An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
advanced software using a language they don't know.
Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
for the project...and why?
1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
etc.)
4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
VisualWorks Smalltalk.
6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
(non-hypothetical) exercise.
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
You're probably boned either way, but I'd suggest the smalltalk route
since the GUI is prettier for the non-programmers and the language is
slightly less obsolete.
Cheers,
Kelly
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <z2QHd.1$fp1.1045@typhoon.nyu.edu>
Kelly Hall wrote:
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
>
>> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
>> for the project...and why?
>
>
> You're probably boned either way, but I'd suggest the smalltalk route
> since the GUI is prettier for the non-programmers and the language is
> slightly less obsolete.
If the OP is willing to use a commercial product, Lispworks gives you
native look and feel on Windows and the Mac. The interfaces are very
pretty.
... and since, last I checked, Smalltalk did not have decent and
standardized multi-methods, I'd reassess Common Lisp obsolescence and
Smalltalk modernity. :)
... plus ...
http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=247&page=1
Soemthing we lispers have known all along. :)
Cheers
--
Marco
Kelly Hall <·····@acm.org> writes:
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> > Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> > for the project...and why?
>
> You're probably boned either way, but I'd suggest the smalltalk route
> since the GUI is prettier for the non-programmers and the language is
> slightly less obsolete.
Yes, but OP wrote that there won't be any GUI, only a WUI.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Litter box not here.
You must have moved it again.
I'll poop in the sink.
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cso25u$que$1@snic.vub.ac.be>
Kelly Hall wrote:
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
>
>> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
>> for the project...and why?
>
> You're probably boned either way, but I'd suggest the smalltalk route
> since the GUI is prettier for the non-programmers and the language is
> slightly less obsolete.
I think the obsolesence of both languages are on par.
Pascal
P.S.: I have been recently to a meeting of Smalltalkers who organize a
conference for their language. Yes, the community seems pretty active.
Same for Lisp. Don't make the mistake to think that you're the only
underdogs. ;)
From: Martin DeMello
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <1yKHd.129051$Xk.21424@pd7tw3no>
In comp.lang.lisp ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
Depending on your requirements, take a look at Ruby too - to a very
simplified approximation, it's Smalltalk with a Unix accent.
martin
I realize that Ruby is cool, but it has too much of a Perl odor to it
for me. [No offense to anyone, of course, just not my cup of tea.]
If we went with a scripting language, we would be much more likely to
use Python because of the available libraries and existing code (for
NLP, groupware, etc.)
Although we really like the learning curve of Python, some of the
reasons we nixed it in favor of Lisp/Smalltalk are:
1. I really dig image-based development.
2. Slower execution of Python scripts (even using Psyco,etc.)
3. Not ideally suited if we ever have to deploy standalone executables
in the future.
From: Stefan Scholl
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <61xtygjyu1iz.dlg@parsec.no-spoon.de>
On 2005-01-20 10:34:04, ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> I realize that Ruby is cool, but it has too much of a Perl odor to it
> for me. [No offense to anyone, of course, just not my cup of tea.]
>
> If we went with a scripting language, we would be much more likely to
> use Python
__foo__?
·······@runbox.com writes:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
Both are valid choices.
The major problem you have is point 1.
Why don't you hire programmers to do programming works?
Do you hire electricians to cook?
Or nurses to install your electric wires and transformers?
Now, if you'd hire me, I would rather use Common-Lisp, since I'm
slightly more experienced with it than with Smalltalk.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Nobody can fix the economy. Nobody can be trusted with their finger
on the button. Nobody's perfect. VOTE FOR NOBODY.
> The major problem you have is point 1.
>
> Why don't you hire programmers to do programming works?
>
> Do you hire electricians to cook?
>
> Or nurses to install your electric wires and transformers?
Though obviously not an ideal situation, there are two reasons for this
requirement:
1. It is a low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a
budget to bring in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary.
2. The management wishes to develop more in-house programmers. One
of the better ways to promote from within and to cultivate a deeper
pool of talent is thru on-the-job training...and we might as well be
training while building something useful, eh?
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <umzv4l8bs.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> > The major problem you have is point 1.
> >
> > Why don't you hire programmers to do programming works?
> >
> > Do you hire electricians to cook?
> >
> > Or nurses to install your electric wires and transformers?
>
>
> Though obviously not an ideal situation, there are two reasons for this
> requirement:
>
> 1. It is a low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a
> budget to bring in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary.
>
> 2. The management wishes to develop more in-house programmers. One
> of the better ways to promote from within and to cultivate a deeper
> pool of talent is thru on-the-job training...and we might as well be
> training while building something useful, eh?
>
Then use Lisp, so that they will learn to use the best tool.
From: Cesar Rabak
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <41EFD931.3060905@acm.org>
·······@runbox.com escreveu:
>>The major problem you have is point 1.
>>
>>Why don't you hire programmers to do programming works?
>>
>>Do you hire electricians to cook?
>>
>>Or nurses to install your electric wires and transformers?
>
>
>
> Though obviously not an ideal situation, there are two reasons for this
> requirement:
>
> 1. It is a low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a
> budget to bring in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary.
>
If you put this in the table, I think the best approach would be to
develop the intended SW using the knowledge the team already have.
> 2. The management wishes to develop more in-house programmers. One
> of the better ways to promote from within and to cultivate a deeper
> pool of talent is thru on-the-job training...and we might as well be
> training while building something useful, eh?
>
The outcomes of an on the job training process tend to be exercises of
programming, very seldom 'production' artifacts. _If_ you can factor
this _very_ clearly, you have a chance, otherwise. . .
--
Cesar Rabak
From: Steven Kelly
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <TDKHd.130$%w5.30@read3.inet.fi>
<·······@runbox.com> wrote in message ·····························@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
I'd suggest you use Java or C#. Then when the project fails, you can blame these languages and everybody will be happy
(most importantly, the denizens of c.l.l. and c.l.s.) ;->
More seriously, I don't know current Lisp capabilities for XML and web apps, but certainly VW can do this and Smalltalk
may be easier to learn as a language than Lisp, for this team. Whether this is true also depends on the teachers,
presumably the 'real programmers'. In any case, I don't want to start a language war over which is easier to learn: I
found Lisp exciting and easy to learn, but Smalltalk even easier. I suspect VW Smaltalk's better IDE played a
significant role.
Steve
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <XTVHd.131614$8l.127316@pd7tw1no>
Steven Kelly wrote:
> <·······@runbox.com> wrote in message ·····························@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>
>>Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
>>put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
>>advanced software using a language they don't know.
>>
>>Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
>>for the project...and why?
>>
>>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
>>2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
>>3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
>>etc.)
>>4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
>>processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
>>5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
>>VisualWorks Smalltalk.
>>6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
>>7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
>>8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
>
> I'd suggest you use Java or C#. Then when the project fails, you can blame these languages and everybody will be happy
> (most importantly, the denizens of c.l.l. and c.l.s.) ;->
>
> More seriously, I don't know current Lisp capabilities for XML and web apps,
Well, i write all my web apps in Lisp, so maybe i can fill you in. IMO,
there is no better language for developing web apps. If you have to use
XML, you can't beat lisp as XML can be transformed to sexps, then
manipulated like any other piece of lisp code. That, mixed with a nice
framework for web-continuations (UncommonWeb serves me well, for
smalltalk there is seaside), and you are light-years ahead of the
scripters. And ,, it's compiled to machine code. fastest web-apps on the
planet.
