lisp http://www.nekomancer.net/taxonomy/term/14/atom/feed 2008-05-15T06:33:56-05:00 What i don't like about Arc http://www.nekomancer.net/blog/2008/05/15/arc-problem 2008-05-15T06:19:53-05:00 2008-05-15T06:33:56-05:00 gabor Today i have found an article about Arc on programming.reddit.com. While reading the article, i remembered the thing that i do not like about Arc. People often talk about problems like fragmenting the lisp-users even more, or about using lisp1 or lisp2, or hygienic macros etc. My issue is different:

Arc does not behave like an open-source project

that’s it. for example:

  • what (open-source or free-software) license does the code use?
  • where is the version-controlled repository for the project?
  • where is the bug-tracker?

The answer to all this is probably that the project is too young, and all this is still in flux, and it will be clarified when the language becomes more ‘final’. I think it should be the opposite way. Paul Graham should have specified the license from the start. They should also open up the version-control-system they use to develop Arc, and if they don’t use one, they should.

If i got something wrong, please tell me. I’d love to be corrected on these.

p.s: if you’d like to try out a lisp that’s usable currently, there are a lot of them. here are some to start with: mzScheme from the scheme family and SBCL from the common-lisp family. Or, if you would prefer to try out something different, something new, try Clojure. It runs on the JVM, so you also have access to all java libraries.

]]> Today i have found an article about Arc on programming.reddit.com. While reading the article, i remembered the thing that i do not like about Arc. People often talk about problems like fragmenting the lisp-users even more, or about using lisp1 or lisp2, or hygienic macros etc. My issue is different:

Arc does not behave like an open-source project

that’s it. for example:

  • what (open-source or free-software) license does the code use?
  • where is the version-controlled repository for the project?
  • where is the bug-tracker?

The answer to all this is probably that the project is too young, and all this is still in flux, and it will be clarified when the language becomes more ‘final’. I think it should be the opposite way. Paul Graham should have specified the license from the start. They should also open up the version-control-system they use to develop Arc, and if they don’t use one, they should.

If i got something wrong, please tell me. I’d love to be corrected on these.

p.s: if you’d like to try out a lisp that’s usable currently, there are a lot of them. here are some to start with: mzScheme from the scheme family and SBCL from the common-lisp family. Or, if you would prefer to try out something different, something new, try Clojure. It runs on the JVM, so you also have access to all java libraries.

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