Lisp, The Quantum Programmer's Choice - Computerphile

[@kMv9C3N9]

I wish that this video would *show* how Lisp is a good language, rather than just saying it can do this, that, and the other thing.

[@unlokia]

That's what Prof. Brailsford would have done, yep.

[@JamEngulfer]

jmw150: That doesn't show anything to do with how it's better for quantum programming.

[@JovanKo314]

"Guugu Yimithirr is a great language that gives you a better sense of direction." "Oh really? How so?" "Why don't you just learn the language?"

[@user-iu1xg6jv6e]

Next vid: *Meta-Programming: Coming Soon*

[@webgpu]

exactly. this video is useless (sorry, i can't mince words)

[@BryonLape]

Of the variety of languages I've learned over the last 40 years, Lisp is the only one that spoke to me.

[@marsgal42]

When I first encountered LISP back in my undergrad days the prof described it as an interesting language where you can write interesting programs that do interesting things.

[@DarkShroom]

so as unspecific as this guy?

[@anastacioguerrero1527]

Used it in autocad back in the day, except they autolisp, before windows version of the program came out.

[@r.pizzamonkey7379]

​@@DarkShroom Well it's kind of the condemnation of faint praise, since an "interesting" program is not necessarily a useful program. That's kind of how I felt about haskell. Great for data processing, great at abstract algorithms, a headache to make anything real with.

[@miikavihersaari3104]

Interesting!

[@brightshadow9480]

This is a sermon singing the praises of Lisp, but providing little beyond 'Lisp is great!'. If you want to know more about the actual details of the language, consult another video.

[@qwertyman1511]

their video on imperative vs functional actually explains a bit of haskell. we don't see anything here.

[@drunkenmonkey1457]

@jmw150 No one asked for them to teach us the language, just to show what they were talking about. They presented an argument, but failed to support it properly.

[@webgpu]

exactly. this video is useless (sorry)

[@Rensoku611]

jmw150 brah you got owned in all the other comments

[@squirlmy]

@@Rensoku611 I don't think so. And do you just mean the comments here, because he's been a much busier beaver than that!

[@ElagabalusRex]

Like with many Computerphile videos, I just can't appreciate why this topic is important without concrete examples. Glad to see another video is on the way.

[@evanbelcher]

/examples/

[@tohopes]

HAVE U TRIED GOOGLING LITERALY ANY ISNTRUCRTIN MANUAL ON LTHKEN O NASUYFGN? ANWEFNAETUGAO SDCIONASDO CINASODI CN -jmw150

[@TheCandyDragon]

XD

[@TheScabbage]

+tohopes I didn't get the joke till I read other comments +1 for satire

[@user-iu1xg6jv6e]

In next video *Meta-Programming: Coming Soon*

[@bujarmurati3004]

tohopes this should become a meme

[@aditya95sriram]

loved this intro, would be great to have some more concrete examples of how he uses it in quantum computing

[@alanvitullo]

...so this is an intro video in a series? My vote is for more code please!

[@shmallacy]

17 people didn't find an editor that balances parentheses for them.

[@completemadlad15]

try racket

[@beantown_billy2405]

@@completemadlad15 paredit too

[@4BoltClevo]

I was waiting for him to write some code on his paper and then the video ended. I didn't learn anything...

[@4BoltClevo]

Hey slick, congrats, you found google. Why don't you send me the lmgtfy 1+1 link for a real original joke?

[@aufarz]

(+ 1 2)

[@afonsorafael2728]

(print “hello world”) There you go, now go search for a interpreter

[@ZeedijkMike]

I worked with _Auto_ LISP in the late 80'ies early 90ies. I think/presume they are related. It was one of the first languages I actually used. Strange syntax - but when you get used to it, it's quite fun and amazing. Even made a Mandelbrot Fractal program for AutoCAD. Slow as hell but fun to build.

[@ManuTheGreat79]

Yeah, I do this today. I should try making the Mandelbrot Fractal some day, sounds fun :)

[@mistress_remilia]

Finally a video with Lisp in it! My favorite language

[@PaulaJBean]

[@prism223]

For all those wishing the video went into details about why Lisp is useful: Lookup SICP from the legendary MIT curriculum, for which there are also lecture videos by one of the authors Gerald Jay Sussman. The language is timeless so even the old materials are perfectly fine to study today.

[@mendelovitch]

"The Little Schemer" is a fantastic book, too. Pithy and fun. It has many sequels.

