Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Lispers, I found this interesting, from 1:30:

-- "Do you miss laziness, from Haskell?" -- "Yes. Absolutely. I have macros in Erlang to simulate it, and I used them all the time."

Are Lisp's macros more popular for transforming code, or for introducing laziness?



As an aside, the reason that laziness isn't as popular a strategy in Erlang is probably because it conflicts with the language's priority on (soft) real-time behavior. Being reasonably certain about upper bounds for time (and space) is very important in Erlang's niche.


Lisp's macros are foremost a cheap anonymous lambda - with-open-file, dolist, and the like don't need to be macros, but it's much more convenient and efficient than passing a lambda to another function.

Certainly, though, transforming code is more popular than introducing laziness.


You should check out Io. It is an OO language with laziness: http://www.iolanguage.com/scm/git/checkout/Io/docs/IoGuide.h... (see the Messages section).


The former.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: