On the bus learning about "the reader" in #racket . Super cool!
@insom this is awesome!!!
@m455b This article (which I think is where I found out about Make-a-Lisp) also mentions the reader in passing: https://increment.com/programming-languages/crash-course-in-compilers/ -- (good article).
Life is so much easier with homoiconic languages. I wrote a scanner/lexer and a parser for a project at the start of my career and it is not a fun process.
@insom ahhhh I'm gonna read this tomorrow. You are still my computering idle. The kind of computering that you do is the kind of computering that I want to do in the futureeee
@m455b mate I am flattered but sure there are better idols out there. I did cooler stuff when I was younger, and mostly spend my time thinking of ways to solve problems without writing new software (which is a burden) or possibly without using computers.
I would love for you never to be in the situation where actively avoiding doing the thing that you used to love is the best way forward.
@m455b I am a carpenter who gets depressed by the state of hammers now-a-days.
@insom oh damn that sounds rough... hobby sort of ruined by industry :(. it's good you are still doing little things though! re: lava lamp terminal
@insom what do you wish you saw more of in your industry?
@m455b This is complex. I think: restraint.
I am trying to show it, and my comments about "trying to solve problems without writing new software" hint at that.
It's tempting to solve problems by adding more complexity, I almost feel like we are "trained" to do that, as abstractions are the tools we use to solve problems.
But maybe fewer abstractions and more consideration for the real, real world problems we are solving is required. Or maybe I'm wrong: also possible!
@insom that's intense coming from someone in the tech industry
@m455b and while I benefit greatly from living under capitalism I think that's some of the root cause. I love my job, but big companies are hard wired to want to become bigger companies.
And in a lot of cases you don't just need to be "good" at what you do, you also need to be "fast" (or: "first").
Again, I work at a pretty sane place, but growth is still the thing that markets care about overall. Generally more than sustainability. And you get growth by building out new stuff, apparently.
@insom yeah I'd imagine even in the engineering levels capitalism exists in pumping out as much from a human as you can get in order to make gain
@insom pumping out as much work from an engineer as you can***
@m455b I read about https://github.com/kanaka/mal this morning and I thought "this is the most m455 thing ever"