From: Emre Sevinc
Subject: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87sm878t67.fsf@bilgi.edu.tr>
Hi,
This is my first message to comp.lang.lisp and I wanted
to share my impressions.
After reading Paul Graham's articles, peeking at a few pages
of Purple Book, exchanging lots of mails with BM I decided
to learn Lisp. Right now I'm using the draft of yet-to-be-published
book of Seibel (coupled with Emacs on a Debian GNU/Linux
which is my home-PC).
I had a simple motivation, namely, these guys who are so enthusiastic
about the power of Lisp can't be wrong, at least they must
be taken seriously:
- Paul Graham
- Richard M. Stallman
- Alan Kay
- Eric S. Raymond
- ... (list your favorite & prominent programmer who used Lisp
to achieve something great)
So I decided to see by myself.
Currently I'm a 28 year old Internet programmer (and a Cognitive Science
grad. student) who is spending his days using ASP, HTML, DHTML, JScript,
VBScript, SQL, T-SQL in the Microsoft environment and building
e-Learning systems for the university. I also have some professional
C programming experience, tackled a little bit Perl, played with Java,
C# etc.
As a Lisp newbie I must admit that what I've seen up to now
simply IMPRESSED me! Some of the things in Lisp would simply
save my life had they existed in VBScript, JScript, T-SQL, etc.
That macro stuff (as far as I could see from Seibel's book) simply
rocks! This is what I call abstraction! ;-) I'm excited because I'm
a keen supporter of the idea that there's nothing like a good notation and
the power of being to able express things in THEIR NATURAL WAY
is the most important thing, thus domain-specific languages, domain
specific modelling is VERY VERY important. Lisp tradition looks like
to have this notion for a very long time ;-)
I hope more and more people will realize the importance of the
concepts and I'll try to show people the better ways of computing
and creating systems as much as I can.
I'll keep on sharing my excitement as I move forward in this
world and I won't hesitate to ask for insights and enlightment
from Lispmeisters using this newsgroup.
My best wishes from Istanbul, Turkey
to all the programmers here. :)
Regards,
Emre Sevinc
http://ileriseviye.org
http://fazlamesai.net
http://cazci.com
In article <··············@bilgi.edu.tr>,
Emre Sevinc <·····@bilgi.edu.tr> wrote:
Welcome!
> Currently I'm a 28 year old Internet programmer (and a Cognitive Science
> grad. student) who is spending his days using ASP, HTML, DHTML, JScript,
> VBScript, SQL, T-SQL in the Microsoft environment and building
> e-Learning systems for the university. I also have some professional
> C programming experience, tackled a little bit Perl, played with Java,
> C# etc.
Common Lisp has long been and continues to be used by Learning
Scientists, so mastering the language may be more than a technical
win -- it may also help your academic career. For example, a number
of intelligent tutors are written in Common Lisp, as you may know.
Perhaps the best-known ones are the cognitive tutors developed at
Carnegie Mellon:
http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreview.html?res=9E00E4D81E30F
935A2575AC0A9629C8B63
Other intelligent tutors have been developed at MIT, Northwestern,
Vanderbilt, the University of Pittsburgh's LRDC, and SRI.
Common Lisp is also used in a number of other learning systems,
such as open-ended modeling environments. The following are
(or were) affiliated with the University of Colorado:
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/projects/hypergami/
http://agentsheets.com/index.html
[Older versions were written in Common Lisp. I'm not sure
about the current version.]
From: Emre Sevinc
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87r7npvedo.fsf@bilgi.edu.tr>
Sashank Varma <····@vanderbilt.edu> writes:
> From: Sashank Varma <····@vanderbilt.edu>
> Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:24:18 -0500
> Organization: Vanderbilt University
>
> In article <··············@bilgi.edu.tr>,
> Emre Sevinc <·····@bilgi.edu.tr> wrote:
>
> Welcome!
>
>> Currently I'm a 28 year old Internet programmer (and a Cognitive Science
>> grad. student) who is spending his days using ASP, HTML, DHTML, JScript,
>> ...
>
> Common Lisp has long been and continues to be used by Learning
> Scientists, so mastering the language may be more than a technical
> win -- it may also help your academic career. For example, a number
> of intelligent tutors are written in Common Lisp, as you may know.
> Perhaps the best-known ones are the cognitive tutors developed at
> Carnegie Mellon:
>
> http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreview.html?res=9E00E4D81E30F
> 935A2575AC0A9629C8B63
Thanks for the link. Yes, I'm interested in learning systems, the more intelligent,
interactive and adaptive they are the better. Especially web based adaptive
tutoring systems can be an interesting topic to explore. I was shown
an interesting system:
http://apsymac33.uni-trier.de:8080/Lisp-Course
And the article about it:
http://www.psychologie.uni-trier.de/projects/ELM/Papers/UM97-WEBER.html
Maybe I can try to develop a system as a master thesis,
using Lisp in order to develop a similar system to exploit human psychology
for cognitive tutoring.
>
> Other intelligent tutors have been developed at MIT, Northwestern,
> Vanderbilt, the University of Pittsburgh's LRDC, and SRI.
>
> Common Lisp is also used in a number of other learning systems,
> such as open-ended modeling environments. The following are
> (or were) affiliated with the University of Colorado:
> http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/projects/hypergami/
I also looked at AgentSheets, it says: "AgentSheets is written in Java",
I wonder why they switched to Java.
