I know this is off-topic but I would love to know the names of any books you have on nonlinear algebra.
I know this was a joke but... I assumed the OP meant abstract algebra (i.e., groups, fields, categories) which is often taught in a separate course than linear algebra. Or at least it was when/where I went to college.
You use a programming language for one primary reason: you believe most other people in your domain space are using it.
No one cares how useful a programming language is - they care how many competent programmers they can hire who can code with it.
Dude, you need to get on some antidepressants or else find something you love doing. There is more to life and one's job than conformity and groupthink.
Rather than rag you too much, I'd like to invite some C or Java programmers to expound the joy of their chosen languages.
I'd like to see, for instance, a word processor written in Lisp. Seriously -- something compatible with Microsoft Word. An action game with sophisticated graphics, including transparency and particle effects?
If you seek in-principle proofs, all of this and more existed for Lisp Machines of the 1980s. they still exist, in fact. Nichimen sells a graphics/game engine for Ninetendo written in Lisp. There's a commercial game for PC available right now that is partially written in Lisp. I don't have the time, but I'm sure a quick Google search would reveal positive answers to your questions if you care to look.
You do bring up a good point. While this stuff is possible in Lisp and has been done, it's not done now. Bad PR associated with AI Winter has left Lisp reeling in this (i.e., graphics and GUIs) regard.
(I really gotta go!) Have a look at CLIM for a cross-platform graphics library for Common Lisp -- Windows, Unices, the Mac. But it's probably fair to say that Lisp is for other parts of your application at the moment, just as a game is part assembly, part C, and part other languages. Write the parts that can be elegantly written in Lisp in Lisp.
Crapping closing parens like that makes the language difficult to read without a text editor for matching. And it hurts my eyes;-).
Just think of it as trading all of your semicolons, colons, parentheses, braces, brackets and weirdo digraphs and trigraphs (e.g., ->) -- all that line noise -- for two characters, opening and closing parentheses. Once you do, you stop seeing them.
(Trust me. If you don't, note that I made a similar comment in the past and a C++ type did some actual comparisons that backed me up.)
The gains are metalinguistic: Your programs are now infinitely malleable by other programs, you can customize the lexical and syntactic structure of the language, you can effortlessly write new languages on top of Lisp (ever check out the internal representations of GCC?), etc.
While not trying to put down lisp, it seems like what is desired here is something analogous to Python's docstrings:
Common Lisp as had this capability for 15 years. The following is from Macintosh Common Lisp:
? (setq *SAVE-DOC-STRINGS* t)
T ? (defun hello-world ()
"Print 'hello world' to the terminal."
(write-line "hello world"))
HELLO-WORLD ? (documentation 'hello-world 'function)
"Print 'hello world' to the terminal." ? (defclass no-slots () ()
(:documentation "This class has no slots."))
#{STANDARD-CLASS NO-SLOTS} ? (documentation (find-class 'no-slots))
"This class has no slots."
T ?
one of the best ways to be introduced to Lisp: Emacs.
Emacs lisp is an old dialect. It differs fundamentally from Common Lisp and Scheme in lacking lexical variable bindings. Avoid it in favor of free versions of the newer dialects if your purpose is to understand Lisp as it has been for the past twenty years. Especially explore Common Lisp, which includes so much cool functionality as part of the standard. For example: I believe that Common Lisp was the first object-oriented programming language to become an ANSI standard.
Anyone have any good docs/books they used to learn lisp/scheme quickly and easily (more than just an amazon/google search)? Check out the Association of Lisp Users web site for references. I believe Dave Touretzky has made his very good introductory book available online and Dave Lamkins has also written a long web-based tutorial.
Also, the introductory course at MIT uses the fabled 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' which I believe is also available online. It covers Scheme, not Common Lisp, though.
Representing programs as S-expressions, incidentally, has one terrible cost - it's hostile to comments. Because there's no place to hang the comments, LISP code tends to be uncommented within the text of the code.
Actually, quite the opposite. Because Lisp programs have a nested tree structure and there are universal indentation conventions, any single expression in a Lisp program can be isolated on its own line in a way that's natural to the reader, and then commented. Plus, Common Lisp (like all decent languages) permits inline comments: #| comment |#.
Poorly written code in ANY language displays the qualities you attribute uniquely to Lisp.
Whoa. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Or a document where the number of links could be described in that fashion.
You should check out Kent's HyperSpec. It's an amazing (and amazingly useful) document. Just project the obvious thoughtfulness of his replies over a huge document and imagine the result.
My friend who graduated from Harvard said that he wished he learned Java instead of Lisp so he could of learned something he would use in the world.
Learning Common Lisp as an undergraduate at CMU in the late 1980s changed my life for the better. I guess to each his own.