[@j-r-hill]

He is saying that Lisp is suitable to quantum computing (qc) because qc is new, and Lisp allows you to extend the language extremely easily. The bonus video goes into more detail

[@kewakl8891]

I am glad that there is a follow-on video. We waited for 6 minutes 12 for any examples to justify his 'fondness' of Lisp. Nothing. Not a bit of code - except a allusion to an assembler-version of a For Loop construct.

[@theswip3r]

Hadn't thought Lisp was that flexible. I'm pretty burnt out from template programming in C++, so I ought to give Lisp a try.

[@ACium.]

How is it going now?

[@AndersJackson]

You might also want to look into Prolog, which is also good in writing languages and extend the language itself. But yes, I like Common Lisp, it was my fist language in Computer Science, Uppsala University. Also learned to code in Erlang and Prolog there. And yes, Lisp IS a functional, symbol manipulation language. It was designed from the beginning to express the lambda calculus, the basis of functional programming. Yes, it has a great macro language and it is very flexible. And yes, you become a better programmer by learning to program in Lisp.

[@PaulaJBean]

Prolog has strong pattern matching abilities, like Haskell.

[@AndersJackson]

Actually, Haskell, Ocaml and Erlang has only pattern matching. Prolog has Unification, which is a much stronger mechanism then pattern matching. You can have variables on each side in a Unification, but you can only have variables on one side in a pattern matching expression.

[@jhbonarius]

Ha, LISP! yes! This was one of the first languages I learned. It was so long ago, I had forgotten the name.

[@eknuds]

Great! Twenty five years ago when I was using XEmacs as my C editor working at a startup I used to have it do things like generate header files. Then after we went public I had it load stock prices from Yahoo and show a ticker on the Modeline.

[@carlfranz6805]

Wow. That was astonishingly non informational.

[@beantown_billy2405]

There was a lot of information there, but it's not for beginners. I mean... it's about how homoiconicity allows easier metaprogramming to create new language concepts for quantum computing. It's a lot to unpack. I felt that way when I first read the docs for Clojure transducers - "transducers are composable algorithmic transformations that are decoupled from their input data" - it sounds like jibberish to anyone who works down low on the abstraction ladder.

[@Wyklepheph]

Nim is very similar in that you can extend the language and create new syntax and new functionality, and you get the bonus that nim code is a lot nicer to look at

[@yash1152]

> _"nim language - extensibility + nice looking"_ hey, any reference video?

[@HerrLavett]

Show me some code!

[@pladimir_vutin]

mate have patience, this guy is talking meta, his speech is important imo.

[@ab_synth]

I can't believe I took a couse in university which started with "lisp is a functional language" and KZbin is now informing me otherwise

[@WorBlux]

But you can change state, do I/O and sequence operations in a way that doesn't require special syntax,

[@speedbump0619]

exactly. The existence of 'set' means it's not purely a functional language

[@slowpoke126]

There's no such thing as a functional language.

[@Adam-jp8bm]

Just want to say, Most quantum programs are not actually using lisp, most are using small, proprietary DSLs for quantum computing, such as IBM's OpenQASM

[@squirlmy]

The source code was released as part of IBM's Quantum Information Software Kit

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

I'd like to hear about "Smalltalk" next

[@thaddeuspawlicki4707]

PROLOG! Now THERE is a real language! Because . . . . "jwm150's FEELINGS"!

[@draakisback]

Smalltalk is a great language with some fairly revolutionary ideas like the images (which are used heavily in dart as snapshots).

[@DarkShroom]

yes i love the way it fits on an punchcard! awesome, that's just what i want out of a modern language, thanks

[@DarkShroom]

i recon i'm gonna have 1000 primes when i get my mail next friday

[@florianp4627]

More about how Robert does his coding for quantum computing please!

[@webgpu]

are you all afraid of saying this video is useless? not only that, but you went on and "like"d it???

[@gummansgubbe6225]

A decade since my loops looked like for(int i=....). Now I am counting cores and dividing into shared/private variables. I have never seen a quantum computing problem though.

[@Ninja9191]

Haven't worked with Lisp, but I have used Scheme. These languages are fun to use.

[@Elite7555]

And they are hard to maintain (write only), macros can make them incredible hard to use (new semantics), and they are pretty slow because of language design. They might be "fun", but I would never use them for serious work, although there are some pretty big projects in Clojure.

[@unlokia]

Scheme, or "Thceme"? Thorry, I have a lithp.

[@Ninja9191]

Elite7555 oh yeah, I agree. I think they're useful for understanding the programming concepts, but I can see how it might become a mess if I start to use them for large projects. Though the design principles are also the things that make them appealing (keeping libraries small, having simple code, etc)

[@krasen4oo]

Check your facts. There are not much slower than C since the 90s.

