favour; JS did. However, it
only did so thanks to both the success of the platform it was on and a
functional language committee. Lisp has neither, and is therefore unlikely to
rise to fame.

If a company made a platform which recommended Lisp, and if a language
committee rose to modernize the language and stifle innovation, it would start
getting hype. I cannot see the future, but it seems unlikely, regardless of
its technical merit.

------
PaulHoule
One word. Clojure.

~~~
leishulang
Two words. Android Runtime.

~~~
mathnode
n*2 words: I don't get it?

~~~
leishulang
Java works on Android Runtime (ART). Clojure barely works on dalvik, let alone
ART.

------
diltonm
I tried to like LISP many times since the 1980's when I was experimenting with
it on the side, it just did not click for me like C/C++/Java/C#.