Then again, isn't one of the goals of a CS degree to expose you to a variety of computational paradigms? Lisp is quite unlike C, C++, Objective C, and the like. Certainly worth a semester or two of exposure.
Perhaps it is your friend that has the problem if all he could handle in college was one freakin' language.
And try parallel programing with lisp. There simply isn't such a thing. Sad, sad.
When you grow tired of sticking your head in the sand, have a look at ITA's website. They make the software that powers Orbitz's web site. If this is not an impressive testament to Common Lisp's ability to do industrial strength parallel programming, I'm not sure what would satisfy you.
You are correct that Common Lisp lacks a standard definition of parallel programming constructs, and thus parallel programs must use vendor-specific extensions. (There are some efforts to abstract over the differences.) In this regard, Common Lisp seems in the same boat as most other languages.
currently high-level languages like Lisp are good for early prototyping and development stages, but lack the library hooks and other trappings needed for real, industrial strength application development.
Like what? Common Lisp is as capable of writing 'industrial strength' applications as any other languages. And its dynamic properties mean that you can debug them on-line, without taking systems down for massive recompiles.
what i'd like to see Lisp and Smalltalk and Eiffel develop is a good compiler and a good interface to the system and GUI code.
(no, Java does not cut it.)
Commercial Common Lisp compilers are good enough. What do they lack their C/C++, Java, and other counterparts? (Specific technical features please.)
As far as GUI coding goes, ALL languages but Java seem in the same leaky boat when it comes to developing cross-platform applications. (Java is in its own boat, one with different problems than the rest.)
Slashdot Mirror
The "interview" with Tolkien and the other Ring-related stories on that site were dreadfully boring. The funniest thing I saw was a smallish picture of Gary Coleman as "Merry".
GC?!?
;-)
Lisp has had a (G)arbage (C)ollector for years. (Hell, even Java has one.)
Wow, that was seriously unfunny.
Don't blame Lisp for the failure that was Microsoft Bob!
This would be like blaming general relativity for atomic weapons or Thomas Edison for phone sex and the psychic friends network.
I know this is off-topic but I would love to know the names of any books you have on nonlinear algebra.
I know this was a joke but... I assumed the OP meant abstract algebra (i.e., groups, fields, categories) which is often taught in a separate course than linear algebra. Or at least it was when/where I went to college.
I took Lisp in school.
....
I must have...the book is sitting there on the shelf right next to my Prolog manual and my Abstract Non-Linear Algebra book.
Wait a minute.
Glorious memories of parties and all-night bull-sessions returning...
Feelings of immortality returning...
Confusion and credit card debt fading fast...
O great God Lisp. Why did I forsake thee?
You use a programming language for one primary reason: you believe most other people in your domain space are using it.
No one cares how useful a programming language is - they care how many competent programmers they can hire who can code with it.
Dude, you need to get on some antidepressants or else find something you love doing. There is more to life and one's job than conformity and groupthink.
Rather than rag you too much, I'd like to invite some C or Java programmers to expound the joy of their chosen languages.
This remind me of the Simpsons episode when Homer was hired to build a car...
Or that urban myth about that Finnish guy that built a Unix-like kernel from scratch. The chutzpah of these do-it-yourselfers!
Try to become a programmer and fail.
I'd like to see, for instance, a word processor written in Lisp. Seriously -- something compatible with Microsoft Word. An action game with sophisticated graphics, including transparency and particle effects?
If you seek in-principle proofs, all of this and more existed for Lisp Machines of the 1980s. they still exist, in fact. Nichimen sells a graphics/game engine for Ninetendo written in Lisp. There's a commercial game for PC available right now that is partially written in Lisp. I don't have the time, but I'm sure a quick Google search would reveal positive answers to your questions if you care to look.
You do bring up a good point. While this stuff is possible in Lisp and has been done, it's not done now. Bad PR associated with AI Winter has left Lisp reeling in this (i.e., graphics and GUIs) regard.
(I really gotta go!) Have a look at CLIM for a cross-platform graphics library for Common Lisp -- Windows, Unices, the Mac. But it's probably fair to say that Lisp is for other parts of your application at the moment, just as a game is part assembly, part C, and part other languages. Write the parts that can be elegantly written in Lisp in Lisp.
Crapping closing parens like that makes the language difficult to read without a text editor for matching. And it hurts my eyes ;-).
Just think of it as trading all of your semicolons, colons, parentheses, braces, brackets and weirdo digraphs and trigraphs (e.g., ->) -- all that line noise -- for two characters, opening and closing parentheses. Once you do, you stop seeing them.
(Trust me. If you don't, note that I made a similar comment in the past and a C++ type did some actual comparisons that backed me up.)
The gains are metalinguistic: Your programs are now infinitely malleable by other programs, you can customize the lexical and syntactic structure of the language, you can effortlessly write new languages on top of Lisp (ever check out the internal representations of GCC?), etc.