[@johannesdegen9225]

Very funny Igor.

[@Kalernor]

Great, now I want to learn Lisp.

[@BananaTV1978]

Geez comments-people, chill out! The video is titled "programmers choice" with a programmer explaining WHY it's his choice ... that's it! It's conversational. Listen to what he's saying and then go find videos focusing on the code if you want to know more.

[@Biped]

mhh. maybe I should look into lisp myself a little more before but... Defining a concept and later working with that... can't every ordinary language do that? I mean if there wasn't a for loop previously you could surely just define a function for() with more basic instructions inside, right? Maybe lisp goes deeper. I should check that out.

[@nikonyrh]

An biased suggestion: try Clojure which runs on the JVM with Nightcode as your first IDE ;) I was truly amazed! For sure almost all languages are Turing-complete but some take just 1 line of code and others might take a dozen or more.

[@TribeWars1]

Well not in C at least. Try writing your own for loop expression (call it myfor() or whatever) and it won't work. The arguments get evaluated before they get passed to your for loop construction.

[@zebop111]

Use functions. typedef void (*for_init_t)(void*); typedef BOOL (*for_cond_t)(void*); typedef void (*for_loop_t)(void*); typedef BOOL (*for_body_t)(void*); void* myfor(void* ctx, for_body_t fb, for_init_t fi, for_cond_t fc, for_loop_t fl) { fi(ctx); while (fc(ctx) && fb(ctx)) fl(ctx); return ctx; }

[@dangnabbit1379]

zebop111 Nice

[@kewakl8891]

I always found Lisp to be defun fun() Oh, I used AutoLisp to add functionality to AutoCAD

[@toyuyn]

I remember xkcd's author's a fan of Lisp...didn't think much of it when he mentioned it in his comics, but now i'm intrigued.

[@j7ndominica051]

Cakewalk Application Language scripting was based on this. The weirdest concept for me was that the plus, minus, increment, equals and other operators are written first. But surprisingly it started to make sense soon.

[@crnkmnky]

Was that a scripting language for the Cakewalk/Sonar audio workstation?

[@yash1152]

it sounds similar to the RPN (reverse polish notation) for calculators, except that symbols come first lol

[@tohopes]

Lots of vague assertions with no code? What kind of computer programming video is this?

[@jessstuart7495]

Lisp owes it's great utility to the power of the cons-cell data structure.

[@vladimiryuriev2641]

(((((((((((((((((((((( a thing ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[@philipjohansson3949]

Is this alt-right?

[@merseyviking]

You missed an opening paren.

[@dxutube]

John Donovan XKCD will be quivvering in its boots

[@metalsky851]

is this loss?

[@AhmedKhaled-sj1zx]

(this (is (our power (bro))))

[@matt_b...]

A Colonel of an idea. Not quite as advanced in rank as a General idea, but still a solid idea nonetheless.

[@Οδοιπόρος]

matt b, it is a pretty major concept.

[@letao12]

Argh, everyone else's ideas are better than my Private thoughts.

[@benjaminmiddaugh2729]

I'm not sure I can contribute anything that would rank among the ideas already present.

[@lithiumdeuteride]

So you're keeping your ideas Private?

[@puellanivis]

Reading these puns is corporal punishment…

[@ChronicWhale]

I enjoyed the video but you don’t show an example of the code, not even something simple, would be better if you showed us how some of the concepts he was exposing actually appear

[@unlokia]

You needed to have had Richard Stallman doing this video; then again, I supposed you wanted it to be less than 2 hours in length, so... ... OR... someone with a lithp...

[@luckylove72]

unlokia Ask Knuth

[@readein]

I found this video very interesting, and didn't come into it expecting a tutorial or a deep explanation of the code itself. The title didn't infer either of those things. It would take 2 seconds to find the code if you really wanted to.

[@readein]

@Tyler Does it matter which verb I chose? Infer works in this context also.

[@vicplichota]

Lisp and Forth changed my life.

[@ricardopalacios5968]

Just bought 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' by Abelson and Harold. I used to know BASIC when I was a little kid and I am just getting back into computer science. I think my best bet is to start off fresh with Lisp. Lectures from Abelson and Harold are available through MIT OpenCourseware.

[@sawyerrken8112]

How the things go with the book? Did it help?

[@ricardopalacios5968]

@@sawyerrken8112 It actually inspired me to go back to school and I'm currently working on my bachelor's in computer science. The plan is to get my doctorate's degree.

