> Unlike another general purpose language (like say, C++ or C#) allow me to grasp what's happening after staring at it for 30 seconds. This is the same problem, I have with Lisp.

I had the same problem with Lisp (Scheme, to be more specific) and I thought that it'd be impossible to reason about run-times and such. That is, until I learned the language and the standard libraries. I've never looked at Erlang, but I'd bet it's the same issue.

A C++ programmer can look at C# code and figure out what it's doing because they have similar syntax and vocabulary. Just because Erlang isn't immediately accessible to you, it doesn't mean it isn't any good for shipping in 48 hours.

Perhaps if you spend 24 hours sharpening your axe, you'll chop that tree down in another 4 hours instead of using the full 48.

I used hyperbole of course, but in fairness, I've spent on the order of several months getting into Lisp. Mabye it's because I didn't work with it exclusively (I've been told here on HN that you need to be immersed in it completely and continously) that I still didn't become OK in any semblance of the term.

But here's the thing: I switched to C# from VB.Net. Before that, it was VBScript (ASP pages) and even before that it was PHP and JavaScript. At no point did I stop in the language I'm currently working in to start learning another.

Until that changes, I don't see how it will help me.

Basically, I would say that what you are suffering from is a kind of mental block syndrome: you think in a procedural/imperative paradigm. All your listed languages operate in that paradigm. It's a very transferable paradigm, as it so happens. I can come up to (some approximation of) speed in an imperative language in under 2 weeks. In order to ship Lisp(Prolog, Haskell...), you have to break out of that paradigm. I am not condemning you, mind. It is what it is. Rewiring your head is hard, and often doesn't have direct results.

I can, however, ship with Common Lisp, because I've spent on the order of 5 years learning it and writing it most evenings. I am learning Clojure and am preparing to ship a (excruciatingly minor) product with that after only maybe two months of dabbling. This is possible because I've bent my head around into Lisp shapes.

It's also been said that some people have the shape of Lisp in their head, and when they learn Lisp, their heads fit it by nature, and other people don't have that innate meshing. I certainly found Lisp to mesh with my head well.

Oh yes. It can be hard to get started with Common Lisp, just in terms of getting an environment working. I have a tutorial site to help with that(plug plug plug): http://articulate-lisp.com/

> you have to break out of that paradigm.

That's why I never regretted trying to learn Common Lisp some time ago, even though I didn't ship anything into production, and why I really do enjoy doing the same thing with Erlang right now, i.e. trying to understand it and getting as comfortable with it as I can get (and preferably this time maybe putting something out there).

Both these experiences helped me see programming differently, a change of "paradigm" as you very well put it, so now even when I get back to Python or PHP I feel like I'm a better programmer. Plus, there's something to be said about the fact that always trying to learn new and interesting stuff and not only focusing on "shipping code" is what keeps one's passion at higher levels. After almost 10 years in this trade I've found that passion at what you're doing is a very valuable and in the same time very volatile resource.

I couldn't break that thinking in college and struggled every day of my software engineering course where we implemented a Pascal compiler in Scheme. It wasn't until 10 years later that I started to get a handle on functional programming, due in part to some trickle-down from my Emacs config files. :)

>>Just because Erlang isn't immediately accessible to you, it doesn't mean it isn't any good for shipping in 48 hours.

No, that is not the problem. The problem is total disregard to what most people consider valuable to them. And if they don't get it, framing that as their stupidity rather admitting the fact that the syntax is a little strange to wrap your head around(which is true).

>>Perhaps if you spend 24 hours sharpening your axe, you'll chop that tree down in another 4 hours instead of using the full 48.

In all fairness sharpening your erlang axe might take 24 months not 24 hours.

> In all fairness sharpening your erlang axe might take 24 months not 24 hours.

In all fairness it won't. Erlang is not a difficult language to learn, and honestly, it doesn't take that much effort for the syntax to become familiar.

The semantics of Erlang are different from that of C-like languages, and therefore I think it's good that it has different syntax. You could give it C-like syntax, but that might be just as confusing, if not more so, since it wouldn't mean the same thing it did in C.

>Erlang is not a difficult language to learn

I'd like confirm this. It doesn't even have loops, you have to use recursion (and only recursion).

Now, I have never read or written PHP. Here's the thing. PHP fills a niche. That niche is being super-productive early on. There are other goals, like, the code being readable, ease of being reasoned about, fast and so on.

And there are languages that fill those niches. When people say crappy language, more often than not, crappy for their needs(or sometimes their expertise). There is no need to fight about it; its like saying who prefers which color.

The reason you do lisp is not to do coding in it(given the current state of affairs), but to reshape one's mind by thinking in terms previously unseen because we could not see forest for the trees.

And that ability to see something from different view points arms you with weaponry to solve challenging problems. There is atleast a physicist who agrees with me on that :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfUhkSEoku0

Personally I call PHP crappy because it could easily have been much better at its main goal without sacrificing anything from its other goals, but for some reason it wasn't, and now we have to live with the stupid early decisions for compatibility reasons (eg there's no good reason for the mess of strFunc, str_func, string_func, funcstr, needle/haystack, haystack/needle, etc. When the main goal is being super-productive early on, being able to use the most basic functions without constantly looking up their order of parameters would be a great help)

Rasmus has clearly stated that PHP's ugliness is a feature. http://osdir.com/ml/php.devel/2002-10/msg00704.html

He freely admits that he is a crappy programmer who can't write languages. His goal was to re-use code because he hated (hates) programming.

That doesn't really explain why contributors perpetuate the atrocity, but understand that PHP is the way it is based on a set of priorities that many of us do not value.

Thank you for this. I fear I'll be an old man by the time I fully grasp thinking in Lisp, but I hate being defeated by my the limits of my own imagination.

Very nice video.

You can start by watching SICP lectures freely available online :)

Nitrogen is particularly confusing because it is largely an ajax/comet abstraction.

Try Webmachine and erlydtl w/Mochiweb. Webmachine is like Sinatra, but more, and erlydtl is just Django templating.

Erlang is absurdly easy to read, but it doesn't look like algol, it looks like prolog. You get used to it, and after you do, coding in it is really fast.

I think Erlang/OTP probably has a higher learning curve than other frameworks, but I guess is a lot down to history. As another poster said Erlang solved this problem 20 years ago, where as more modern languages are typically based on the C syntax, so they share a lot in common.

Back to your point though, I think once you understand the language it is actually a lot simpler to understand what is going on. Modules are usually very self contained, and you don't get the layers upon layers of indirection you see in other frameworks (I'm looking at you Rails). I think the functional style of programming as well helps to keep things simple, it doesn't make sense to have a 20 line function in Erlang.

That's alright. Right tool for the right job. Don't try to use a drill if a hammer is more appropriate, it won't work. If you know C#, Python, etc, you will still need them. If it helps you ship, heck, even COBOL works.