Hello world in python, at it's easiest, is print "hello, world"
How about (write-line "hello, world")?
Lispers feel the same way about about have Lots of InSpired Parentheses, if this makes any sense.
Common Lisp as had this capability for 15 years. The following is from Macintosh Common Lisp:
I think I may have just found most verbose man ever. I'm awed by the miniscule size of my scrollbar, and there are hardly any comments!
You prefer the sarcastic barbs of linguist/banana republic dictator Lary Wall?!? (Incidentally, Kent's undergraduate degree is in linguistics.)
Or the detached arrogance of Bjarne Stoustroup (sp)?
Assume the position and be Wayne and Garth to Kent's Steven Tyler.
how can you write a math formula like that!!!
;-)
You should see how Lisp folks wretch when they seem the horrors the **ML crowd has foisted on the world.
Aren't you tired of serving Lord infix and the dark side, Darth?
Also:
(1) Peter Norvig's "Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp"
(2) Sonya Keene's "Object-Oriented Programming in Common Losp: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS"
(3) Paul Graham's "ANSI Common Lisp"
(4) Paul Graham's "On Lisp: Advanced Techniques for Common Lisp"
(5) Friedman, Wand, and Haynes's "Essentials of Programming Languages"
one of the best ways to be introduced to Lisp: Emacs.
Emacs lisp is an old dialect. It differs fundamentally from Common Lisp and Scheme in lacking lexical variable bindings. Avoid it in favor of free versions of the newer dialects if your purpose is to understand Lisp as it has been for the past twenty years. Especially explore Common Lisp, which includes so much cool functionality as part of the standard. For example: I believe that Common Lisp was the first object-oriented programming language to become an ANSI standard.
Anyone have any good docs/books they used to learn lisp/scheme quickly and easily (more than just an amazon/google search)?
Check out the Association of Lisp Users web site for references. I believe Dave Touretzky has made his very good introductory book available online and Dave Lamkins has also written a long web-based tutorial.
Also, the introductory course at MIT uses the fabled 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' which I believe is also available online. It covers Scheme, not Common Lisp, though.
Representing programs as S-expressions, incidentally, has one terrible cost - it's hostile to comments. Because there's no place to hang the comments, LISP code tends to be uncommented within the text of the code.
Actually, quite the opposite. Because Lisp programs have a nested tree structure and there are universal indentation conventions, any single expression in a Lisp program can be isolated on its own line in a way that's natural to the reader, and then commented. Plus, Common Lisp (like all decent languages) permits inline comments: #| comment |#.
Poorly written code in ANY language displays the qualities you attribute uniquely to Lisp.
Whoa. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Or a document where the number of links could be described in that fashion.
You should check out Kent's HyperSpec. It's an amazing (and amazingly useful) document. Just project the obvious thoughtfulness of his replies over a huge document and imagine the result.
My friend who graduated from Harvard said that he wished he learned Java instead of Lisp so he could of learned something he would use in the world.
Learning Common Lisp as an undergraduate at CMU in the late 1980s changed my life for the better. I guess to each his own.
Then again, isn't one of the goals of a CS degree to expose you to a variety of computational paradigms? Lisp is quite unlike C, C++, Objective C, and the like. Certainly worth a semester or two of exposure.
Perhaps it is your friend that has the problem if all he could handle in college was one freakin' language.
And try parallel programing with lisp. There simply isn't such a thing. Sad, sad.
When you grow tired of sticking your head in the sand, have a look at ITA's website. They make the software that powers Orbitz's web site. If this is not an impressive testament to Common Lisp's ability to do industrial strength parallel programming, I'm not sure what would satisfy you.
You are correct that Common Lisp lacks a standard definition of parallel programming constructs, and thus parallel programs must use vendor-specific extensions. (There are some efforts to abstract over the differences.) In this regard, Common Lisp seems in the same boat as most other languages.
currently high-level languages like Lisp are good for early prototyping and development stages, but lack the library hooks and other trappings needed for real, industrial strength application development.
Like what? Common Lisp is as capable of writing 'industrial strength' applications as any other languages. And its dynamic properties mean that you can debug them on-line, without taking systems down for massive recompiles.
what i'd like to see Lisp and Smalltalk and Eiffel develop is a good compiler and a good interface to the system and GUI code.
(no, Java does not cut it.)
Commercial Common Lisp compilers are good enough. What do they lack their C/C++, Java, and other counterparts? (Specific technical features please.)
As far as GUI coding goes, ALL languages but Java seem in the same leaky boat when it comes to developing cross-platform applications. (Java is in its own boat, one with different problems than the rest.)
Doest this meen that I'm allowed to like amazon again?
Yes.
-- Jeff B.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of Creationism, which this margin is too small to contain.
Does this mean that in several hundred years, a descendenat of Andrew Wiles will prove Creationism true?