[@pladimir_vutin]

@@ricardopalacios5968 wish the bests for you. get into system programming. I am a student myself. i however regret becomimg one, since i'm in germany and it's more of a burden .

[@timsiwula5734]

before i knew what macros were i loved to use m4 directives when i was learning c

[@shankarsengupta1948]

Reader macros. Once you learn it, there's no going back - it's addictive.

[@sonic-du1hw]

I love Computerphile!

[@rkpetry]

*_...quantum computing is where they simulate a neutron decaying in less than 700 seconds half-life if you can wait long enough for the full answer..._* (p.s. 700 was updated to 880±)

[@Edu4Dev]

That's exactly my efforts here in Brazil, tks for posting :D

[@pitthepig]

I expect something more of an edutainment channel in youtube than having simply a guy sitting in a chair and talking without any graphic support or any examples. This is lazy video production.

[@CJBurkey]

I feel like Marc Grenville-Cleave is an important name to know, but I don't, is that bad?

[@Seppes94]

I also have no idea, who he was. Just leaving a comment to get notified.

[@detaart]

The person in the video.

[@timh.6872]

False, take a look in the description.

[@SwordQuake2]

So is there an extra bit or not?

[@delwoodbarker]

Webmaster, the two floating popups to related articles are covering up the two static links to related articles. The latter are inaccessible. Both in Chrome and Safari.

[@maciejmanna9246]

Ever tried template metaprogramming in C++ (just replace drowning in round brackets with drowning in angle brackets :P)...

[@dariusduesentrieb]

ooh c++ templates are lovely

[@iseslc]

At a glance, yes. The deeper you go, the crazier it gets.

[@maciejmanna9246]

Yep, recursively crazier... Ad infinitum...

[@Roxor128]

Amusingly, C++ templates are Turing Complete, but were not intended to be so.

[@katrinal353]

Yeah, I love building template libraries, how fun, that's exactly what I signed up for... lol

[@rztrzt]

Why was the video cut short?

[@jimmamd123]

I can't click on the “meta-programming” video at the end. There's no link and does not appear in the general search. What happened to it?

[@1906Farnsworth]

I noticed there was no discussion of having someone else understand his code. When he extends the language, does he publish an API? Is the code itself documented? Maybe it won't matter... Maybe it will.

[@TaylorTheOtter]

I’m glad I decided to try lisp out. It’s a great programming language. I don’t know why I like it so much though but to me it feels really intuitive, even after only 2 days of messing with it. With python, that took me a month. After 4 years of Python being in all 5 of my top 5 list of favorite programming language, lisp has crawled it’s way up there to 5th place. Places 1-4 are still Python though...

[@diegonayalazo]

Me too. Then I gravitated towards Clojure.

[@christopherbravo2383]

you should check out Racket if you haven't already!

[@SenorQuichotte]

lisp is great for creating AI, NN, fuzzy logic, machine learning.

[@TheCheekyPotato]

Just finished my dissertation in functional programming. It is insanely important for programmers, and I hope to see it get used more and more.

[@PaulaJBean]

Software-transactional memory rocks!

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

LISP almost vanished in the 1970's: even with outsourcing to China, the entire world was incapable of producing a sufficient supply of parentheses. Advanced automation -- the production of parentheses in pairs -- enabled it to hang on for a while, but it was always a struggle. Quantum computing is its only hope: propositions which simultaneously are and are not in parentheses!

[@squirlmy]

(Wow!(that was very silly)!)

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

@@squirlmy Thenkyew, thenkyew, layzun gennulmen out there in rayjoe lann. Keep those cards and letters coming... We especially appreciate that classic style, the bang between levels instead of TCP/IP.

[@IoCalisto_]

What's the difference between this and defining functions?

[@PeterAbt]

So how can we actually add two numbers with quantum mechanics? 🤔

[@abigailhodge6588]

Great video! The first language I learned was racket, which is lisp-based and you're totally on the mark on, for example Java, being a lot more constraining---switching from racket to Java was a bit of a mind screw

[@dannygjk]

Java is garbage anyway it should be banished.

[@normannormiemates4844]

Lisp programmers are just so _out there_

[@user-zu1ix3yq2w]

Once you get it, you understand.

[@yash1152]

so, the meta-programming video is still in "coming soon" after 4 years 👀?

[@barefeg]

why not use Mathematica for example? I use it to "program" the theory rules or formalism, so i can do physics computations automatically

[@pedrov8868]

For custom quantum programming you wouldn't be able to have the flexibility

[@GuitarDhyana]

This is all true - and lisp is great - however you don’t really demonstrate that will prove your assertions.