I've got a little bit on web programming at my lisp wiki if you want to
know a little more :
http://lisp.tech.coop/Web%20Programming
but certainly VW can do this and Smalltalk
> may be easier to learn as a language than Lisp, for this team. Whether this is true also depends on the teachers,
> presumably the 'real programmers'. In any case, I don't want to start a language war over which is easier to learn: I
> found Lisp exciting and easy to learn, but Smalltalk even easier. I suspect VW Smaltalk's better IDE played a
> significant role.
I don't use an IDE (well .. emacs), but i found lisp quite easy compared
to smalltalk. Maybe it's because i never liked the message-passing OO
thing... i never understood objects until i met CLOS.
drewc
>
> Steve
>
>
From: Chris Uppal
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <O-idnXxgp6PAH3LcRVn-tQ@nildram.net>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
I'm not a lisper, so I may be biased. Still, I'd have expected that Smalltalk
would be better suited to (3) -- which you say is the bulk of the project --
so, even though I doubt if Smalltalk would be better for (4), I'd guess that ST
would be the better overall. However...
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
Then you have no choice but to use whatever the "couple of real programmers"
are /already/ comfortable with.
You mentioned that this is at least partially a training exercise, but there's
no way that you can use it to train the /entire/ team at the same time. Either
the "real programmers" are teaching (ST or Lisp or whatever) or they are
learning it. I doubt whether you stand a cat in Hell's chance if you expect
them to be doing both at once.
-- chris
Chris,
I totally agree with your point, but this isn't really an issue in this
specific case.
The "real programmers" that will mentor the team will probably be
drawn from a consulting agency we work with depending on which language
we choose. They have several full-time Smalltalk and Lisp programmers
that all have experience as instructors.
I didn't spell that out to start with because...well, I didn't want
financially biased answers or emailed resumes in response to a serious
question...I've had bad experiences with that sort of thing in the
past.
("Platform X is the ONLY solution for this problem...by the way, I
happen to specialize in Platform X, and for a per diem of only...")
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <u1xcgla6c.fsf@agharta.de>
On 19 Jan 2005 23:49:05 -0800, ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired
> boss put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some
> fairly advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or
> Smalltalk for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
Yes, this is sick.
Sorry, but it really smells like a troll. What on earth do you expect
except for most of the c.l.s inhabitants recommending Smalltalk and
most of the c.l.l inhabitants recommending Lisp? If you're lucky you
get a nice flame war and I guess this is what you want.
If you were serious you wouldn't crosspost this to both groups but
you'd ask specific questions in the individual groups.
Edi.
PS: Follow-up to comp.lang.lisp set.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi,
This is not a troll, and I'm most definitely NOT trying to start a
language war.
I didn't ask which language was "better." I asked which language would
be best for this specific scenario AND WHY. I'm more concerned with
the WHY. Obviously, the inexperienced team is the overriding concern -
so I hoped to get a feel for which language had the shorter learning
curve (including tools) and would be easier to grasp for people who
have no background in computer science. I'm assuming the obvious
answer would be Smalltalk as it was designed as a "first programming
language" or whatever, but I'm new enough to both languages that I
thought there might be a something I'm overlooking IN THE LONG RUN.
I didn't ask more specific questions to start because I didn't want to
unduly influence the direction of the discussion - and perhaps miss out
on a post about something that I would have never thought about.
Some specific things I'm interested in:
CLOS is both more flexible and more complex as an O-O system than
Smalltalk, as I understand it - do you think the pros of this
flexibility outweigh the cons of the complexity when dealing with
inexperienced programmers on the one hand and the algorithmic
complexity of NLP on the other hand?
I read an older Usenet posting about the advantages of encapsulation
and "how you think objects should behave" that struck a chord with
me...I was hoping for more of that type of discussion.
The suitability of both languages for NLP. Lisp is, I would think,
much more commonly used in NLP, but I read that Smalltalk is also very
strong...? Specific pros and cons? (Mark Watson...anybody?)
All things (algorithms,etc.) being equal, compiled Lisp is presumably
faster than compiled (VM) Smalltalk...will that be an issue when I'm
talking about performing NLP operations on 30,000 data feeds? Is
there anything I should know about threading issues for this sort of
problem domain? (Green threads vs. native threads, specific
implementation differences and pros/cons between SBCL, VW, and LW?)
Differences in deployment issues and ease between the various options?
It's 4 a.m. where I'm at, so I'm just rambling...but it is a serious
post and I'm very interested in any and all (legitimate) points anyone
thinks I should consider....
Thanks,
- Sergei
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87u0pcjmyg.fsf@p4.internal>
>>>>> "d" == devmail <·······@runbox.com> writes:
[...]
d> CLOS is both more flexible and more complex as an O-O system
d> than Smalltalk, as I understand it - do you think the pros of
d> this flexibility outweigh the cons of the complexity when
d> dealing with inexperienced programmers on the one hand and the
d> algorithmic complexity of NLP on the other hand?
Complexity of of CLOS is only there when you try to use it to do complex
things. It does not get in your way otherwise. For efficiency your
problem will probably be your trainees not knowing how to produce
efficient code. (CLOS may give you larger constants over say
defstruct structs but you won't care if your guys are writing
O(n^3) code anyway). If you'll be doing exploratory programming, CLOS
is probably the right choice to get things working quickly. Once you
know how you'll do what you are doing, you can benchmark and
rewrite/refactor.
[...]
d> All things (algorithms,etc.) being equal, compiled Lisp is
d> presumably faster than compiled (VM) Smalltalk...will that be
d> an issue when I'm talking about performing NLP operations on
d> 30,000 data feeds?
Your 30000 data feeds themselves will be a problem. Will they be coming
in simultaneously from the net? Will you guys be up to writing code that
can handle 30k network streams? (spinning 30k threads probably will not
do it on reasonably cheap hardware, you could multiplex them into a single
feed by additional code or do event loops &c.).
d> Is there anything I should know about
d> threading issues for this sort of problem domain? (Green
d> threads vs. native threads, specific implementation differences
d> and pros/cons between SBCL, VW, and LW?) [...]
I'd do a back-of-envelope calculation to see how much memory, etc. I'd
need. You may need a 64 bit machine for this. (then again I haven't
seen original problem was so maybe these are all non-issues). You
won't need it for develeopment of the NLP part, of course, but if
that's the way it seems you'll have to go you'd need to choose a
system that can do 64 bit natively.
cheers,
BM
From: Lars Brinkhoff
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <85k6q8p901.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> Specific pros and cons?
Lisp is really good with cons.
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opskwar8d2pqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On 19 Jan 2005 23:49:05 -0800, <·······@runbox.com> wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
How fast does the code need to run?
Learning python is much quicker than any of the alternatives you mentioned.
In any case you should have a pilot project to get the programmers up to
speed.
Better to have them learn by making mistakes there than in you application.
For a console based app I would prefer Lisp but it probly take 6 months
for the programmers to get productive in it. Are you sure you can afford
NOT to hire experienced programmers. (you can get consultants from
say manpower for temporary employment.)
