Ki – A lisp for your JavaScript

http://ki-lang.org/

by threepointone • 12 years ago

119 40 12 years ago

ki-lang.org

oweiler• 12 years ago

Why would I want to use this in preference to ClojureScript?

sunkencity3• 12 years ago

because the jvm is a pain?

jhh• 12 years ago

ClojureScript is not executed on the JVM.

weavie• 12 years ago

I'm guessing, since this is a set of sweet.js macros you could mix Ki and Javascript code in the same file. So you could only use the lisp bits when you really needed to.

lantiga7• 12 years ago

[Hi, author here] Yes, that is basically the idea. ki functions are js functions, same goes for vars, which makes it easy to jump from js to ki and back, without giving up on immutability, etc. Note that ki is not really intended as a ClojureScript alternative at all. It's more a way to take advantage of its data structures and some of its expressiveness from a pure JS ecosystem.

VMG• 12 years ago

agumonkey• 12 years ago

For a second I thought wisp was http://will.thimbleby.net/misc/ but nope.

leishulang3• 12 years ago

wisp is a fork of lispyscript but more clojure oriented .

fdsary• 12 years ago

Woow! This is really fucking cool! Thanks for sharing.

lantiga7• 12 years ago

Glad you find it interesting, looking forward to future feedback.

jeletonskelly• 12 years ago

As a clojure developer that sometimes crosses the line into the front-end world, this is going to make my life much easier.

afandian3• 12 years ago

Why does this make your life easier than clojurescript?

sunkencity3• 12 years ago

not everybody likes the jvm ecosystem.

lsdafjklsd• 12 years ago

Trying to find ways to integrate react / om / clojurescript into my Ember app and this is perfect. Thank you!

roryokane• 12 years ago

See also LispyScript (http://lispyscript.com/), “a JavaScript with Lispy syntax and macros”.

Like Ki, it requires inclusion of a standard library. Unlike Ki, it does not provide alternative data structures in addition to native JS values; it only uses native JS values. LispyScript also does not support embedded JavaScript or being embedded within JavaScript. But LispyScript currently has better docs, including a page to try it in the browser (http://lispyscript.com/tryit/).

lantiga7• 12 years ago

I agree, LispyScript is very neat, closer to a full-fledged language than ki. On the other hand, ki is focused on ClojureScript's immutable data structures and related idioms - in fact it's just a thin layer around those.

zachrose• 12 years ago

Can anyone enlighten me to the difference between Clojure-like immutability and Object.freeze()?

evacchi• 12 years ago

also JavathScript http://kybernetikos.github.io/Javathcript/

leishulang3• 12 years ago

The only reason I use clojurescript over other js lisps is core.async. What is Ki's take on this?

lantiga7• 12 years ago

I have ideas around providing CSP in ki, but so far I haven't implemented them. All there is in ki right now is the (letc ...) form (see http://ki-lang.org/api.html#misc), which provides very similar functionality to LiveScript's backcalls. It is no CSP but it allows to straighten up nested async calls.

j_s• 12 years ago

I'd appreciate any opinions on how usable something like this or ClojureScript is to transition to in an enterprise / team environment. How can I sell that switch to my employer and co-workers?

klibertp• 12 years ago

You can't. Forget it.

I mean, there is a whole long list of benefits of functional programming, immutable/persistent data structures, macros and so on. But Lisps and functional oriented languages (like Roy, LiveScript) are also unfamiliar, not supported in your favourite IDE, make you think in a way you're not accustomed to and eat your kittens for lunch.

You have a chance with ClojureScript if the backend is in Clojure - other than this there is just no way to introduce something like this.

As for usability, ClojureScript works very, very well. Async is well implemented (if you like CPS model), JS scoping is fixed and so on. LiveScript is also quite usable, although it lacks source map implementation for now. Backcalls make async nice but stay close to JS, currying and partials are nice, easy object cloning makes up for inherent mutability. For my personal projects I use LS instead of JS or Coffee exclusively now.

But they are completely unusable in enterprise environment. And probably won't ever be. It would also be very hard to find a team which would like to adopt them without knowing them beforehand (rightly so, IMHO, because transitioning to another paradigm - and benefiting from it - is not a trivial matter) and about as hard (or harder) to find a team where they are known already.

Your best bet is probably to contribute to LightTable a lot and seek a job in Clojure oriented start-up if you want to use ClojureScript at work.

timwaagh• 12 years ago

like this. im not sure how much an improvement this is over for example underscore (i guess i'll find out), but at least i can finally -kinda- say i write bloody LISP when i put this in my code :P

hajile• 12 years ago

There is already a ki lisp (a smaller subset of Qi lisp) that is the foundation of shen lisp.

http://www.shenlanguage.org/learn-shen/shendoc.htm#KI

lantiga7• 12 years ago

It's actually named KL (with a lower-case L), but yes, that was close.

eggy• 12 years ago

What's the difference? I mean, Shen is ported to JS, and doesn't require Node. Can it play with JS like KL? Shen is pretty cool with a built-in, functional Prolog too, and static typing you can turn on or off.

Ki – A lisp for your JavaScript

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