SectorLISP

Languages and libraries

lisp interpreter

SHOW HN2021

513points
131comments
#41of 2,533 in 2021
Top 2%of 2021 by points

How HN took it

LovedMost comments that take a side are positive

16 positive, 17 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 2 critical, out of 36 comments about the project. Thread score +0.40.

Idea: 5 for, 1 againstExecution: 2 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Inspiring writeup and educational

    From 2 comments
    • It is submissions like this that keep me coming back to HN. Even though I understand little of the OP, I understand more than last time, and have the hope to be able understand…
      Shared404 on HN
    • this is awesome exposition (from someone who has implemented a small version of Scheme himself decades ago)
      jjtheblunt on HN

Objections

  • Brainfuck comparison and whether it counts as a true language

    From 2 comments
    • > BrainF#*k not a true language Curious why that might be, and TFA doesn't expound. What makes it not a "true" language?
      commandlinefan on HN
    • Author here. You know it when you see it. LISP is a tool that people want to use. People write production software using it. For example, this website (Hacker News) was written…
      jart on HN
  • Immutability claims about cyclic data and GC in Haskell

    From 2 comments
    • Very impressive. > SectorLISP uses what we call an ABC garbage collector and it took only 40 bytes of assembly. > [...] > Fast immediate garbage collection with zero memory…
      MaxBarraclough on HN
    • That page is incorrect about GHC's memory management -- I verified this with a question to haskell-cafe around 2014, and I guess no one got around to updating it. The linked…
      kmill on HN

Questions

  • Whether immutable languages like Haskell can use the same GC approach

    From 2 comments
    • Very impressive. > SectorLISP uses what we call an ABC garbage collector and it took only 40 bytes of assembly. > [...] > Fast immediate garbage collection with zero memory…
      MaxBarraclough on HN
    • Haskell does, https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/Memory_Management
      __s on HN
  • How the boot sector version does hardware I/O like disk reads

    From 1 comment
    • I love it, but i think the video from "the oldskool pc" is a bit inprecise in claiming it brings everything necessary to implement features like reading off the disk: now maybe I…
      mlatu on HN

Alternatives named

  • Scheme and SICP-style small Lisps

    From 2 comments
    • The short eval is standard amongst small lisps (see eg SICP), but the immutability which leads to the nice ABC GC (no RPLACD, no cycles, immutable strings) is practical. All…
      rurban on HN
    • Author here. Why would it? Let's have a look at Scheme letrec (or let* in Emacs Lisp) translated to pseudo-SectorLISP: ``` (LETREC ((IS-ODD? (QUOTE (LAMBDA (X) (CAR X))))…
      jart on HN
  • Erlang immutable heap GC

    From 2 comments
    • I believe Erlang makes this guarantee and exploits it in the GC: ...the terms are immutable and thus there can be no pointers modified on the old heap to point to the young heap…
      ridiculous_fish on HN
    • > I'm not aware of non-academic general purpose languages that actually fall in this category. Erlang?
      macintux on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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