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:46:46 +0100, John Thingstad wrote:
> Better to have them learn by making mistakes there than in you
> application. For a console based app I would prefer Lisp but it probly
> take 6 months for the programmers to get productive in it. Are you sure
> you can afford NOT to hire experienced programmers. (you can get
> consultants from say manpower for temporary employment.)
That raises a question. How long does it take to learn and be proficient
in a given language? Most material on the net is of a technical nature,
and generally ignores the human aspects.
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87fz0vkimt.fsf@p4.internal>
>>>>> "BR" == BR <··········@comcast.net> writes:
[...]
BR> That raises a question. How long does it take to learn and be
BR> proficient in a given language? Most material on the net is of
BR> a technical nature, and generally ignores the human aspects.
Most, but not all:
http://www.norvig.com/21-days.html
BM
>>>>>>"BR" == BR <··········@comcast.net> writes:
>
> [...]
> BR> That raises a question. How long does it take to learn and be
> BR> proficient in a given language? Most material on the net is of
> BR> a technical nature, and generally ignores the human aspects.
I think it would be harder for a good programmer to change editors than
to change languages. I do not recall slowing down much at all when I
switch to Lisp, because all the advantages over C made up for --- well,
if you just code C-style then away you go. But I can remember having to
stop to think about how to write (lambda...now what was that? So for a
good programmer they will not slow down when switching to Lisp, but they
won't hit warp speed for a few months.
The only catch is that for many programmers changing to Lisp also means
learning a new editor. doh! But the commercial lisps's editors are not
as decelerating as Emacs.
:)
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Martin DeMello
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <h95Id.135152$8l.21176@pd7tw1no>
In comp.lang.lisp Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> I think it would be harder for a good programmer to change editors than
> to change languages.
Quotefiled!
martin
From: Brian Downing
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <jveId.16051$ox3.4579@attbi_s04>
In article <·····················@twister.nyc.rr.com>,
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> The only catch is that for many programmers changing to Lisp also means
> learning a new editor. doh! But the commercial lisps's editors are not
> as decelerating as Emacs.
No, they just have a lower speed limit.
*ducks, runs*
(To be fair, Lispworks' editor looks pretty good to me, although it's
missing tons of operations from GNU Emacs that I expect to be there by
default. Allegro's editor did not impress me, though perhaps I had not
managed to switch it out of Windows-lusering mode.)
-bcd
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <873bws2evm.fsf@nyct.net>
Brian Downing <·············@lavos.net> writes:
> To be fair, Lispworks' editor looks pretty good to me, although it's
> missing tons of operations from GNU Emacs that I expect to be there by
> default.
It's actually a Hemlock, which is an Emacs. It just doesn't have as many
commands and packages written for it as GNU Emacs does.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opsk2odqstpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:13:01 -0500, Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> wrote:
> Brian Downing <·············@lavos.net> writes:
>
>> To be fair, Lispworks' editor looks pretty good to me, although it's
>> missing tons of operations from GNU Emacs that I expect to be there by
>> default.
>
> It's actually a Hemlock, which is an Emacs. It just doesn't have as many
> commands and packages written for it as GNU Emacs does.
>
Nor does it need it.
It is primarily designed to edit lisp files.
Since it isn't a OS shell, mail browser Internet browse etc.
it dosn't need as much. I still claim for editing Lisp it
is quite adequate.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
On 8999 day of my life John Thingstad wrote:
>> It's actually a Hemlock, which is an Emacs. It just doesn't have as many
>> commands and packages written for it as GNU Emacs does.
>
> Nor does it need it.
> It is primarily designed to edit lisp files.
> Since it isn't a OS shell, mail browser Internet browse etc.
> it dosn't need as much. I still claim for editing Lisp it
> is quite adequate.
But it lacks dired-mode, CVS/SVN/whatever integration and many other
packages important for *development*, not just editing.
--
Ivan Boldyrev
Violets are red, Roses are blue. //
I'm schizophrenic, And so am I.
From: Friedrich Dominicus
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87is5shts2.fsf@q-software-solutions.de>
"John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
>
> How fast does the code need to run?
> Learning python is much quicker than any of the alternatives you
> mentioned.
Why should it be easier to learn Python then Smalltalk?
Friedrich
--
Please remove just-for-news- to reply via e-mail.
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opskwxu3lgpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:53:01 +0100, Friedrich Dominicus
<···················@q-software-solutions.de> wrote:
> "John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
>>
>> How fast does the code need to run?
>> Learning python is much quicker than any of the alternatives you
>> mentioned.
> Why should it be easier to learn Python then Smalltalk?
>
> Friedrich
Python has a somewhat simpler syntax.
There s a great python tutorial that you can run through in a day.
Already then you can start programming python.
There is a vast number of libraries to interface to the OS.
This includes SAX/DOM support to read and process your XML files.
Python is slow but the libraries, written in C/C++ are not.
So for many applications python seems fast enough.
The exception is extensive calculations.
Even then there is a module num-py which pretty much solves this.
The best way to figure out what you think is to try the python tutorial
and see for yourself. (www.python.org)
Python has a intuitive syntax and things have a tendency to work as a
person expects.
Python was also originally designed to teach people programming
but has proven itself powerful enough for application development.
Smalltalk's syntax is cryptic and takes time to get used to
also it is almost impossible to write a algorithm in a straight
forward way as all you have are messages.
Again download squeak (a MS Windows free environment) and
see for yourself. (www.squeak.org)
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
From: Jeff Brooks
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <15WHd.132118$6l.86081@pd7tw2no>
John Thingstad wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:53:01 +0100, Friedrich Dominicus
> <···················@q-software-solutions.de> wrote:
>
>> Why should it be easier to learn Python then Smalltalk?
>
> Python has a somewhat simpler syntax.
Actually, Smalltalk has a simplier syntax than Python.
... snip ...
> Smalltalk's syntax is cryptic and takes time to get used to
> also it is almost impossible to write a algorithm in a straight
> forward way as all you have are messages.
All syntax seems cryptic until you get used to it.
It's easy to write algorithms in Smalltalk using messages.
... snip ...
Jeff Brooks
From: Ng Pheng Siong
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <csqb3t$agg$1@nobel.pacific.net.sg>
According to John Thingstad <··············@chello.no>:
> Python has a somewhat simpler syntax.
> [...]
> Smalltalk's syntax is cryptic
This is backasswards.
> [Smalltalk syntax] takes time to get used to
This is true, if only because many people are used to Algol-style syntax.
But I don't think that takes more time than it does to get used to Python's
whitespace-based indentation.
--
Ng Pheng Siong <····@netmemetic.com>
http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps -+- M2Crypto, ZServerSSL for Zope, Blog
http://www.sqlcrypt.com -+- Database Engine with Transparent AES Encryption
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opskx1d2pcpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 07:31:10 +0000 (UTC), Ng Pheng Siong
<····@netmemetic.com> wrote:
> According to John Thingstad <··············@chello.no>:
>> Python has a somewhat simpler syntax.
>> [...]
>> Smalltalk's syntax is cryptic
>
> This is backasswards.
>
>> [Smalltalk syntax] takes time to get used to
>
> This is true, if only because many people are used to Algol-style syntax.
> But I don't think that takes more time than it does to get used to
> Python's
> whitespace-based indentation.
>
>
>
Well I can't speak for others.
But for me python is MUCH more intuitive.
It reads like the pseudo code I used to write.
From I started reading the tutorial to I started writing
programs in python took days not weeks.
