The traditional way to learn a new programming language is to keep
programming in that language and track improvements. That is what I
was told when I went to school.
Assuming that one is a "C" programmer, are there any non-traditonal
ways to learn to think in Lisp effectively? Or, more actually, CLOS?
Would a knowledge of "formal methods" help in this regard? (Probably,
to reverse engineer tons of Lisp code :-))
Thanks for any comments.
--Ramu
In article <····················@cadsun.corp.mot.com> ····@cadsun.corp.mot.com (Ramu Iyer) writes:
The traditional way to learn a new programming language is to keep
programming in that language and track improvements. That is what I
was told when I went to school.
I think the best way to learn anything is to balance reading
and doing. Lisp isn't particularly different in this regard.
Assuming that one is a "C" programmer, are there any non-traditonal
ways to learn to think in Lisp effectively? Or, more actually, CLOS?
The biggest problem with Lisp programming vs. C/Fortran/PL1/Algol/etc
is that Lisp generally uses slightly different paradigms for
non-numerical problem solving. For numerical problems there isn't
much difference.
CLOS is a horse of a different color though. I'd say that CLOS has
plenty in common with C++/Objective-C/St-80 and one needs many of the
same skills in designing effective and efficient classes. Once you're
past the object nature though, you're back to the Lisp vs. your
favorite block structured language differences for the actual coding.
IMHO - the most important part of conventional programming code design
is the choice and implementation of effectivate data representation
types. This is (to me) true for all (computer) languages. Clearly
the representations change dependent on the language. This is doubly
the case in an object oriented language where much of the strength of
the language comes from this area.
--
Douglas S. Rand <·····@osf.org> OSF/Motif Dev.
Snail: 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142
Disclaimer: I don't know if OSF agrees with me... let's vote on it.
Amateur Radio: KC1KJ