From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Emanuel Berg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: why not "stripes" in: (let ((zebra 'stripes) ... ; strings vs symbols? Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2013 19:24:43 +0100 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: <87iou4dgjf.fsf@nl106-137-194.student.uu.se> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1388514613 9695 80.91.229.3 (31 Dec 2013 18:30:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2013 18:30:13 +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 Dec 31 19:30:17 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 1Vy453-0000oy-FB for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 31 Dec 2013 19:30:17 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35338 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Vy453-0007Mx-37 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 31 Dec 2013 13:30:17 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin3!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 60 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: VVbyYd/iFZoeWNmD9i++cQ.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:um6/c+01sKGgwzAVl+4dwLaGbSo= Mail-Copies-To: never Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:202949 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:95218 Archived-At: Rustom Mody writes: > LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the > profound enlightenment experience you will have when > you finally get it. That experience will make you a > better programmer for the rest of your days, even if > you never actually use LISP itself a lot. To learn Lisp and then to never use it sounds like something the landed aristocracy could do just before they get executed by a bunch of revolutionaries. But I too suspect that Lisp is special. You know when a bunch of kids get together and start discussing what computer language is "the best". Those morons can well be very good programmers but they have zero overview and experience so they obviously think that their respective languages are "the best" (and in a sense that is correct, and most definitively the correct attitude). So, without doing that, if it could somehow be quantified and measured what language is the most expressive, I say Lisp would score very high. The only thing I can think of that I saw in other languages and not in Lisp is *pattern matching*: branching straight off the functions' heads, like it is possible to do (and a very common practice) in languages like Erlang, SML, and Haskell. But I suppose it could be implemented as a Lisp macro if you really cared for it. The history of Lisp would be interesting to know in some detail. I know it came from the US AI/university world. Which makes sense because AI is basically searching and modifying data structures. So the data/code blend fits well, though I don't know if that is a coincidence or genius or a bit of both. And though Lisp has university history, it doesn't feel that "mathy" as for example Haskell and the other stuff those puritans use. Then there were the "Lisp wars" with several competing dialects, and finally some unification efforts with Common Lisp. Today Lisp seems marginalized apart from the university world, but there it is treated as a language within the "functional" paradigm where they are neurotic about "side-effects". It is not my experience that Lisp is like that. If you want to do everything with recursion and set functions no one is stopping you, but I don't do that, and besides when I write C, I use functions as well! So while there is truth to both the AI and the functional approach to Lisp, to me Lisp is a tool that can be used in many ways, none of which is more precious than the other. -- underground experts united: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573