I find indentation base to be intuitive too.
There is a old saying in list circles:
"The parenthesises are for the compiler, the indentation is for the
programmer."
Well in python there is only the indentation and the interpreter reads
them too.
To me fitting into the smalltalk way of doing things is like putting on
a straight jacket. I can't move freely. Always the smalltalk way of
doing things constrained my expression.
I should perhaps add that like to program using multiple paradigms and
choose the approach I find most appropriate for the exact problem be
it procedural, functional or object oriented.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
From: Ng Pheng Siong
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <csrac7$jt7$1@nobel.pacific.net.sg>
According to John Thingstad <··············@chello.no>:
> But for me python is MUCH more intuitive.
> [...]
> To me fitting into the smalltalk way of doing things is like putting on
> a straight jacket. I can't move freely. Always the smalltalk way of
> doing things constrained my expression.
I am not preaching at you, for I take a dim view of programming language
evangelism personally, so make of the following what you will. ;-)
Here's a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little
exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything
Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with
liquid. "The first cup," said Bruce, "represents all of your knowledge
about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about
martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must
first empty your cup of your knowledge."
I got it from here:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/index.php?p=50
Cheers.
--
Ng Pheng Siong <····@netmemetic.com>
http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps -+- M2Crypto, ZServerSSL for Zope, Blog
http://www.sqlcrypt.com -+- Database Engine with Transparent AES Encryption
····@netmemetic.com (Ng Pheng Siong) writes:
> According to John Thingstad <··············@chello.no>:
> > But for me python is MUCH more intuitive.
> > [...]
> > To me fitting into the smalltalk way of doing things is like putting on
> > a straight jacket. I can't move freely. Always the smalltalk way of
> > doing things constrained my expression.
>
> I am not preaching at you, for I take a dim view of programming language
> evangelism personally, so make of the following what you will. ;-)
>
> Here's a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little
> exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything
> Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with
> liquid. "The first cup," said Bruce, "represents all of your knowledge
> about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about
> martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must
> first empty your cup of your knowledge."
>
> I got it from here:
>
> http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/index.php?p=50
>
> Cheers.
>
I think Bruce Lee must have been alluding to the old Zen koan:
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could restrain himself no
longer. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup", Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and
speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
--
www.fractal-recursions.com
Ng Pheng Siong wrote:
> According to John Thingstad <··············@chello.no>:
>
>>But for me python is MUCH more intuitive.
>>[...]
>>To me fitting into the smalltalk way of doing things is like putting on
>>a straight jacket. I can't move freely. Always the smalltalk way of
>>doing things constrained my expression.
>
>
> I am not preaching at you, for I take a dim view of programming language
> evangelism personally, so make of the following what you will. ;-)
>
> Here's a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little
> exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything
> Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with
> liquid. "The first cup," said Bruce, "represents all of your knowledge
> about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about
> martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must
> first empty your cup of your knowledge."
>
> I got it from here:
>
> http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/index.php?p=50
Good one! Bruce got it from: some students brought their Zen professor
to meet this groovy old monk they had met. The professor came in,
greeted the monk cordially, everyone sat down, and as the monk was
serving tea the learned scholar said, "My young students say you are
wonderful and recommended I come hear you speak on Zen. Students are
easily impressed. Let us see what you can teach me."
At this point the monk reached the professor and filled his cup and kept
on pouring until the cup overflowed. The professor cried out, "Stop! The
cup is full!"
The monk replied, "Your mind is like the cup. I can teach you nothing."
Anyway, I have encountered more than one all-X-all-the-time philosophy
including Smalltalk. They all have the same problem. They take some neat
trick and try to make it serve all needs just because it is neat, and
because they also get excited about the imagined value of consistency.
Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true value in
software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm with the
problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably modeled as a
message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within the
language model. yawn. It also fundamentally breaks the programmability
of the language. One is now doomed to endless mental contortions
whenever the message send is the wrong model, where improved
productivity comes from making the language effectively disappear so
that we are expressing ourselves intuitively as we program.
The supposed value of consistency is making everything will be clearer.
The arrow goes the other way. Single inheritance is likewise presumed to
be simpler. Hello delegation and/or interfaces. And first graders were
supposed to learn arithmetic more easily if they first learned set
theory. Chya.
This is what happens when scholars are allowed to decide what goes on in
the trenches.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <csrlj5$mfo$1@snic.vub.ac.be>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within the
> language model. yawn.
Be careful: It's actually "2 + 2" in Smalltalk while it's "(+ 2 2)" in
Lisp. This is only to say that this is an example in which both
languages make admissions at some level. The question is what level do
you care about.
Pascal
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>> Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within
>> the language model. yawn.
>
>
> Be careful: It's actually "2 + 2" in Smalltalk while it's "(+ 2 2)" in
> Lisp.
True. Lisp does benefit from the ({operator} operands*) consistency, tho
in the case of arithmetic my point is confirmed: expressing a
sufficiently hairy arithemtic expression in Lisp does make me stop and
think. Fortunately that rarely comes up.
Maybe my beef with Smalltalk is that it picked the /wrong/ thing to be
consistent with? Or is it the very message-sending model? Hmmm...
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Darin Johnson
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cu1mzv2o0lg.fsf@nokia.com>
Pascal Costanza <··@p-cos.net> writes:
> Be careful: It's actually "2 + 2" in Smalltalk while it's "(+ 2 2)" in
> Lisp.
And further, "2 + 2" in Smalltalk is rarely a true message send
anyway, and this operates behind the scenes very much like Lisp
(attempt the arithmetic and then trap if the operands don't match).
--
Darin Johnson
I'm not a well adjusted person, but I play one on the net.
From: Hans-Martin Mosner
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <35d8gpF4ic9vfU1@individual.net>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
...
> Anyway, I have encountered more than one all-X-all-the-time philosophy
> including Smalltalk. They all have the same problem. They take some neat
> trick and try to make it serve all needs just because it is neat, and
> because they also get excited about the imagined value of consistency.
> Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true value in
> software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm with the
> problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably modeled as a
> message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
>
> Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within the
> language model. yawn. It also fundamentally breaks the programmability
> of the language. One is now doomed to endless mental contortions
> whenever the message send is the wrong model, where improved
> productivity comes from making the language effectively disappear so
> that we are expressing ourselves intuitively as we program.
Ahem. You've got real life experience with Smalltalk programming? Does
not sound like it.
For all practical purposes, 2+2 behaves in Smalltalk as it should. It's
an addition, and the result is 4.
Whether the processor puts specific bit patterns into two registers and
executes an ADD opcode or pushes two values onto the stack and sends a
message or calls a function with two arguments is pretty much
irrelevant when it comes to 2+2.
But when it comes to polymorphic data (such as mixed integer, real, and
complex arithmetic, or natural language expressions with different
syntactical structure and meaning) some kind of dynamic dispatch is
necessary. And it's good if it has a solid foundation in the language
and is not just grafted onto it. This applies to Smalltalk, and it most
likely applies to Lisp and a couple other languages of these families.
Whether the language paradigm is the message send or the function
application is more or less a matter of taste.
