[HN Gopher] DrScheme in Space
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       DrScheme in Space
        
       Author : azhenley
       Score  : 61 points
       Date   : 2021-01-23 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (parentheticallyspeaking.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (parentheticallyspeaking.org)
        
       | lopatin wrote:
       | It warms my heart to know that astronauts are using LISP in space
       | because they want to. On the other hand, I wonder how practical
       | it is. I've more or less converted from LISPy langs to Python for
       | real work because I was tired of re-inventing wheels and wanted
       | to use libraries like Pandas that truly have no equals in the
       | functional world.
       | 
       | Edit: Question: How many LISPers truly use homoiconicity? Can you
       | share any uses of it in real world software?
        
         | danielam wrote:
         | Clojure fills this gap rather nicely, and you can always fall
         | back on Java libraries, if necessary. If you haven't given it a
         | try, I recommend it. Rich Hickey has put a good deal of thought
         | into its design.
         | 
         | Furthermore, you will have a much easier time finding companies
         | that use Clojure than any other Lisp (and where they don't, you
         | stand a better chance of convincing management to allow it at
         | companies that make heavy use of language that target the JVM).
        
         | ashton314 wrote:
         | I've been very impressed with Racket's standard library. While
         | yes, for certain domains, you'll go further faster with Python
         | and its libraries, Racket has got a surprising amount of stuff
         | in it and it's well-documented!
         | 
         | (I bring up Racket because DrScheme has since become DrRacket,
         | and the aside on the article explains that the astronaut in
         | question was working through How to Design Programs, which uses
         | Racket as it's teaching language. Also, this is Shriram
         | Krishnamurthi's blog, and he's one of Racket's principle
         | creators.)
        
         | cat199 wrote:
         | lisp has a long history at nasa
         | 
         | http://www.flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212211
        
           | lopatin wrote:
           | Great reading, thanks
        
         | Mediterraneo10 wrote:
         | Even for hobbyist stuff, Lisp's lack of libraries can be
         | frustrating. I wanted to build some useful things as I was
         | teaching myself Common Lisp, but there either was no library at
         | all for what I wanted to do, or on Quicklisp there was just
         | some bare-bones library that offered some meagre functionality
         | but warned that most things hadn't been written yet.
        
           | vikramkr wrote:
           | I guess thats what something like clojure is supposed to fix?
           | Interop with Java to give you access to that world? Not sure
           | how that plays out in the real world though
        
             | danielam wrote:
             | I my experience, quite well, though I have not had to reach
             | for Java libraries that often, either because Clojure
             | equivalents exist, or because someone else had already put
             | a wrapper around the Java library.
        
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