Re: using the cc mode

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Baloff <washdc@wash.edu> wrote on 31 Jul 2005 13:09:28 +1000:
> Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> writes:

>> Baloff <washdc@wash.edu> wrote on 31 Jul 2005 05:29:34 +1000:
 
>> > Hello
 
>> A study which I earnestly urge you to embark upon.  Lisp is a much
>> nicer, more regular language than C or C++, and higher level, too.

> it may be as you described it, but what about efficiency? its use in
> the scientific/academic circle? mission critical applications... etc

Efficiency, as in Whetstones, Dhrystones, Rhollingstones, and so on, is
not Lisp's thing - it's (usually) an interpreted language.  As for the
scientific/academic circle, I don't really know, but I'd think so.  And I
don't know what a "mission critical application" is.  :-)

No, the thing about Lisp is its culture and history.  It goes back to
1957, when processing speeds were measured in kHz, not GHz, and core
store was a few thousand 36-words of little iron beads threaded on wires,
and RMS was just another little boy.  And if computer programming still
exists in 2057, Lisp probably has a better chance of surviving through
till then than any of the thousands of other Johnny-come-lately languages
which have popped up in the last few decades.

If you learn Lisp, you'll get a good insight into just how badly designed
most other programming languages are.  Get Lisp onto your CV, and you'll
be making the statement to your next employer "I am a man of culture, an
island of stability in the maelstrom of chaos, a possessor of shrewd
judgement, somebody who takes the long sober view, unswayed by the
vagaries of transient fashion."

And, of course, you'll be able to use Emacs more effectively.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Munich, Germany)
Email: aacm@muuc.dee; to decode, wherever there is a repeated letter
(like "aa"), remove half of them (leaving, say, "a").