From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tim Harig Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: How to improve the readability of (any) LISP or any highlevel functional language to the level of FORTH ? Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 08:02:35 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: References: <80ceeca0-1d32-47d1-ba96-feb4d9729c3a@v17g2000yqv.googlegroups.com> <87pqsgk8v9.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <1fdef538-9257-4ff6-9f5b-c96883349f07@n32g2000pre.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1294131226 19432 80.91.229.12 (4 Jan 2011 08:53:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 08:53:46 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jan 04 09:53:42 2011 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Pa2e7-0004gt-21 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:53:41 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:60257 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Pa2dH-0004GP-BI for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 04 Jan 2011 03:52:43 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsgate.news.xs4all.nl!news2.euro.net!feeder.news-service.com!94.75.214.39.MISMATCH!aioe.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.lisp,gnu.emacs.help Original-Followup-To: comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.lisp,gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 38 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: LeOnFqJV5kOv6kvu1/c+Gg.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 User-Agent: slrn/0.9.9p1 (Linux) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu comp.lang.functional:69101 comp.lang.lisp:297224 gnu.emacs.help:183951 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:78156 Archived-At: On 2011-01-04, D Herring wrote: >> On Jan 3, 6:05 pm, Tim Harig wrote: >>> What hurts the LISP community far more is the zealotry of its members, >>> their insistance that LISP is the *only* tool for *every* job, and their >>> agressiveness in trying to push it off on to everybody else -- whether >>> everybody else happens want it or not. Whether this is indicitive >>> of the entire community or simply the result of those most apparent, >>> I cannot say; but, it leads to the overall impression that the LISP >>> community is narrowminded and neophobic. Who would want to be part of >>> such a community? > > Like the dark days of apple, bsd, and linux, there can be some bizarre > fanboyism in the lisp community. Geeks are always technical but often > not personable. 1. You imply that the worst of the zealotry for Apple, BSD, and Linux is over. When is it going to be over for LISP? 2. While I would agree that the listed groups have zealots among their ranks; but, in my experience, most of them have resigned to the fact that they often have to work with other systems. I would suspect that most of their members are at least as knowledgable about using Windows as most dedicated Windows users. Most of them, when push comes to shove, will even admit that there are things which they admire about other operating systems, including Windows. LISP users on the other hand, never seem to be able to let go of LISP when the situation requires it. To be fair, most newcomers to any given language will tend to let the idioms from their previous language bleed into the new language. This is an familiarity issue and most will gradually assimilate into the mainstream as their knowledge and experience with the language grows. Ultimately their knowledge and experience in both langauges improves their overall abilities no matter what language they may happen to be using. LISP users never seem to do that. They seem to be unable, or unwilling, to learn anything new.