Most code is read much more than it is written, at least I read much more code than I write. So for me code should be optimized to be read as plain text as that is basically what every tool uses. Requiring a separate tool to get basic readability is not really acceptable. I can't do that on github, I can't do that with the various diff tools, I can't just quickly cat a file or use the countless other tools that are designed to present plain text.
If I then can choose between guix and a language that doesn't require these hoops and extreme quality trade off the choice is not hard.
Anyway if you think guix is better than nix, than nothing stops you from using it.
I just have a hard time taking such a comment seriously, because I have made it myself. Many times even. My second comment on Slashdot in 1999 was a comment just like yours. I try to tell myself it is ok because I was still a teenager.
7 years later I had to write common lisp and I think the parens were a problem for about a week. Since then I have written many thousand lines of lisp code. I usually go back and forth on what I like the most. ML (ocaml mostly) or (guile) scheme. In just about every other language (except maybe factor) I miss the macros (even syntax rules ones) way more than I like the extra expressiveness of, say, Haskell. [0]
Wisp is a part of guile. So you can write your own config using it. It is not completely straightforward, but if you really hate parentheses it is a way. Or you continue the wonderful string gluing of Nix. Whatever floats your boat.
[0]: I do miss typing sometimes in scheme though. I have thought about vibe coding a prototype of an s-expr language that compiles to f# AST.
This isn’t about whether someone can get used to parentheses. Obviously they can. I don’t doubt your extensive experience there. The question is what the language optimizes for by default.
My argument is that S-expressions optimize for structural uniformity and macro power, but they do so at the expense of plain-text readability without tooling. And that trade-off matters in contexts where code is frequently read outside of a fully configured editor, code reviews, diffs, quick inspection, etc.
Saying “editors solve this” doesn’t really address that, it just shifts the burden to tooling. In contrast, many other languages aim to be reasonably legible even in minimal environments.
So I’m not arguing that Lisp is unusable. I’m saying it makes a different set of trade-offs, and for my use case where I spend much more time reading other peoples code in some web portal and with basic terminal tools those trade-offs are a net negative. I would expect this trade off holds for most code produced.
I dont think most people here see that, or even have the willingness to see that. The same was true for the opioid epidemic. Had it hit a group with any political capital there would have been laws passed and the sacklers would have been not just painted as villains, they would have been castrated a quarter of a century ago.
Just wait 15 years when the middle class has been struggling with easily accessible gambling and it can't be explained as problem of character. There will be laws passed and people prosecuted or successfully sued.
Many of those targeted by the sacklers did start as white, middle class, etc. or even white, upper class.
Those folks that did fall to it, then became (often) lower class while failing to it.
The thing to realize, is that the upper classes ‘eat their own’ just like any other. It’s why Trump is as frantic as he is, he knows what will happen when he stops being ‘useful’/necessary.
I had a look around and there is very little actual ecidence for detrimental effects. Most things seems to be exaggerations by politicians who want to be tough on crime.
I am still a bit sad that window shading isn't supported. I wonder if I am going to continue saying this until I am like all those people 20 years ago complaining about things they liked in CDE not being available in more modern DEs.
Basically something that us grey beards like in several window managers, it is not supported in GNOME since the version 3.0 reboot, and relates to minimizing a window to the title bar.
You can move the title bar around, and depending on the window manager either double clik to drop down again its contents, or by leaving the mouse pointer for a few seconds hover it, it will temporarly reveal its contents.
Yeah, it took me a while to discover that it was removed from KWin. (I eventually ended up reading the sources). It didn't help that KWin also does 3D effects, so all of my Web searches for "shading" were returning results for "shader" :-(
Considering how hard it has been, and to some extent still is, to run your own Bluesky instance, the main problem is that it automatically becomes centralised in a way that no open protocol will solve.
If 97% of your users are on one instance it is not a distributed platform. Applying this to mastodon, I am pretty sure most people would consider it a problem if mastodon.social started getting more than 40% of active users (currently at about 15 iirc).
S-expressions were supposed to be replaced by a more user friendly syntax. The trade offs were not worth it and every try to replace sexprs failed.
If it is such a problem you can use wisp to write your packages.
https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/SRFI_002...
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