Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other

Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Emanuel.

On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 00:55:48 +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Jeremy Bryant wrote:

> > Lisp is the most powerful and elegant of programming
> > languages. If you want to see how powerful and elegant
> > a programming language can be, you need to learn Lisp.
> > It will give you standard for measuring other languages.

> Ah, I don't know, that kind of boasting. Powerful and elegant
> are both immeasurable things, well, maybe in electrical
> engineering one can measure it.

> > Calling Emacs Lisp "python-like" is derogatory to Emacs
> > Lisp. Python has some of the characteristics that make Lisp
> > superior, but not all of them.

> Okay, then everyone should know this is a controversial thing
> to say. No one, or very few, would recommend Emacs Lisp as an
> alternative to Python 2024.

> It will sounds like we are a bunch of fanatics boasting from
> our own echo chamber were, inside it, we all are fantastic and
> high on Lisp.

> Lisp's superiority is a myth.

> To me it is more like a drug :)

To understand the opposite point of view, read one of Paul Graham's
essays at https://paulgraham.com/icad.html, where he describes 9
novelties introduced by Lisp into programming in 1958, and how most, but
not all, of these have since been adopted by lesser languages.

My own view is that Lisp indeed is one of the top languages, but that
Common Lisp is too big, and thus too difficult, to learn for most
programmers.  For those who succeed in learning it, their productivity
will be enormous whilst using it.  Maybe this productivity could be
matched by other "strange" languages (Haskell, perhaps?), but not by
"normal" languages such as C, C++, Java, Python or perl.  I think it a
pity that a moderate sized Lisp, something around the size of Emacs Lisp
without the cl-* extensions, never made it as a general purpose language
alongside the above.

> -- 
> underground experts united
> https://dataswamp.org/~incal

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

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Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Christopher Dimech via Emacs news and miscellaneous discussions outside the scope of other Emacs mailing lists]

Alan, we both opened a discussion on tangents.



> Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2024 at 8:03 AM
> From: "Alan Mackenzie" <acm@muc.de>
> To: emacs-tangents@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other
>
> Hello, Emanuel.
>
> On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 00:55:48 +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> > Jeremy Bryant wrote:
>
> > > Lisp is the most powerful and elegant of programming
> > > languages. If you want to see how powerful and elegant
> > > a programming language can be, you need to learn Lisp.
> > > It will give you standard for measuring other languages.
>
> > Ah, I don't know, that kind of boasting. Powerful and elegant
> > are both immeasurable things, well, maybe in electrical
> > engineering one can measure it.
>
> > > Calling Emacs Lisp "python-like" is derogatory to Emacs
> > > Lisp. Python has some of the characteristics that make Lisp
> > > superior, but not all of them.
>
> > Okay, then everyone should know this is a controversial thing
> > to say. No one, or very few, would recommend Emacs Lisp as an
> > alternative to Python 2024.
>
> > It will sounds like we are a bunch of fanatics boasting from
> > our own echo chamber were, inside it, we all are fantastic and
> > high on Lisp.
>
> > Lisp's superiority is a myth.
>
> > To me it is more like a drug :)
>
> To understand the opposite point of view, read one of Paul Graham's
> essays at https://paulgraham.com/icad.html, where he describes 9
> novelties introduced by Lisp into programming in 1958, and how most, but
> not all, of these have since been adopted by lesser languages.
>
> My own view is that Lisp indeed is one of the top languages, but that
> Common Lisp is too big, and thus too difficult, to learn for most
> programmers.  For those who succeed in learning it, their productivity
> will be enormous whilst using it.  Maybe this productivity could be
> matched by other "strange" languages (Haskell, perhaps?), but not by
> "normal" languages such as C, C++, Java, Python or perl.  I think it a
> pity that a moderate sized Lisp, something around the size of Emacs Lisp
> without the cl-* extensions, never made it as a general purpose language
> alongside the above.
>
> > --
> > underground experts united
> > https://dataswamp.org/~incal
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
> ---
> via emacs-tangents mailing list (https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-tangents)
>

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Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Jean Louis]

* Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> [2024-08-05 23:04]:
> To understand the opposite point of view, read one of Paul Graham's
> essays at https://paulgraham.com/icad.html, where he describes 9
> novelties introduced by Lisp into programming in 1958, and how most, but
> not all, of these have since been adopted by lesser languages.

I have read it, of course articles by Graham are very insightful.

> My own view is that Lisp indeed is one of the top languages, but that
> Common Lisp is too big, and thus too difficult, to learn for most
> programmers.

My personal view on Common Lisp at the time when I was learning it was
that it was childish simple as compared to previous programming
languages I knew. I even got impression that people who loved Guile,
Scheme, Emacs Lisp, Common Lisp are bragging over the childish easy
language. Learning was not hard, it was pleasure, and I was feeling
like coming back home.

Jean

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Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Immanuel Litzroth]

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Matthias Felleisen has done work on comparing programming languages:
https://jgbm.github.io/eecs762f19/papers/felleisen.pdf
Also some of the practical aspects of using Python vs other languages have
been documented here:
https://haslab.github.io/SAFER/scp21.pdf
i


On Mon, Aug 5, 2024 at 10:03 PM Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> Hello, Emanuel.
>
> On Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 00:55:48 +0200, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> > Jeremy Bryant wrote:
>
> > > Lisp is the most powerful and elegant of programming
> > > languages. If you want to see how powerful and elegant
> > > a programming language can be, you need to learn Lisp.
> > > It will give you standard for measuring other languages.
>
> > Ah, I don't know, that kind of boasting. Powerful and elegant
> > are both immeasurable things, well, maybe in electrical
> > engineering one can measure it.
>
> > > Calling Emacs Lisp "python-like" is derogatory to Emacs
> > > Lisp. Python has some of the characteristics that make Lisp
> > > superior, but not all of them.
>
> > Okay, then everyone should know this is a controversial thing
> > to say. No one, or very few, would recommend Emacs Lisp as an
> > alternative to Python 2024.
>
> > It will sounds like we are a bunch of fanatics boasting from
> > our own echo chamber were, inside it, we all are fantastic and
> > high on Lisp.
>
> > Lisp's superiority is a myth.
>
> > To me it is more like a drug :)
>
> To understand the opposite point of view, read one of Paul Graham's
> essays at https://paulgraham.com/icad.html, where he describes 9
> novelties introduced by Lisp into programming in 1958, and how most, but
> not all, of these have since been adopted by lesser languages.
>
> My own view is that Lisp indeed is one of the top languages, but that
> Common Lisp is too big, and thus too difficult, to learn for most
> programmers.  For those who succeed in learning it, their productivity
> will be enormous whilst using it.  Maybe this productivity could be
> matched by other "strange" languages (Haskell, perhaps?), but not by
> "normal" languages such as C, C++, Java, Python or perl.  I think it a
> pity that a moderate sized Lisp, something around the size of Emacs Lisp
> without the cl-* extensions, never made it as a general purpose language
> alongside the above.
>
> > --
> > underground experts united
> > https://dataswamp.org/~incal
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
> ---
> via emacs-tangents mailing list (
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-tangents)
>


-- 
-- A man must either resolve to point out nothing new or to become a slave
to defend it. -- Sir Isaac Newton

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