Yes, that is true. I'm not big on the idea that Lisp is defined by parentheses. The implementation strategies are another way to look at it. That doesn't capture it either, but it's an angle to try.
You can wrap parentheses around anything and call it Lisp, but I specified Common Lisp and pg's article clearly wasn't contemplating anything like Shen. Surface syntax is near irrelevant though.
I've wanted for quite a long time to write an Android app like that. Use Kiosk mode (basically a locked down home screen) to turn the Android phone into a dumb phone.
> Your wording sounds like it implies that Lisp "got stuck" somewhere in the past, no?
Pretty much. See pg's famous "Blub Paradox" where he sees Lisp as the top of a tower of lesser languages. He doesn't recognize that Lisp might at best be called a limit ordinal, to use math jargon. That is, Lisp is just another Blub, and the Lisp zealots haven't figured that out.
You don't necessarily want to keep going further and further up, of course. Lisp still has fascination. But e.g., in Common Lisp (I mean just the stuff in the CL spec, no ad-hoc extensions allowed) you can't write anything resembling an OS. You can in Scheme, using continuations to handle process switching.
Going further up, Lisp doesn't make it easy to ensure the absence of particular behaviours in a program, what TAPL calls the purpose of a type system. Tony Morrison has a semi-realistic example of what static types can get you:
Lisp generally has precise GC, which I'd say makes it light side. It's even relatively type-safe if you count runtime type-checking.
Highly reliable systems are written in Erlang, which if you squint is another Lisp dialect. There's even a sexp-based version called LFE, for Lisp-flavored Erlang. Erlang's key to reliability is error recovery, rather than exceptional levels of error prevention.
I do like your light side/dark side classification.
This looks scary. Website is way too slick and it says something about being a Chrome side-something? Ah someone said vibe code, and I guess that explains the slickness and images too.
I'd prefer a plain text description of what the program actually does. A screen shot here or there might be tolerable but please, no splash screens or uninformative background pics.
You could just upload to a personal or other website? I sometimes do that. Is there any security or privacy (e.g. password protection) for this Cloudflare Drop site?
Wait, my first impression was that it points a local browser to your local browser. Now it looks like it uploads your folder to Cloudflare and temporarily serves it over the web. But is that different from what we used to do with FTP? Are there any databases or anything like basic PHP hosts supply? It's just static sites?
Is this a product or what? What's the purpose? Is there an API?
"May 21, 2026", meh. And it's more microscopic tweaks of UI elements. How about blocking unwanted audio intrusions (not just "autoplay" but all audio) from obnoxious sites? Making reader mode way more aggressive? Shutting down site scripts that bog down your computer? I.e. stuff that makes material difference to users.
Anyway it could be a lot worse. It's gotten so that every time I see Mozilla announce an "improvement" I expect the opposite.
I haven't heard that 30 minute figure before, you have a reference? I've seen articles about medical workers using masks for much longer.
Installing air filtration and UVC in classrooms and meeting rooms certainly helps.
Since the mask shortage cleared up, HCW have been advised to stop re-using them. I re-use mind til they get dirty, but maybe I should replace them more often.
Don't forget too, if the CO2 is 1000 ppm, then half of the air in each breath you inhale was recently exhaled by someone else. Yes, airborne viruses are still spreading. I still wear an N95 mask whenever I'm in an indoor space with other people outside of home.
IKEA now has a remarkably cheap ($35) air quality monitor that measures CO2 as well as PM:
I don't have one yet but plan to pick one up soon. A CO2 sensor alone from Adafruit is $50+, though that one is more precise. I bought it a while ago and it's still sitting in my todo bin.
Does the specification recommend using a hybrid? At the level of at least SHOULD if not MUST, in the sense of RFC 2119? I have the opposite impression but haven't checked.