From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Learning LISP; Scheme vs elisp. Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 05:33:07 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <8339f465-16bd-4dae-b4c9-b2718d72a14c@v1g2000pra.googlegroups.com> References: <55dbm5-qcl.ln1@news.ducksburg.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1217680849 2039 80.91.229.12 (2 Aug 2008 12:40:49 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 12:40:49 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Aug 02 14:41:38 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KPGQQ-00011N-4f for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:41:34 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:59840 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KPGPV-000604-E5 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:40:37 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!v1g2000pra.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 54 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.97.120 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1217680387 16989 127.0.0.1 (2 Aug 2008 12:33:07 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2008 12:33:07 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: v1g2000pra.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.97.120; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Safari/525.22, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:160824 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:56172 Archived-At: On Aug 1, 5:45 am, Adam Funk wrote: > I've decided I ought to train myself in the most elegant programming > weapon ---http://xkcd.com/297/--- so I've started working through > _The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_. Scheme being a beautiful lang is rather a myth. Common Lisp wouldn't agree in any way. Mathematica programer like myself will laugh at that thought. Basically any modern functional lang will also laugh at the idea. I myself, about 10 years ago, thought that Scheme is the most beautiful lang, just like you, from reading the web forums and faqs, as well read the SICP book in 1999 and r4rs. I wouldn't say Scheme is in anyway beautiful or elegant. Even one of its quality, minimalism, is completely screwed up in r6rs which happened last year. See: Proliferation of Computing Languages http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/new_langs.html Fundamental Problems of Lisp http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html How Purely Nested Notation Limits The Language's Utility http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/notations.html My First Encounter And Impression Of Lisp http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Personal_dir/xah_comp_exp.html > In the long term I hope I'll be able to customize Emacs more in its > native way instead of wrapping external Perl programs in > shell-command-on-region (as I often do now). > > Any tips on transferring knowledge between Scheme and elisp? that doesn't make sense unless you are already a scheme expert and is exposed to elisp for the first time. And in that case, all you need is a one-page summary of major differences. I'm not aware there's one but there are a couple that summarize the diff between Scheme and CL. Elisp is close to CL, so that would help. Since you seems new to both, the comparison won't mean much. You can start with my elisp tutorial, if you are already a expert of a language. http://xahlee.org/emacs/elisp.html Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84