I hate language wars, so I keep this short (and I try not to attack the
lispers). Others have already said most of what I would say about this
task. The predominant impression of this project is that of unavoidable
failure. And the choice of language has nothing to do with it. As a
Smalltalk advocate I'd prefer if the project would fail with Visual
Basic or Logo or Lisp, but I am fairly sure that it would fail with
Smalltalk as well as with any other language just because the
requirements and the resources don't match. For a successful project,
you either need a team which can work on the task at hand full speed
right from the start, or you need a lot more time and money to make
your existing team into such a winner team.
Cheers,
Hans-Martin
Hans-Martin Mosner wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> ...
>
>>Anyway, I have encountered more than one all-X-all-the-time philosophy
>>including Smalltalk. They all have the same problem. They take some neat
>>trick and try to make it serve all needs just because it is neat, and
>>because they also get excited about the imagined value of consistency.
>>Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true value in
>>software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm with the
>>problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably modeled as a
>>message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
>>
>>Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within the
>>language model. yawn. It also fundamentally breaks the programmability
>>of the language. One is now doomed to endless mental contortions
>>whenever the message send is the wrong model, where improved
>>productivity comes from making the language effectively disappear so
>>that we are expressing ourselves intuitively as we program.
>
>
> Ahem. You've got real life experience with Smalltalk programming? Does
> not sound like it.
Yes. About two months trying to get early QKS SmalltalkAgents for the
Mac to work.
> For all practical purposes, 2+2 behaves in Smalltalk as it should. It's
> an addition, and the result is 4.
Duh. Now what happens when you do 1 + 2 * 3? Or is it 1 * 2 + 3 which
gives surprising results? I forget.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Hans-Martin Mosner
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <35fqjaF4kt2bkU1@individual.net>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Hans-Martin Mosner wrote:
...
> > Ahem. You've got real life experience with Smalltalk programming? Does
> > not sound like it.
>
> Yes. About two months trying to get early QKS SmalltalkAgents for the
> Mac to work.
Trying to get a (probably buggy) system to work is not what I call
experience with programming. I have tried to get a lisp interpreter to
work about 15 years ago. Does that make me an experienced lisp
programmer? Nah.
>
> > For all practical purposes, 2+2 behaves in Smalltalk as it should. It's
> > an addition, and the result is 4.
>
> Duh. Now what happens when you do 1 + 2 * 3? Or is it 1 * 2 + 3 which
> gives surprising results? I forget.
Somebody else already noted that it is indeed inconsistent with the
traditional algebraic notation. However, I think most programming
languages which try to embrace algebraic notation by implementing
operator precedence fail in the more complex cases. For example, when
it comes to matrix multiplication which is not transitive anymore, most
languages simply don't get it (if they support matrix multiplication
using * anyway).
But as I said, I hate language wars, so that's my last reply to this
part of the thread.
Cheers,
Hans-Martin
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87d5vw2fby.fsf@nyct.net>
Hans-Martin Mosner <···@heeg.de> writes:
> I have tried to get a lisp interpreter to work about 15 years ago.
> Does that make me an experienced lisp programmer? Nah.
Even less of a credible one because you were still using stuff that was
obsolete 50 years ago 15 years ago. ;)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: Jeff Brooks
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <lEeId.138196$6l.11405@pd7tw2no>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
... snip ...
> Anyway, I have encountered more than one all-X-all-the-time philosophy
> including Smalltalk. They all have the same problem. They take some neat
> trick and try to make it serve all needs just because it is neat, and
> because they also get excited about the imagined value of consistency.
The value of consistency is it makes the language simpler. Simpler
languages are easier to learn.
Adding arbitrary complexity to a language doesn't mean the language is
more expressive than a simpler language. Compare C++, and Lisp. C++ is
more complex but Lisp is more expressive.
> Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true value in
> software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm with the
> problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably modeled as a
> message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
"2 + 2" models adding two numbers together very well. Smalltalk doing it
as a message send is consistent with it's language model.
> Contorting "2 + 2" into a message send preserves consistency within the
> language model. yawn. It also fundamentally breaks the programmability
> of the language. One is now doomed to endless mental contortions
> whenever the message send is the wrong model, where improved
> productivity comes from making the language effectively disappear so
> that we are expressing ourselves intuitively as we program.
In Lisp adding the numbers together is "(+ 2 2)" which is consistent
with it's language model. Yawn!
When using an argument against an opposing view point you need to make
sure the same argument can't be used against your view point or your
argument is meaningless.
Using your logic I could argue that Lisp fundamentally breaks the
programmability of the language by using lists to represent math.
... snip ...
> This is what happens when scholars are allowed to decide what goes on in
> the trenches.
C++, and Java is what happens when scholars don't decide what goes on in
the trenches. Lisp, and Smalltalk is what happens when they do.
Jeff Brooks
Jeff Brooks wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
...
>> Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true value
>> in software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm with the
>> problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably modeled as a
>> message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
>
>
> "2 + 2" models adding two numbers together very well.
Duh. Now how do you explain:
1 + 2 * 3 => 9
? Or is it?:
3 * 2 + 1 => 9
? I forget which idiocy results from the message-send model being forced
onto arithmetic.
I would have made clear up front that the problem arose with different
operands had I known the ST crowd would claim success at "2 + 2" as
their crowning glory.
<sigh>
> In Lisp adding the numbers together is "(+ 2 2)" which is consistent
> with it's language model. Yawn!
So you agree that consistency cuts both ways? And that in the end what
matters is what matters: programmer productivity.
>
> When using an argument against an opposing view point you need to make
> sure the same argument can't be used against your view point or your
> argument is meaningless.
You like others thought this was a Lisp vs ST argument. It is not. My
point is that yelping "consistency!" does not save
all-objects-all-the-time from being a bad idea, nor does it save Prolog
from being a bad idea, nor does it save CPL from being a bad idea. Even
in Lisp we lose the ability to quickly toss off mixed-operator
arithmetic, we have to (+ 1 (* 2 3)), tho we gain the ability to do "(+
1 2 3)" which actually trumps "1 + 2 + 3". but it still forces the
translator of arithmetic to code to slow down, which is my point.
You have been reading the thread, yes? Or did you just jump in here?
Anyway, the nice thing about Lisp is that in return for the consistency
making rare arithmetic forms harder to code we get procedural macros.
Yummy. :)
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtkk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Land o' Kenny? http://www.tilton-technology.com/index.html
Obligatory quote to make me seem cool:
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>
>
> So you agree that consistency cuts both ways? And that in the end what
> matters is what matters: programmer productivity.
There's no such thing as programmer productivity. 20 lines in one language
may accomplish way more than 20 lines in another but too many mistakingly
believe their productiviy is equivalent. How many business features did you
implement? As much as it pains some, some languages have greater velocity at
the latter than others.
Thomas Gagne wrote:
> Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>>
>>
>
>>
>> So you agree that consistency cuts both ways? And that in the end what
>> matters is what matters: programmer productivity.
>
>
> There's no such thing as programmer productivity. 20 lines in one
> language may accomplish way more than 20 lines in another but too many
> mistakingly believe their productiviy is equivalent. How many business
> features did you implement? As much as it pains some, some languages
> have greater velocity at the latter than others.
Programmer velocity? I like it! That explains my weight problem. At this
point I am so good that any improvement just adds to my mass.
And the unit of measurement is the business feature?
OK, I'll do the sales tax calculation for NYC, you do the feature that
orders a packing list so the warehouse people travel the shortest
distance possible by going down the list in order.
