[Rotwang-l] Lush; a look at the future of Lisp? (and other bits)

[Lupo]

I've been futzing with Lush lately. 

http://lush.sourceforge.net

This is the best Lisp I have yet used. It comes with a useful library, it 
uses an Arc-like syntax (Arc being Paul Graham's "gonna take over the 
world" project http://www.paulgraham.com/arc.html ) and usability features 
and overall just works and makes me happy, unlike any of the Lisps I have 
used thus far.

Some of those "Arc-like features"

1) It is dirt simple to talk to the OS; just like in Python. It is dirt 
simple to embed new code into it; just like in Python. If any of you have 
tried to do such things in CLISP or CMU-CL, you'll notice that they expect 
the whole world to be Lisp. In 2004, that is a ridiculous expectation, and 
is doubtless partially responsible for the stellar popularity of Common 
Lisp.

2) There are 'intuitive' or at least familliar string manipulating features 
built in; regex. ACL doesn't have anything out of the box, though it is 
easy to write such things. The problem with writing your own is that 
nobody else will be able to read your code on even routine things without 
first reading your string manipulator routines. Plus, well, you have to 
write the things. And on a related topic, Lush doesn't use the odd "Format" 
language as Common Lisp does: you can write your formatting statements in a 
C-like fastion.

3) It is brief. Instead of (apropos functionname) you can just do a 
^Afunctionname -instead of (defun functionname .....) you can (de 
functionanme .....). {defmacro = dm, etc} This is neat. Graham is 
absolutely right; you can crank shit out faster that way.

4) The libraries are, so far, as advertised, and freakin' huge (especially 
for my kind of thing, but also for other kinds of thing). Ogre, for 
example, is worth the price of admission for cranking out simple GUIs in 
seconds. I wish it had a drag and drop GUI builder, but this is simple 
enough to be almost as good for the 90% of shit I will ever need it for.

5) The help system is pretty good. Sometimes there is stuff missing, but it 
at least points you to the source code, and it has been trivial so far to 
read the source and know what is what.

6) It does libraries and builds right. I have been trying for a 
ridiculously long time to build and examine CLIM on CMU-CL to at least see 
if it is useful, and have failed utterly. So far, no such problems on Lush. 
Most things are automagic, if you put the libs in the search path.

7) It appears to contain some logo-isms.

This is also the UGLIEST Lisp I have yet used in some ways. There is no 
Lisp compiler. There is a compiler for C modules you can embed into your 
code. There is also a compiler for a strongly typed lexically scoped 
language which looks to me like Fortran with prefix notation (called 
CLush). And, the lush/lisp language is dynamically scoped, which seems all 
kinds of bad. So, you can have dynamic scoping, lexical scoping, weak 
typing, strong typing and C itself all embedded in the same piece of code, 
and it will somehow work. This is bizarre. But, it hasn't gotten in the 
way for little codes yet. The C part at least has actually been handy. I 
don't know what the CLush language is for. Maybee an early attempt at 
writing a compiler for Lush itself.
It also doesn't have a makefile for the Mac, which pisses me off, as I want 
to buy a goddamned Mac, so I can have a useful OS I don't have to fight 
with all the time. 

I've also got an eval copy of Franz's IDE I am going to look at soon. 
Maybee it will have some of the strengths of Lush. I know it has CLIM built 
in at least.

Anyway, if any of you have actually been playing with Lisp and frustrated 
by its thorniness, you might have a look at this one. It fills me with the 
warm and fuzzies; a first in my Lisp experience. It's got some serious 
limitations (no compiler is the biggie for me), but in practical 
applications, this might not ever matter. My present hardware is about a 
factor of 25 slower than the state of the art and there isn't much bog 
yet, though it takes a few seconds longer than is pleasant to fire up.

I have yet to see if it is useful for Matlab type things, though if it is, 
I may never use anything else again.

In other reports:
I've been trying to build CLOCC. CLOCC is a great idea. It is a sort of 
libc for Lisp. In practise, it is no good. There isn't enough meat in there 
(though I am happy I finally successfully built f2cl -the tantalizing bits 
of it that came with my maxima distro were apparently incomplete). It also 
doesn't build (or most of it didn't) and it didn't put itself in a useful 
place like I expect most things to do (and like Lush does).
http://clocc.sourceforge.net

An amusing thing:
http://algorithms.us/downlispf4.shtml
A lisp written in VERY old fashioned Fortran; filled with line numbers and 
GOTOs. According to the advertising, it is bulletproof, though antiquated 
and lacking in Macros (no big deal; you can build 'em). Looking at the 
source gives me the heebie jeebies. It also doesn't build for me, but, 
well, neato-keen.

I'll probably try to write something real in Lush this weekend, hangover 
allowing.

-Lupo
"I hope god is real, so I can punch him in the throat when I die." -Fishninja