Emre Sevinc
In article <··············@bilgi.edu.tr>,
Emre Sevinc <·····@bilgi.edu.tr> wrote:
> > Common Lisp is also used in a number of other learning systems,
> > such as open-ended modeling environments. The following are
> > (or were) affiliated with the University of Colorado:
> > http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ctg/projects/hypergami/
>
> I also looked at AgentSheets, it says: "AgentSheets is written in Java",
> I wonder why they switched to Java.
Early versions were written in Macintosh Common Lisp. This
was back when it was an academic project. It's now a
commercial enteprise. Perhaps the folks who control the
purse strings demanded a language shift; I don't know.
I am pretty sure at one point AgentSheets was written in
Lisp but could wrap simulation models as Java applets,
so that users could package them for use on any (Java-
enabled) browser. Perhaps it is still in this stage?
If not, you may still be able to work with the earlier,
Lisp version, which I assume is still available on the
net somewhere as unsupported software.
Hello, and welcome to the wonderful world of Lisp. Enjoy your flight!
> I also looked at AgentSheets, it says: "AgentSheets is written in Java",
> I wonder why they switched to Java.
I think their Macintosh software is still Lisp-based (they develop in
MCL). Along with supporting Windows and Linux, the other reason they
have a version of AgentSheets in Java is so that you can put your
simulation into a Java applet.
Vladimir
PS - I'm surprised Kenny Tilton hasn't asked you to do this yet, but
he's got a project where he gets all the newcomers to fill out a
survey about them and Lisp:
http://alu.cliki.net/The%20Road%20to%20Lisp%20Survey
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87ekjncxp7.fsf@nyct.net>
Emre Sevinc <·····@bilgi.edu.tr> writes:
> I had a simple motivation, namely, these guys who are so enthusiastic
> about the power of Lisp can't be wrong, at least they must
> be taken seriously:
[...]
> - Eric S. Raymond
HEH. He told me personally that Lisp is bad because macros can be badly
implemented.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87y8hv7b54.fsf@p4.internal>
>>>>> "RJ" == Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
[...]
>> - Eric S. Raymond
RJ> HEH. He told me personally that Lisp is bad because macros can
RJ> be badly implemented.
ESR did? Was this in the macro hygiene context? Was Aunt Tillie involved?
Should we have a "macros are hard, let's go shopping" thread?
cheers,
BM
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87d5z7bdt0.fsf@nyct.net>
Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> writes:
>>>>>> "RJ" == Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> [...]
> >> - Eric S. Raymond
>
> RJ> HEH. He told me personally that Lisp is bad because macros can
> RJ> be badly implemented.
>
> ESR did? Was this in the macro hygiene context?
If it was, he didn't make it explicit, and the discussion was just about
Lisp in general.
> Was Aunt Tillie involved?
> Should we have a "macros are hard, let's go shopping" thread?
I was honestly shocked to hear someone supposedly so smart say something
like that. And afterwards, he was coming up with some design for some
app using Python that reimplemented some feature of CL... Go figure.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain wrote:
> Bulent Murtezaoglu <··@acm.org> writes:
> >>>>>> "RJ" == Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> > >> - Eric S. Raymond
> >
> > RJ> HEH. He told me personally that Lisp is bad because
> > RJ> macros can be badly implemented.
> >
> > ESR did? Was this in the macro hygiene context?
>
> If it was, he didn't make it explicit, and the discussion was
> just about Lisp in general.
It'd be great if "someone" went through free software and displayed
examples of good macros, with stuff like helpful error messages, etc...
MfG,
Tayssir
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> Emre Sevinc <·····@bilgi.edu.tr> writes:
>
> > I had a simple motivation, namely, these guys who are so enthusiastic
> > about the power of Lisp can't be wrong, at least they must
> > be taken seriously:
> [...]
> > - Eric S. Raymond
>
> HEH. He told me personally that Lisp is bad because macros can be badly
> implemented.
So by induction, programming languages are bad because programs can be
badly implemented.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87acu8lr6t.fsf@nyct.net>
David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> writes:
> So by induction, programming languages are bad because programs can be
> badly implemented.
Steele did it better on ll2-discuss. :)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: surendra
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <cluupr$mg7$1@news.asu.edu>
Rahul Jain wrote:
> David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> writes:
>
>
>>So by induction, programming languages are bad because programs can be
>>badly implemented.
>
>
> Steele did it better on ll2-discuss. :)
>
What is 112-discuss?
Surendra Singhi
From: Emre Sevinc
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <87hdoc9uwo.fsf@bilgi.edu.tr>
surendra <·········@netscape.net> writes:
> Rahul Jain wrote:
>
>> David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> writes:
>>
>>>So by induction, programming languages are bad because programs can be
>>>badly implemented.
>> Steele did it better on ll2-discuss. :)
>>
>
> What is 112-discuss?
>
> Surendra Singhi
I guess it is not 11 but ll, which makes it ll2-discuss,
and I think ll is related to "lightweight languages Workshop 2002"
and the related URL is:
http://ll2.ai.mit.edu/
(if (not (correct-guessp my-guess))
(correct me))
--
Emre Sevinc
eMBA Software Developer
Istanbul Bilgi University
http://www.bilgi.edu.tr
http://www.bilgiemba.net
Cognitive Science Student
http://www.cogsci.boun.edu.tr
Actively engaged in:
http://ileriseviye.org -- Advanced level technical articles
http://fazlamesai.net -- /. style geek & nerd site in Turkish (better than /.)
http://cazci.com -- All about jazz
From: surendra
Subject: Re: Newbie saluting the international Lisp community
Date:
Message-ID: <cm2j27$jru$2@news.asu.edu>
Emre Sevinc wrote:
>
> (if (not (correct-guessp my-guess))
> (correct me))
>
>
>
That was funny.
Surendra Singhi