6 ms·

Common Lisp Screenshots: today's CL applications in action

163 points by _emacsomancer_ 7mo ago

Fr0styMatt88 7mo ago
While not Common Lisp I've always found it pretty cool that AutoCAD shipped with a Lisp, making the language technically a hugely deployed commercial success.
- bitwize 7mo ago
  Were it not for early exposure to Autolisp I would not have appreciated Lisp or Lisp-based systems, like Emacs, the way that I did. I might've ended up whinging that they didn't use a mOdErN language like JavaScript. Autolisp definitely sent me down the left-paren path.
- pjmlp 7mo ago
  Nowadays it also supports .NET, COM and ObjectARX. Just like Gimp eventually added support to Python alongside Script-Fu. Which end up reducing the interest to reach out to Lisp languages.
_emacsomancer_ 7mo ago
(including HN! - https://media.simple.photo/12M3xnh3VhDMUgCs8DVhkTBI6OgDGGIX/common-lisp-screenshots/hn-ciel-lem-pktftrj9ruqxf3hz.webp https://media.simple.photo/12M3xnh3VhDMUgCs8DVhkTBI6OgDGGIX/... )
- veqq 7mo ago
  Indeed, Arc's been running on Common Lisp for a while now!
- psychoslave 7mo ago
  Too bad the screenshot doesn't show this page as a nice autoreference mise en abîme.
tmtvl 7mo ago
Until Vindarel gets the TLS working there's also a direct URL: (<https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/ https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485...>). It's a bit of a shame that there's no indication to what application each screenshot is from.
- coryrc 7mo ago
  Many of them do say which program they are from; at least the first of multiple are from the same program.
  - tmtvl 7mo ago
    Yeah, turns out that feature is gated behind javascript, which is unfortunate. The website works pretty well otherwise.
- vindarel 7mo ago
  Thank you, TLS should be fine now. (fixed ±12 hours ago)
testermelon 7mo ago
I like how the disclaimer went humble bragging about the range of usage.
- DonHopkins 7mo ago
  >"Please don't assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics, AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and Ecommerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language, Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to list." >Kent Pitman He left out Guessing Animals! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Pitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Pitman >While in high school, he saw output from one of the guess the animal pseudo-artificial intelligence (AI) games then popular. He considered implementing a version of the program in BASIC, but once at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), instead he implemented it in several dialects of Lisp, including Maclisp. Kent Pitman's Lisp Eliza from MIT-AI's ITS History Project (sites.google.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373567 https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/111236824217096297 https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/111236824217096297 https://web.archive.org/web/20131102031307/http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/02/25/am_i_evolving_into_a_gadget https://web.archive.org/web/20131102031307/http://open.salon... https://youtu.be/hHNDZnxiwlE?t=740 https://youtu.be/hHNDZnxiwlE?t=740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38402813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38402813
bitwize 7mo ago
[flagged]
- lgrapenthin 7mo ago
  You are comparing a PL to a text generator. What are you on?
  - bitwize 7mo ago
    No, I'm not. I used to appreciate Lisp for the enhanced effectiveness it granted to the unaided human programmer. It used to be one of the main reasons I used the language. But a programmer+LLM is going to be far more effective in any language than an unaided programmer is in Lisp—and a programmer+LLM is going to be more effective in a popular language with a large training set, such as Java, TypeScript, Kotlin, or Rust, than in Lisp. So in a world with LLMs, the main practical reason to choose Lisp disappears. And no, LLMs are doing more than just generating text, spewing nonsense into the void. They are solving problems. Try spending some time with Claude Opus 4.6 or ChatGPT 5.3. Give it a real problem to chew on. Watch it explain what's going on and spit out the answer.
    - rootnod3 7mo ago
      Until there is a bug and say due to DNS issues your LLM is. It reachable because everything is down
      - fragmede 7mo ago
        Good thing I've got Qwen downloaded to my MacBook in case of that eventuality!
        rootnod3 7mo ago
        Highly recommend https://github.com/fosskers/vend https://github.com/fosskers/vend
    - 7mo ago
networked 7mo ago
GitHub and Codeberg links on the site don't open for me. ("To protect your security, codeberg.org will not allow Firefox to display the page if another site has embedded it. To see this page, you need to open it in a new window.") This is because of the use of frames: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Common Lisp Screenshots</title> <meta name="description" content="Today's Common Lisp applications in action"> <meta name="keywords" content=""> <meta name="generator" content="ORT - Ovh Redirect Technology"> <meta name="url" content="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> <meta name="robots" content="all"> </head> <frameset rows="100%,0" frameborder=no border=0> <frame name="ORT" src="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> <frame name="NONE" src="" scrolling="no" noresize> <noframes> <body><a href="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/">Click here</a><hr></body> </noframes> </frameset> </html> You can fix this by replacing the OVH feature with a regular redirect, like an `index.html` with a `<meta>` tag: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> If possible, you can also fix it by making your links on the https://simple.photo/ https://simple.photo/ page open in a new window.
mck- 7mo ago
The core route optimization algorithm of Routific is also written in Common Lisp :)
- vindarel 7mo ago
  That's awesome, thank you. How do you know it, is there a reference on the net somewhere?
  - mck- 7mo ago
    I wrote it :) there’s also an open source version here: https://github.com/mck-/Open-VRP https://github.com/mck-/Open-VRP
    - vindarel 7mo ago
      excellent, thanks!