:)
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtkk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Land o' Kenny? http://www.tilton-technology.com/index.html
Obligatory quote to make me seem cool:
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Bruce Stephens
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87zmz1lkiq.fsf@cenderis.demon.co.uk>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Jeff Brooks wrote:
>
>> Kenny Tilton wrote:
> ...
>
>>> Consistency is where this subthread started, btw. The only true
>>> value in software development is the isomorphism of the algorithm
>>> with the problem being solved. Some problems can be reasonably
>>> modeled as a message send, but "2 + 2" is not one of them.
>> "2 + 2" models adding two numbers together very well.
>
> Duh. Now how do you explain:
>
> 1 + 2 * 3 => 9
I presume it's that message passing is left associative, so 1+2
evaluates to 3, and then 3*3 evaluates to 9. I agree it's initially
confusing, but I'd also guess that after a while someone who programs
in Smalltalk regularly wouldn't need to think about it.
[...]
·······@nyc.rr.com (Kenny Tilton) wrote (abridged):
> > "2 + 2" models adding two numbers together very well.
>
> Duh. Now how do you explain:
>
> 1 + 2 * 3 => 9
In Smalltalk all binary operators have the same precedence and evaluate
left to right. It is not actually due to message sending. It's an example
of Smalltalk's drive for simplicity. It is hard to have operators with
different precedence without making it hard to read, regardless of how the
operators are dispatched.
For example, C/C++ has a fixed set of operators with hard-wired
precedence, but the precedence depends on the operator. I can remember the
common combinations, but something like:
1 + 2 << 3 | 4
is beyond me even though I use that language daily. If we add user-defined
operators with user-defined precedence (as we surely want to), it gets
even worse. I daresay a machine parser could manage, but humans can't.
Smalltalk's grammar is very simple, but just about complex enough. It has
3 levels of precedence. I got used to it very quickly; much quicker than
all those parenthesis in Lisp.
> I would have made clear up front that the problem arose with different
> operands had I known the ST crowd would claim success at "2 + 2" as
> their crowning glory.
:-) Actually "2 + 2" is for me the worrying case, but for different
reasons. It is a symmetrical expression, but Smalltalk treats it
asymmetrically. One 2 becomes the receiver and the other the argument.
CLOS is better at modelling arithmetic because it has multiple dispatch.
> You like others thought this was a Lisp vs ST argument. It is not. My
> point is that yelping "consistency!" does not save
> all-objects-all-the-time from being a bad idea, nor does it save Prolog
> from being a bad idea, nor does it save CPL from being a bad idea. Even
> in Lisp we lose the ability to quickly toss off mixed-operator
> arithmetic, we have to (+ 1 (* 2 3)), tho we gain the ability to do "(+
> 1 2 3)" which actually trumps "1 + 2 + 3". but it still forces the
> translator of arithmetic to code to slow down, which is my point.
I agree that picking a single model and sticking to it consistently leads
to some compromises. I don't agree that it is therefore a bad idea. I
think it partly depends on the model.
In Smalltalk if we need multiple inheritance or multiple dispatch we have
to simulate it by hand. Although that is not ideal, it is doable, and the
need is rare enough not to damage programmer productivity (at least in my
experience). That's what makes it good: (a) the model is powerful enough
that I rarely need to fight it; and (b) when I do need something
different, I can easily build it within the model. That isn't really true
for Prolog.
-- Dave Harris, Nottingham, UK
From: Darin Johnson
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cu1u0p9lzpi.fsf@nokia.com>
········@cix.co.uk (Dave Harris) writes:
> In Smalltalk all binary operators have the same precedence and evaluate
> left to right. It is not actually due to message sending. It's an example
> of Smalltalk's drive for simplicity.
True, and it is possible to add "chalkboard standard" precedence to
math operators Smalltalk. But it doesn't really gain anything except
raising complex questions about what to do about all the other
non-math operators (and there are a lot of them).
--
Darin Johnson
Laziness is the father of invention
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <878y6k2f14.fsf@nyct.net>
········@cix.co.uk (Dave Harris) writes:
> :-) Actually "2 + 2" is for me the worrying case, but for different
> reasons. It is a symmetrical expression, but Smalltalk treats it
> asymmetrically. One 2 becomes the receiver and the other the argument.
> CLOS is better at modelling arithmetic because it has multiple dispatch.
I don't like (raw) CLOS for that because it doesn't understand
commutativity, associativity, and distributivity (there's a better word
for that, but I forget it). However, that gets rather complicated when
you're dealing with different types (such as matrix multiplication or FP
addition or quaternion multiplication).
From what I've seen of weyl, that's the way it needs to be done to get
it right. It uses CLOS under the hood, but the operators are not CLOS
methods. After all, in CL, (+), (+ 1), and (+ 1 2) are all legal, so
multiple-dispatch isn't enough. You need arbitrary-dispatch. However,
you can implement the under-the-hood TWO-ARG-+ as a generic-function,
but given the non-extensibility of built-in classes, that's a bit
wasteful. :)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opskyvxphjpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 16:24:39 +0000 (UTC), Ng Pheng Siong
<····@netmemetic.com> wrote:
>
> Here's a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little
> exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything
> Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with
> liquid. "The first cup," said Bruce, "represents all of your knowledge
> about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about
> martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must
> first empty your cup of your knowledge."
>
> I got it from here:
>
> http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/index.php?p=50
>
> Cheers.
>
You are probaly right.
I am to old to spend more time on learning new languages.
I'd rather stick with what I got and spend it on solving
problems the way I like best.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
From: Friedrich Dominicus
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <873bwvw6mt.fsf@q-software-solutions.de>
"John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
>
> Smalltalk's syntax is cryptic and takes time to get used to
> also it is almost impossible to write a algorithm in a straight
> forward way as all you have are messages.
> Again download squeak (a MS Windows free environment) and
> see for yourself. (www.squeak.org)
Well I have use both, and I can't tell that I had more difficulties to
understand Smalltalk then Python. But I soon started to dislike Python
and now prefer Ruby. The only real problem I see with Smalltalk was
the sheer mass of Libraries available right from the start. Just
looking through some browser, my first impression was simply "wow".
However the syntax of Smalltalk is probably the simples around, for a
good tutorial on Smalltalk I can recommend "on to smalltalk", Pythons
may have more libraries but you have to install them usually
separatly. And Python is IMHO very much rooted in Unix (not per se a
bad thing) whereas Smalltalk is more an OS or way of life in itself. I
shares much of this with Common Lisp and Emacs IMHO.
Regards
Friedrich
--
Please remove just-for-news- to reply via e-mail.
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87hdl82fj8.fsf@nyct.net>
"John Thingstad" <··············@chello.no> writes:
> Learning python is much quicker than any of the alternatives you mentioned.
> In any case you should have a pilot project to get the programmers up to
> speed.
We're talking about people who haven't been corrupted to assume that
computers have the same restricitons as primitive programming languages,
tho. He specifically wants people with no understanding of what a
computer is, what it can do, how it can mess up, or how to structure
things logically to write this program. Of course, it's bound to fail no
matter what language he uses.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
John Thingstad wrote:
> On 19 Jan 2005 23:49:05 -0800, <·······@runbox.com> wrote:
>
>> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>>
>> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
>> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
>> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>>
>> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
>> for the project...and why?
>>
>> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
>> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
>> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
>> etc.)
>> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
>> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
>> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
>> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
>> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
>> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
>> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>>
>> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
>> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>>
>
> How fast does the code need to run?
> Learning python is much quicker than any of the alternatives you mentioned.
Why?
Is the reason that you can't do much in python or what, limited code
libraries etc??
What could beat Smalltalk's five reserved words? Everything is maybe
about code libraries.
In my opinion the main reason to enhancing the abilities to rapidly
write mayor and non-trivial applications is the development tools. If
they also are open, i.e. comes with source code and abilities to change
and adopt them they are even more useful.
With this reasoning Smalltalk is way far of all of the other options.
/Bj�rn
From: Andreas Thiele
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cso050$q5o$03$1@news.t-online.com>
<·······@runbox.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
·····························@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
Hi,
this problem is so crazy, it must be a real world problem. I mean it must be
true ;-)
I wonder about two things:
1. what has natural language processing to do with XML? If natural language
is of importance I would think of Lisp.
2. Why are you already committed to SBCL or LispWorks? clisp might be
another choice.
I think, if you choose Lisp, you should have 1 to 3 experienced Lisp
developers. They might build a system which will be fed by the non
programmers in some specialized language created by the Lisp guys (maybe
with some GUI on top). This is actually a way I worked before. Lisp is the
choice if you are not too certain about what has to be developed and is
great in developing languages 'on the fly'. Those 3 Lisp guys might create
such a system in some month. If you don't have experienced Lisp developers I
think they'll need approx. 1 year to achieve the required skill. Meanwhile
the others wouldn't have anything to work on.
I only have little knowledge on Smalltalk, so I cannot say much about it.
Smalltalk seems to have great OO.
Andreas
From: Ng Pheng Siong
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <csopm6$qo7$1@nobel.pacific.net.sg>
According to Andreas Thiele <······@nospam.com>:
> this problem is so crazy, it must be a real world problem. I mean it must be
> true ;-)
;-)
> 1. what has natural language processing to do with XML?
Processing blogs, most likely. The 30,000 number corroborates.
> I only have little knowledge on Smalltalk, so I cannot say much about it.
> Smalltalk seems to have great OO.
Smalltalk is a Lisp with postfix notation, single dispatch and no macros.
But it's really enjoyable.
--
Ng Pheng Siong <····@netmemetic.com>
http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps -+- M2Crypto, ZServerSSL for Zope, Blog
http://www.sqlcrypt.com -+- Database Engine with Transparent AES Encryption
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cso1ml$qo2$1@snic.vub.ac.be>
Give them a few weeks to let them explore the options on their own and
let them make their own decision. This will raise their motivation to
actually achieve the goals set for the project. Self-motivation seems to
be one of the most important factors in software projects.
Pascal
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Give them a few weeks to let them explore the options on their own...
Yes, just break open a smalltalk book and PCL and in two days the
decision will be much better informed. That said...
What I do not like about SmallTalk:
1. all objects all the time
2. precedence of operations varying between unary, binary, and keyword
3. not having source files where I can eyeball a pagefull of code in one go
4. single-inheritance
5. no macros
6. no special variables
7. not enough parentheses (not joking)
8. did I mention all objects all the time?
As for CLOS being complex, it is simply a superset of the capabilities
of Smalltalk.
As for you all being newbies, both languages are very approachable. The
Lispworks IDE counts a lot in keeping up with the ST IDE. But here is a
Deep Thought: you cannot think "non-programmer". If you stay
non-programmers, you will not succeed with this. So becoming programmers
is a must, at which point the only question is, which language is
better. No comment. :)
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
1. all objects all the time
-- this is concistant - usually a good thing
2. precedence of operations varying between unary, binary, and keyword
-- every language has syntax rule; Smalltalk's are fairly slim. You
can override this with parens
3. not having source files where I can eyeball a pagefull of code in
one go
-- If you really want that, you can file code out.
4. single-inheritance
-- well, I'd argue that multiple inheritance adds complexity that we
don't need - especially given unlimited polymorphism
5. no macros
6. no special variables
7. not enough parentheses (not joking)
-- lol
8. did I mention all objects all the time?
-- you did :)
·······@gmail.com wrote:
> 1. all objects all the time
>
> -- this is concistant - usually a good thing
actually, I think it is the Classic Mistake(tm): "Hey! Let's use it for
everything!" Case in point: CPL, Guy Steele's constraints programming
language. They did variable assignment as a constraint. Until they came
to their senses. Also, consider Prolog. When ya just want to iterate or
do any number of normal imperative steps, it always has be via logic and
unification, with lotsa cuts thrown in cuz ya really just want to iterate.
We Lispniks are forever beating our chests over the many paradigms we
have at our disposal. If you want polymorphism, define a method. If you
want to add 2 plus 2, for god's sake do not send the + message to the
first 2 with 2 as the operand, just add the little suckers. :)
>
> 2. precedence of operations varying between unary, binary, and keyword
>
> -- every language has syntax rule; Smalltalk's are fairly slim. You
> can override this with parens
>
> 3. not having source files where I can eyeball a pagefull of code in
> one go
>
> -- If you really want that, you can file code out.
No, I also want to work on it as a page of code. Cut and paste a method
three times to jumpstart three variants, or bring a function inline to
the only plave it turns out it gets used by literally dragging it into
the caller. etc etc.
>
> 4. single-inheritance
>
> -- well, I'd argue that multiple inheritance adds complexity that we
> don't need - especially given unlimited polymorphism
But the world we are modeling cannot be expressed with single
inheritance. Delegation is just another way of saying, "Damn, we should
have allowed multiple inheritance!".
MI can be straightforward just as GOTO can be tamed by using it in
strictly limited ways. My rule is to have various singly-inheriting
class trees for any given functional domain, and when
multiple-inheritance is necessary I am allowed to inherit only once from
any given tree. No conflicts possible. It did take me a while to hit on
this policy, tho, so I can see how other people get into trouble and MI
has gotten a bad rap.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Cesar Rabak
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <41F06574.7020005@acm.org>
Kenny Tilton escreveu:
[snipped]
>> -- If you really want that, you can file code out.
>
>
> No, I also want to work on it as a page of code. Cut and paste a method
> three times to jumpstart three variants, or bring a function inline to
> the only plave it turns out it gets used by literally dragging it into
> the caller. etc etc.
>
Kenny,
You could get surprised, but this in Smalltalk is seldom needed and
(surprise, surprise ;-) considered a bad programming practice.
my .01999...
--
Cesar Rabak
Cesar Rabak wrote:
> Kenny Tilton escreveu:
> [snipped]
>
>>> -- If you really want that, you can file code out.
>>
>>
>>
>> No, I also want to work on it as a page of code. Cut and paste a
>> method three times to jumpstart three variants, or bring a function
>> inline to the only plave it turns out it gets used by literally
>> dragging it into the caller. etc etc.
>>
> Kenny,
>
> You could get surprised, but this in Smalltalk is seldom needed and
> (surprise, surprise ;-) considered a bad programming practice.
>
> my .01999...
Hang on. You just changed the assignee of "bad programming practice"
from an Anonymous Considerer (which sounds to me like an invocation of
some Grand Authority) to yourself (at a level of confidence just under
two cents <g>).
So exactly whom am I about to trounce in this debate?
