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Domain: lisperati.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to lisperati.com.

Comments · 10

  1. Re:Aliens are plausible, after what Linux has beco by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2 · on UFO Existence 'Proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt', Says Former Head of Pentagon Alien Program (newsweek.com)

    In fact, extraterrestrial life would be the sanest of all of those things!

    Probably because it uses Lisp?

  2. Re:Obviously Emacs Lisp by Wolfbone · · Score: 1 · on The Best First Language For a Young Programmer

    Actually you don't need to do any configuring of your editor before you can start learning to program: http://www.lisperati.com/casting-spels-emacs/html/casting-spels-emacs-1.html :)

  3. Lisp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Best Introduction To Programming For Bright 11-14-Year-Olds?

    There is a very nice tutorial for a younger audience at http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html which you might find inspirative.

    I think that Basic or similarly handicapped languages do produce fast short-term results, but are an impediment to expanding the thinking horizon. The language we use shapes the way we think.

  4. Re:Going from C to others is a matter of right boo by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1 · on What Programming Languages Should You Learn Next?

    I'm pretty sure Perl can do these things too, though I don't know Lisp or Scheme well enough for an apples-to-apples comparison of the capabilities.

    Umm, we kinda guessed that.

    Get thee to Casting SPELs in Lisp and work through the fun example. It's only a glimpse of what Lisp can do, but will disavow you of any notions of Perl equivalence pretty quickly.

  5. Re:Where to start out language wise? by mrsbrisby · · Score: 1 · on PHP In Action: Objects, Design, Agility

    As a complete programming noob looking to get into web-related design and things of that nature, what languages are good to start with and to branch to other languages? Would that be like C-> PHP -> SQL? What other languages apply and/or in what order are languages needed to learn to start to bring things together for well designed websites?
    Stop looking at languages that way. They aren't like spoken languages- you cannot realistically speak one well enough to make up for the fact you can't speak any other. Programming languages are designed around the different shapes of algorithms- some programmers refer to these as patterns. Ideally, each language contributes some optimal representation of a pattern, and if it doesn't, you have to wonder about the usefulness of the language- especially more so if it isn't any more useful at anything than any other language.

    Learn to read. A good way to do this is to learn Lisp (CL). It has no syntax to speak of, so you will be forced to grasp well the concepts behind programming. You can introduce language features as it becomes necessary, they have an excellent development environment, and it's easy to build web applications with it. You don't even have to download anything, you can try it right now.
  6. You're not confusing things. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Yahoo! Launches Python Developer Center

    "Also, no even slightly popular browser supports client side scripting with Scheme, and most web hosts don't offer server-side scripting with it either."

    JsScheme

    Scheme hosting...sort of

  7. Casting spels [sic] in lisp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Coding is a Text Adventure

    Ever wonder what makes Lisp so powerful?
    Now you can find out for yourself-
    And you don't even have to install anything on your computer to do it!

    Tells you how to create an adventure-type game in Lisp:
    http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html

  8. Re:This is not a troll, but a query... by smug_lisp_weenie · · Score: 5, Insightful · on Practical Common Lisp

    There is really only one thing you need to know about lisp- Lisp essentially has NO SYNTAX. What this means is that your program is an abstract syntax tree that goes directly into the compiler.

    Compilers in other languages first need to convert the program into an AST before compiling the code. (this is a bit of an oversimplification, but essentially true.) If you want three reasons, I can explain the repercussions of programming directly in an AST:

    Elegance: In Lisp, you don't have to worry about idiosyncracies in the head of the language designers like you do in other languages: You don't have to worry about whether AND has precedence over EQUALS (Delphi programmers know this trap) you don't need to worry when a line needs to end in a semicolon, etc. etc.

    Macros: By being an AST, Lisp lets you trick the compiler into thinking it sees other code than is actually there. This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than so-called "macros" in other languages- In Lisp you can turn your programming language into basically ANY programming language you want, within the language itself. Read Peter's excellent book or check out this site for more info.

    Productivity: You can program in the purely-functional style that has been shown to increase programmer productivity by having a property called "referential transparency" and having the easily serializable syntax-expression format. Basically, with Lisp you can analyze/manipulate/automate the bejeezus out of your code very easily, under the mantra "code is data, data is code".

    That's what I like about Lisp, anyway...

  9. Re:Learn Lisp Without Installing Anything on Your by smug_lisp_weenie · · Score: 3, Informative · on Practical Common Lisp

    Oops- Here's the link: tutorial

  10. Re:Those who forget Tony Hoare... by smug_lisp_weenie · · Score: 1 · on Optimizations - Programmer vs. Compiler?

    I'm LISP all the way, baby! :)