StatsBase.jl VS clasp

so finally I tried running Pkg.add(Pkg.PackageSpec(url="https://github.com/JuliaStats/StatsBase.jl", rev="v0.24.0")) but encountered an error saying in needed to download dependencies like DataStructures.

The author identified some bugs and those were fixed. But they were all edge cases or footguns that are obviously bad to do, but allowed because Julia is a flexible language. For example, in this issue, the author overwrites the array they are sampling from. Which is obviously going to produce bad results.

Well, out of the issues mentioned, the ones still open can be categorized as (1) aliasing problems with mutable vectors https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/39385 https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/39460 (2) not handling OffsetArrays correctly https://github.com/JuliaStats/StatsBase.jl/issues/646, https://github.com/JuliaStats/StatsBase.jl/issues/638, https://github.com/JuliaStats/Distributions.jl/issues/1265 https://github.com/JuliaStats/StatsBase.jl/issues/643 (3) bad interaction of buffering and I/O redirection https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/36069 (4) a type dispatch bug https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/41096

So if you avoid mutable vectors and OffsetArrays you should generally be fine.

As far as the argument "Julia is really buggy so it's unusable", I think this can be made for any language - e.g. rand is not random enough, Java's binary search algorithm had an overflow, etc. The fixed issues have tests added so they won't happen again. Maybe copying the test suites from libraries in other languages would have caught these issues earlier, but a new system will have more bugs than a mature system so some amount of bugginess is unavoidable.

I accidentally a Common Lisp that interoperates with C++ (https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp.git). We would also like to move beyond BDWGC and Whiffle looks interesting. I will reach out to you and maybe we can chat about it.

Clasp might be such a language, it seems.

https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp

/u/jeaye are you aware of CLASP? https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdXeRBbgDM

Sounds to me like CLASP; it automatically exports C++ objects to be used from Common Lisp also via llvm.

Now, the difference of compiling speed of SBCL and CCL is not so big. Look at cl-benchmark, LispWorks is really fast, CCL is on par with Allegro, SBCL is close to CCL. Or https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp/wiki/Relative-Compile-Performance-of-clasp, it depends on specific project (SBCL sometimes faster, slower, alike), overall difference is not big.

So..

"Why do you want to make Lisp more popular? If you were sucessful, what would be different in the world, and why is that desirable to you?"

Normally at this point I'd listen to the response, and ask more questions based on that. That would wind up with a very, very deep thread, so I'll break a cardinal rule and pre-guess at some answers.

This kind of question comes up pretty frequently. In many cases, I suspect the motivation behind the question is "Wow! Here's this cool tool I've discovered. I want to make something really useful with it. I want to do it as part of a community effort; share my excitement with others, share in their excitement, and know that what I'm making is useful because others find it desirable and are excited by it." The field could be cooking, sports, old machine tools, tiny homes, or demo scene. Its the fundemental driver for most content on HN, YouTube, Instructables, and such. It is a Good Thing.

If that is your motivator, then my suggestion is to find something that bugs you and fix it. You've already decided you're only interested in code, not other aspects. You said you preferred vim, but the emacs ecosystem has a very rich set of sharp edges that need filing off, and a rich set of tools with which to attack them.

One example: even after 50 years there's no open IDE which allows you to easily globally rename a Lisp identifier. I don't know about LispWorks or other proprietary environments, but you can't in emacs or vim do a right-click on "foo" in "(defun foo ()...)" and select a command which automatically renames it in all invocations. [Queue lots of "but you can..." replies here.] I don't think vim is up to the task of doing this internally. It would be possible in emacs; but would require a huge effort with lots of help from other people. If you emerged alive from that rabbit warren you'd join the company of Certified "How Hard Could it Be?" Mad Scientists such as Dr. "I just want to draw molecules" Meister [1] and "Wouldn't an OS in Lisp be Cool" Froggey [2].

[1] https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp

[2] Mezzano https://github.com/froggey/Mezzano

But also, there's a reason why most implementations readily make an effort to provide interoperability tools with a variety of runtimes. Clasp much like ABCL gives access to a whole library of other libraries trivially wrapped to interoperate with at little to no performance to cost (depending on how thin you make the wrappers, mainly).