reddit just rewrote their site in Python. It was originally written in Lisp.
Lisp is an amazing language. After spending the entire summer working entirely in Lisp, it's nearly impossible to work in another language and not say to myself, "If only this were Lisp..." Lisp has many goodies that make programming in it a joy: the REPL, macros and the lack of syntax are some. I won't go into the details, but rest assured, it's cool. People become Lisp zealots for a reason.
So why Python?
We were already familiar with Python. It's fast, development in Python is fast, and the code is clear. In most cases, the Lisp code translated very easily into Python. Lots of people have written web applications in Python, and there's plenty of code from which to learn. It's been fun so far, so we'll see where it takes us... I'm very pleased at the way [the rewrite] turned out... The entire task took less than a week, with 80% of the code written in a single weekend.
I liked what Paul Graham (Lisp guru, and one of the founders of Y Combinator, the VC firm that funded reddit) said about the rewrite in Python.
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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Lisp? That's for masochists... Here's some, if you desire:
(defun read-line-lstream (ls)
"Read a line's worth of characters"
(let ((s (read-line (lstream-stream ls) nil '*eof*))
(line (incf (lstream-line ls)))
(col 0))
(if (eq s '*eof*)
(setf (lstream-eof ls) t)
(setf (lstream-buf ls)
(nconc (lstream-buf ls)
(mapcar #'(lambda (x) `(,x ,line ,(incf col)))
(coerce s 'list))
`((#\newline ,line ,(incf col))))))))