163 points by _emacsomancer_ 7mo ago

While not Common Lisp I've always found it pretty cool that AutoCAD shipped with a Lisp, making the language technically a hugely deployed commercial success.

bitwize 7mo ago
Were it not for early exposure to Autolisp I would not have appreciated Lisp or Lisp-based systems, like Emacs, the way that I did. I might've ended up whinging that they didn't use a mOdErN language like JavaScript. Autolisp definitely sent me down the left-paren path.
pjmlp 7mo ago
Nowadays it also supports .NET, COM and ObjectARX. Just like Gimp eventually added support to Python alongside Script-Fu. Which end up reducing the interest to reach out to Lisp languages.

_emacsomancer_ 7mo ago

(including HN! - https://media.simple.photo/12M3xnh3VhDMUgCs8DVhkTBI6OgDGGIX/common-lisp-screenshots/hn-ciel-lem-pktftrj9ruqxf3hz.webp https://media.simple.photo/12M3xnh3VhDMUgCs8DVhkTBI6OgDGGIX/... )

veqq 7mo ago
Indeed, Arc's been running on Common Lisp for a while now!
psychoslave 7mo ago
Too bad the screenshot doesn't show this page as a nice autoreference mise en abîme.

tmtvl 7mo ago

Until Vindarel gets the TLS working there's also a direct URL: (<https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/ https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485...>). It's a bit of a shame that there's no indication to what application each screenshot is from.

coryrc 7mo ago
Many of them do say which program they are from; at least the first of multiple are from the same program.
- tmtvl 7mo ago
  Yeah, turns out that feature is gated behind javascript, which is unfortunate. The website works pretty well otherwise.
vindarel 7mo ago
Thank you, TLS should be fine now. (fixed ±12 hours ago)

testermelon 7mo ago

I like how the disclaimer went humble bragging about the range of usage.

DonHopkins 7mo ago
>"Please don't assume Lisp is only useful for Animation and Graphics, AI, Bioinformatics, B2B and Ecommerce, Data Mining, EDA/Semiconductor applications, Expert Systems, Finance, Intelligent Agents, Knowledge Management, Mechanical CAD, Modeling and Simulation, Natural Language, Optimization, Research, Risk Analysis, Scheduling, Telecom, and Web Authoring just because these are the only things they happened to list." >Kent Pitman He left out Guessing Animals! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Pitman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Pitman >While in high school, he saw output from one of the guess the animal pseudo-artificial intelligence (AI) games then popular. He considered implementing a version of the program in BASIC, but once at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), instead he implemented it in several dialects of Lisp, including Maclisp. Kent Pitman's Lisp Eliza from MIT-AI's ITS History Project (sites.google.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39373567 https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/111236824217096297 https://climatejustice.social/@kentpitman/111236824217096297 https://web.archive.org/web/20131102031307/http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2010/02/25/am_i_evolving_into_a_gadget https://web.archive.org/web/20131102031307/http://open.salon... https://youtu.be/hHNDZnxiwlE?t=740 https://youtu.be/hHNDZnxiwlE?t=740 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38402813 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38402813

bitwize 7mo ago

[flagged]

lgrapenthin 7mo ago
You are comparing a PL to a text generator. What are you on?
- bitwize 7mo ago
  No, I'm not. I used to appreciate Lisp for the enhanced effectiveness it granted to the unaided human programmer. It used to be one of the main reasons I used the language. But a programmer+LLM is going to be far more effective in any language than an unaided programmer is in Lisp—and a programmer+LLM is going to be more effective in a popular language with a large training set, such as Java, TypeScript, Kotlin, or Rust, than in Lisp. So in a world with LLMs, the main practical reason to choose Lisp disappears. And no, LLMs are doing more than just generating text, spewing nonsense into the void. They are solving problems. Try spending some time with Claude Opus 4.6 or ChatGPT 5.3. Give it a real problem to chew on. Watch it explain what's going on and spit out the answer.
  - rootnod3 7mo ago
    Until there is a bug and say due to DNS issues your LLM is. It reachable because everything is down
    - fragmede 7mo ago
      Good thing I've got Qwen downloaded to my MacBook in case of that eventuality!
      - rootnod3 7mo ago
        Highly recommend https://github.com/fosskers/vend https://github.com/fosskers/vend
  - 7mo ago

networked 7mo ago

GitHub and Codeberg links on the site don't open for me. ("To protect your security, codeberg.org will not allow Firefox to display the page if another site has embedded it. To see this page, you need to open it in a new window.") This is because of the use of frames: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Common Lisp Screenshots</title> <meta name="description" content="Today's Common Lisp applications in action"> <meta name="keywords" content=""> <meta name="generator" content="ORT - Ovh Redirect Technology"> <meta name="url" content="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> <meta name="robots" content="all"> </head> <frameset rows="100%,0" frameborder=no border=0> <frame name="ORT" src="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> <frame name="NONE" src="" scrolling="no" noresize> <noframes> <body><a href="https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/">Click here</a><hr></body> </noframes> </frameset> </html> You can fix this by replacing the OVH feature with a regular redirect, like an `index.html` with a `<meta>` tag: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://simple.photo/vindarel/c352e2c0177b24786fb40041657485dd/common-lisp-screenshots/"> If possible, you can also fix it by making your links on the https://simple.photo/ https://simple.photo/ page open in a new window.

mck- 7mo ago

The core route optimization algorithm of Routific is also written in Common Lisp :)

vindarel 7mo ago
That's awesome, thank you. How do you know it, is there a reference on the net somewhere?
- mck- 7mo ago
  I wrote it :) there’s also an open source version here: https://github.com/mck-/Open-VRP https://github.com/mck-/Open-VRP
  - vindarel 7mo ago
    excellent, thanks!