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Ask Kent M. Pitman About Lisp, Scheme And More
Kent M. Pitman has been programming in Scheme and Lisp, and contributing to the design of those languages, for a long time -- 24 years. He was a technical contributor and an international representative for the ANSI subcommittee that standardized Common Lisp, and in that capacity directed the design of Lisp's error system. Scheme may be better known as a teaching language, but both Scheme and Lisp have applications (as any Emacs user knows) that go far beyond this. Now's your chance to ask him about the pros and cons of those two languages, circa 2001 A.D. Kent also has an interesting, ambivalent take on Free software that's worth noting in an atmosphere where complex issues are often oversimplified and radicalized. Since he's someone who's helped develop standards, this is perhaps a timely issue on which to probe his opinion. It's also a good time to get acquainted with things he's written, which might interest you just as much as his programming. (Soap opera parodies, anyone?) So suggest questions for Kent below (please, one per post) -- we'll pass along the highest-rated ones for him to answer, and Kent will get back soon with his answers.
No way, Lisp is way outdated, and it isn't even a pure functional language. People will want to use Haskell, Erlang, or Goatsex instead.
If this is "off topic" please forgive me, but I need some advice.
I know that my subject for this bit of prose may be a bit brash, but
if you'll hear me out, I believe that what I'm about to say will make more
than a bit of sense assuming that you're a rational and thinking person.
I am a long time computer user, and I've experimented with many different
applications in my computing career. These include Word, Excel, Access,
Internet Explorer, etc... What I'm trying to get across here is that I'm no
novice when it comes to computer trickery. I'm new to this forum, and I keep
hearing this word Linux. I decided to do some investigation, and ended up
at a website called kernel.org. Some of you may have heard of it. After
fumbling around the seemingly endless slough of badly organized files, I did
manage to find a file mentioned on a recent article I saw here called
linux-2.4.11.tar.bz2. As I've always done in the past, I right-clicked on it
and saved it to my Windows desktop.
This is where I get confused. THIS FILE IS NOT AN EXECUTABLE! I tried double
clicking on it AGAIN and AGAIN, but it will not execute! It just keeps bringing
up this Open With box over and over again... How am I supposed to run this
wonderous program that I keep hearing all of this great stuff about if it won't
run? What kind of graphic is supposed to come up when it starts? I've used a
program called Netscape that some of you may have heard of, and it brings up
this wheel like you steer a boat with. Will I see something similar here? I
tried opening the file in Notepad.exe, but it said it was too big, and I needed
to use WordPad instead. I opened it in WordPad, and all this crazy stuff came
up. I know that this program is "open source", but if this is the stuff that
you programmers write in, then I wouldn't want to be your eye doctor. Anyway,
I want my Windows to stop crashing, so if some of you could tell me how to
use this program to do that, I would be really happy.
Thanks
This dude has got to be one sick SOB!!!
Are you now or have you ever engaged in or supported terroristic activities against the United States of America?
-- Jo Jo McCarthy, jr.
No. You have no girlfriend because you do not follow the Way of the Spork, and also because you have a 1 inch dick, and because you smell bad. Any other questions?
all your ,,QUAEDA'' are belong to us !!!
I've read some interesting articles about lisp, and I'm interested in learning to some extent.
;)
One problem though is that most people stop at saying that feature X (which no other language can do) is really great, and stop there. Never having used feature X, I don't have enough context to say, yes that will help me solve problems more easily.
For example, somebody claims that LISP is better because a lisp program can write code as it goes, or something like that. Having never had that as an option I can't see circumstances where I'd want to do that.
Could you please describe in some detail the top features of lisp and why they are GOOD THINGS?
Also, I promise to not make fun of parenthesis if you don't state that infix notation is one of the reasons that lisp is good.
I've finally found the off by one erro
Cumsplurt is an excellent functional programming language. It'll make you sticky with delight and envy. You will blow your load, I mean it.
{{WHAT'S} {WITH {ALL THE} BRACES}}?
->This avoids the friggin' lameness filter.-
The bias against Lisp is based on the simple fact that the first word that springs into most peoples pointy little heads when they hear the word "Lisp" is: "Gay". And that scares off all the homophobic repressed closet queens, which includes a large percentage of the computer industry. Especially Perl programmers, who use Perl as a means of expressing their manhood and covering up their repressed homosexual tendencies.
-Don
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
((
What (
(is) with (all)
) of (the) ()s?
)
Hmmm?
)
What mental illness compels Erik Naggum to be stuck in a APATTL (All Prick All The Time Loop)?