[@michelef406]

This video is just a lisp service.

[@vincentkubicki1626]

The Earth does not revolve around the Sun. This particular referential allows for the most elegant and simple mathematical representation.

[@vincentkubicki1626]

More seriously, the videos are amazing, and always at the exact level of complexity where you learn things, but it is still casual and you do not have to take notes or try to demonstrate things on the side.

[@grivar]

I can't decide if that's Tom Scott or John Green...

[@JimFortune]

It gets compiled to machine language, not assembly, right?

[@dannygjk]

Yes he must have misspoken.

[@quadricode]

They are one to one.

[@CODMarioWarfare]

It compiles to assembly and then the assembler assembles machine code

[@JimFortune]

quadricode No, they're not. Simple example; Relative addressing.

[@DoubleOhSilver]

@CODMarioWarfare No it Doesn't, it compiles directly to machine code. There is no reason to generate assembly just to convert that to machine code

[@diegonayalazo]

Thanks

[@hanniffydinn6019]

You can write lisp in lisp very concisely, which is actual computing magic. It's so ahead of its time it's incredible....

[@TheDuckofDoom.]

I don't think that concision means what you think it means.

[@mrdarky3377]

MichaelKingsfordGray Yet clear enough for the determined mere mortals to comprehend and write.

[@redd_cat]

Lithp is a great language!

[@krish2nasa]

A video on FORTH please, Thanks a lot.

[@meanmikebojak1087]

Krish Rao Thanks I was just about to suggest Forth. It compiles as you code, and its extendable.

[@PaulaJBean]

The boot menu of FreeBSD is written in Forth.

[@tu_nonna_emiliana]

Ye yu, how about Mark Grenville-cleave? Who was him?

[@MamboBean343]

4:29 I thought most time programming is spent debugging!

[@squirlmy]

he is counting "debugging" as thinking. It can be tedious, but its still thinking. Try to debug anything without thinking. I

[@denizcanbillor9951]

Thank you

[@Alphaaa13]

So by inventing the fitting langue on the way doesn't that result in noone being able to comprehend the done work in a reasonable time?

[@kingfitness4954]

I used to sit at a lunch table with this guy in high school. You guessed it. We were not the cool kids.

[@Misterlikeseverythin]

How can you use x86 architecture for quantum computing? It seems x86 would need some ASIC/FPGA to provide an interface between that and the wires going to quantum computer.

[@kaipada_]

Who else uses Emacs here...

[@AMcAFaves]

I use emacs as my default text editor.

[@jpe1]

Justin Joseph using Emacs since 1987 (on a 3b15, remember those?). Currently using Aquamacs 3.3 (GNU Emacs 25.1.1) on an iMac Pro.

[@AMcAFaves]

John Early I'd never heard of 3b15's before, but I'm interested in retro-computers, so thanks for inspiring something interesting for me to research. :-)

[@tapank415]

me

[@pleggli]

yeah

[@mirabilis]

Lithp

[@Jeff121456]

LISP= Lots of Insignificant (Irritating) Single Parentheses. Once you get past that it is mind expanding.

[@marcsman07]

I had to write a few programs in Racket for some of my college coursework and it was really eye opening. I had to almost completely change the way I thought and approached problems because it was so different from the programming that I was used to in Java, C etc.

[@RomyIlano]

He’s so cool!

[@seasong7655]

I think not just lisp but every new language you learn, teaches you to look at problems in a different way

[@IproCoGo]

The end of the channel's videos cut off mid-sentence. Is there another site where we see the entire video? Thanks.

[@chswin]

Do the parentheses also become entangled?

[@brentgordon3801]

Which variation should I learn

[@zacharieetienne5784]

what's a computer

[@rozaepareza]

A device capable of emulating a universal Turing machine

[@MyNameIsPetch]

Not too sure about that sun example...

[@danceswithdirt7197]

RIP.

[@spikeevans1488]

Doesn't forth also meet your criteria?

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Doesn't every language?

[@jca111]

This video need examples

[@romangeneral23]

After the 9th parentheses I would just give up..

[@michaelcharlesthearchangel]

I see Converse-Polish Notation, transverse operational listing, wright next to Reverse-Polish Notation. :.: (At the same time..) Non-linear code/language write nExt to Linear language/code. :: A Quantum Server for storing hyperGraphically compiled Holograms in Mass(ive) Data, ¹n² quantum inFormation; available for reCalling over and over aGain.

[@suicidalbanananana]

What about microsoft's Q# ?

[@Maric18]

how does lisp do this? this video is a (lengthy) intro ... and then it just stops o.0