

Why Ruby is an acceptable Lisp (2005) - d0mine
http://www.randomhacks.net/articles/2005/12/03/why-ruby-is-an-acceptable-lisp

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olavk
I don't see how Ruby could be called a Lisp. To me, the fundamental concept of
Lisp is that the basic data structure is the cons-pair, and that both code and
data can be represented and manipulated as graphs of cons-pairs.

The blog is arguing that Ruby is an acceptable alternative to Lisp, which may
be true. But that doesn't make Ruby a Lisp.

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thisisnotmyname
He's not arguing that ruby is a Lisp, just that it gives most of the power of
Lisp in a syntax closer to what most programmers are familiar with.

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Jebdm
You're right, but he shouldn't have titled it "Why Ruby is an acceptable
Lisp".

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gruseom
This is so wrong in so many ways, but I think the ur-mistake, the one that
leads to all the others, is writing an article like this in the first place.
You like Ruby? You like Ruby. Use it! Why write a whole article trying to
justify how you feel? It's as if the author is trying to give himself (and
others) permission not to use Lisp.

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pg
He is saying something. Something false, I believe, but not meaningless. There
is a certain style of programming that was once only possible in Lisp. The
author is claiming that you can program that way in Ruby, or close enough.

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gruseom
Oh, I don't think it's meaningless, just that the arguments are bad, and seem
to have been invented in order to justify something that doesn't really need
justifying.

Now I suppose someone is going to ask me what arguments are bad. Two examples:
1. "The most common use of LISP macros is to avoid typing lambda quite so
much" - obviously false; 2. Using Lisp to model a Ruby example of "mini-
language" demonstrates Lisp's power, not Ruby's.

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tptacek
Stating the obvious: there's a difference between "provides much of the value
of in practice" and "being". The same logic says that Esperanto is an
acceptable English.

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raju
For the admins - Dup -

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=98438>

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d0mine
Thanks. I think 352 days is an excusable time for the repost.

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zitterbewegung
No offense but I think a great deal of hacker news fans have seen this one way
or the other. I remember there was response to this called lisp is an
acceptable lisp. If you want lisp and are using ruby why not just use lisp? If
you want ruby but use lisp just use ruby. It doesn't matter which programming
language you express your ideas in. It only matters if you actually get
cracking and implement your ideas. Pointless saber rattling about programming
languages is quaint and dandy if you aren't actually programming. To quote
feynmann "If I were forced to sum up in one sentence what the Copenhagen
interpretation says to me, it would be 'Shut up and calculate!"

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dag
[http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/lisp-is-not-
acceptab...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/04/lisp-is-not-acceptable-
lisp.html) ?

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zitterbewegung
Yea I agree with yegge. I think that lisp is what you make of it. Language
doesn't matter.

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tptacek
I don't think that's actually Yegge's point, is it?

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zitterbewegung
I misread yegge. lisp isn't a popular language its more of a language where
you either use for industry or you use for experimentation or both. I
personally think it doesn't matter what you code in blub or not blub it just
doesn't matter. What matters is if you ship or not.

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jhancock
I'm still trying to decide if ruby is an acceptable OOPL. Sure, the language
itself is, but the way people use it? not always so.

So far as the idea "Ruby is an acceptable Lisp"? This is as wrong as the idea
"Time is Money".

