From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Rodgers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Cool and Useful LISP for the .emacs file Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 11:20:34 -0700 Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <3FABE272.1040007@yahoo.com> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1068230727 28514 80.91.224.253 (7 Nov 2003 18:45:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2003 18:45:27 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Nov 07 19:45:25 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1AIBbo-0004hF-00 for ; Fri, 07 Nov 2003 19:45:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.24) id 1AICKX-0006Q1-Uv for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 07 Nov 2003 14:31:37 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!170.207.51.80!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 66 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 170.207.51.80 Original-X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1068229229 47405981 170.207.51.80 (16 [82742]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS i86pc; en-US; rv:0.9.4.1) Gecko/20020406 Netscape6/6.2.2 X-Accept-Language: en-us Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:117975 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2 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 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:13912 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.help:13912 Jody M. Klymak wrote: > Hi Dan, > > Dan Anderson writes: > > [snip much good advice...] > > >>Learning LISP is not hard... >> > > Heh, heh. Compared to what? Assembly code? Compared to any imperative language where each statement has its own syntax. > I personally find lisp quite difficult. The opportunities to code in > it are few and far enough between, Hardly! You can spend all day writing Emacs customizations and extensions. :-) My Franz and Common Lisp coding days were a decade ago. :-( > and the syntax so different from any other modern language, I see this as a benefit: Java's syntax is tolerable, and I'm a fairly proficient shell scripter, but I think C/C++ and Perl are unreadable and unwriteable. > that I have a one-day overhead just to > spool up to the point where I can do even the simplest thing. And > thus the coding opportunities get even fewer and further between, and > the cycle spirals to the point where I am dependent on the good nature > of package maintainers to tweak what I want. Fortunately most of them are good natured, indeed. The hard part about Emacs Lisp is not the Lisp core, but the Emacs features. The Lisp control structures, data types, and the operators are similar to many other languages. But the Emacs objects like buffers, windows, frames, keymaps, display tables, coding systems, processes, etc. are complex, and it can be hard to learn how to program in a way to meet the conventions of its rich user interface. > This must limit the base of emacs coders. I haven't noticed. :-) > Despite this, of course, there are many wonderful packages written for > emacs. It causes me to wonder if this is despite lisp or in some way > because of it. I think it's obviously because of it. Hang in there, it's a very rewarding way to program. -- Kevin Rodgers