From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rustom Mody Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Emacs history, and "Is Emacs difficult to learn?" Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 08:21:33 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <14bebcfe-2311-4bb3-8154-4cc803962c71@googlegroups.com> References: <87y58pplcp.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> <87fvuwgsv0.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> <075751cf-97a3-4d01-8fb1-4ffbc0180f3f@googlegroups.com> <878v0oxfdw.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> <87a9l4rs76.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> <39e6407d-c4fd-4dc1-b47f-a1ba4119c7cb@googlegroups.com> <87iozqzjjq.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> <871u6dpjar.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1375370716 21653 80.91.229.3 (1 Aug 2013 15:25:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2013 15:25:16 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Aug 01 17:25:19 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1V4ukh-0007hl-9E for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:25:19 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54298 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4ukg-0004qF-PP for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 11:25:18 -0400 X-Received: by 10.224.64.202 with SMTP id f10mr4523958qai.2.1375370493719; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 08:21:33 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.50.65.3 with SMTP id t3mr74093igs.10.1375370493674; Thu, 01 Aug 2013 08:21:33 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!fx3no431562qab.0!news-out.google.com!he10ni0qab.0!nntp.google.com!fx3no431557qab.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: <871u6dpjar.fsf@VLAN-3434.student.uu.se> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=59.95.39.176; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 59.95.39.176 User-Agent: G2/1.0 Injection-Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 15:21:33 +0000 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:200359 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:92626 Archived-At: On Thursday, August 1, 2013 8:09:08 PM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote: >=20 > Yes, a struct is just a memory pattern. You are saying, a Lisp > list isn't - is it moving around in memory, is it fragmented, or > is allocation made dynamically based on the elements? Is that the > difference? With pointers, isn't that what you get in C? Please > explain. Well... I dont know if this is the best forum for these discussions :-) In short: A language becomes more powerful when it has less... Think of registers and interrupts disappearing from assembly to C, making C= better than assembly in 95% use-cases. Now if you were an assembly progra= mmer, you would pooh-pooh a C (like) language: "How can having less make it= a better language?" It makes it better because one's thoughts have more clarity. You may remember the quote from Bruce Lee: I am not afraid of the man who k= nows 10 thousand kicks. I am afraid of the man who has practiced one kick 1= 0 thousand times. Likewise in programming, doing few things well gets you = further than doing many things sub-optimally. And so assignment disappearing from C to haskell makes haskell programmers = able to have better thoughts [Well they say 100% of the time; I say 80% of = the time ;-) ] I could go on eg why lisp can be C-like or haskell-like depending on how yo= u use it etc etc. Or answering=20 > Are you saying: C doesn't have hash tables, search trees, etc., > you have to make them yourself with data types and pointers, and > put them into structs, and then have the algorithm traverse them, > and all this you do manually, with no support from the language? However as I said this is getting too too OT for this group. If you want we can continue off-list. Do read my blog though http://blog.languager.org/ in case you find may my = ideas painful to your delicate digestion :-)