:)
btw, I am reminded fondly of sitting down to help my manager and another
programmer with some code at 10 pm (they had been at it since about 6pm)
and, after a careful review of their predicament, beginning to cut and
paste like a maniac, provoking the manager to shriek and dive for
another terminal to take a copy of the source before I could exit.
banged a shin badly knocking a chair out of the way, IIRC. thems were
the days.
Kenny Tilton
BS, '74, Slash 'n Burn Programming Academy
--
Cells? Cello? Celtik?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://alu.cliki.net/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
From: Jeff Brooks
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <sUdId.137638$Xk.98424@pd7tw3no>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
> Cesar Rabak wrote:
>
... snip ...
>> Kenny,
>>
>> You could get surprised, but this in Smalltalk is seldom needed and
>> (surprise, surprise ;-) considered a bad programming practice.
>>
>> my .01999...
>
> Hang on. You just changed the assignee of "bad programming practice"
> from an Anonymous Considerer (which sounds to me like an invocation of
> some Grand Authority) to yourself (at a level of confidence just under
> two cents <g>).
>
> So exactly whom am I about to trounce in this debate?
>
> :)
Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
(Lisp included).
Jeff Brooks
From: Darin Johnson
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cu1is5qo0bz.fsf@nokia.com>
Jeff Brooks <···········@nospam.com> writes:
> Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
> (Lisp included).
I had to maintain code once that was written using copy-paste
techniques *without* reindenting the code afterwords. Many
lost hours tracking down bugs that would have been obvious
if the conditionals had lined up...
--
Darin Johnson
"Floyd here now!"
Darin Johnson <······@_usa_._net> writes:
> Jeff Brooks <···········@nospam.com> writes:
>
> > Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
> > (Lisp included).
>
> I had to maintain code once that was written using copy-paste
> techniques *without* reindenting the code afterwords. Many
> lost hours tracking down bugs that would have been obvious
> if the conditionals had lined up...
In my first job I started with a listing 12 cm thick and when I
finished removing duplicate code and adding new features, it was only
3 cm thick.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
I need a new toy.
Tail of black dog keeps good time.
Pounce! Good dog! Good dog!
Darin Johnson wrote:
> Jeff Brooks <···········@nospam.com> writes:
>
>
>>Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
>>(Lisp included).
>
>
> I had to maintain code once that was written using copy-paste
> techniques *without* reindenting the code afterwords. Many
> lost hours tracking down bugs that would have been obvious
> if the conditionals had lined up...
You should have ported it all to Lisp first and then auto-indented the
whole source file in one key chord. :)
Y'all do not understand. I am not talking about cutting and pasting and
then turning it in. It is just one way of creating code. Some of youse
guys touch-type, I cut/paste and then go from there.
But hey, maybe this is why I have never had any success as a programmer.
PWUAAA HHAAAH HAAA HAA...
:)
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtkk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Land o' Kenny? http://www.tilton-technology.com/index.html
Obligatory quote to make me seem cool:
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: ······@nordebo.com
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87d5vxcgyc.fsf@pluto.elizium.org>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Darin Johnson wrote:
>
> > Jeff Brooks <···········@nospam.com> writes:
> >
> >>Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
> >>(Lisp included).
> > I had to maintain code once that was written using copy-paste
> > techniques *without* reindenting the code afterwords. Many
> > lost hours tracking down bugs that would have been obvious
> > if the conditionals had lined up...
>
> You should have ported it all to Lisp first and then auto-indented the
> whole source file in one key chord. :)
That trick works on most languages though, if you use a decent editor
with support for the language, like Emacs. Lisp has many advantages,
but this isn't really one of them.
······@nordebo.com wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Darin Johnson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Jeff Brooks <···········@nospam.com> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Copy and paste programming is bad programming practice in any language
>>>>(Lisp included).
>>>
>>>I had to maintain code once that was written using copy-paste
>>>techniques *without* reindenting the code afterwords. Many
>>>lost hours tracking down bugs that would have been obvious
>>>if the conditionals had lined up...
>>
>>You should have ported it all to Lisp first and then auto-indented the
>>whole source file in one key chord. :)
>
>
> That trick works on most languages though, if you use a decent editor
> with support for the language, like Emacs.
Don't tell me, tell Darin. :)
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtkk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Land o' Kenny? http://www.tilton-technology.com/index.html
Obligatory quote to make me seem cool:
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Darin Johnson
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <cu1y8elm0ed.fsf@nokia.com>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> You should have ported it all to Lisp first and then auto-indented the
> whole source file in one key chord. :)
Actually, this is what forced me learn about indent-region in emacs...
--
Darin Johnson
"You used to be big."
"I am big. It's the pictures that got small."
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <m31xcghsp4.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>
>> Give them a few weeks to let them explore the options on their own...
>
> Yes, just break open a smalltalk book and PCL and in two days the
> decision will be much better informed. That said...
>
> What I do not like about SmallTalk:
>
> 1. all objects all the time
But wait, Lisp has that too. ;-) For some (important) definition of
"object".
-Peter
P.S. Since Kenny brought it up, I'll expand the acronym for him: PCL
is _Practical Common Lisp_, soon to be published by Apress, currently
available in draft form at: <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>.
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <H1WHd.131739$Xk.20705@pd7tw3no>
Peter Seibel wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>Pascal Costanza wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Give them a few weeks to let them explore the options on their own...
>>
>>Yes, just break open a smalltalk book and PCL and in two days the
>>decision will be much better informed. That said...
>>
>>What I do not like about SmallTalk:
>>
>>1. all objects all the time
>
>
> But wait, Lisp has that too. ;-) For some (important) definition of
> "object".
>
> -Peter
So true! Actually, i was catching up on ARC the other day, and, for a
lanugage that was not supposed to be particularly Object-Oriented, He's
actually managed to make the most consistent object system i've ever
seen. It's turtles all the way down!
That's assuming objects are just "thingies" with state and type. if you
want CLOS or message passing, you are free to build it on top of ARCs
object-type system.
>
> P.S. Since Kenny brought it up, I'll expand the acronym for him: PCL
> is _Practical Common Lisp_, soon to be published by Apress, currently
> available in draft form at: <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>.
>
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87y8ek106a.fsf@nyct.net>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> 1. all objects all the time
Lisp is also all objects all the time. It's just that it has a broader
definiton of how an object can be represented internally.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>
>
>>1. all objects all the time
>
>
> Lisp is also all objects all the time. It's just that it has a broader
> definiton of how an object can be represented internally.
>
<sigh> Lookit, kiddies, there is all objects all the time and then there
is all objects all the time. I was talking about all objects all the time.
eg, In: (dotimes (n 10) (print n)), what GF is being invoked on the
object 10?
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtkk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
Land o' Kenny? http://www.tilton-technology.com/index.html
Obligatory quote to make me seem cool:
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3acr0aqe3.fsf@javamonkey.com>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> Rahul Jain wrote:
>
>> Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>>
>>>1. all objects all the time
>> Lisp is also all objects all the time. It's just that it has a
>> broader
>> definiton of how an object can be represented internally.
>>
>
>
> <sigh> Lookit, kiddies, there is all objects all the time and then
> there is all objects all the time. I was talking about all objects all
> the time.
But why cede the terminological battle to The Man at the get go. (Not
that Smalltalk is The Man any more than Lisp is. But it's definition
of "all objects all the time" is pretty much in line with The Man's.)
> eg, In: (dotimes (n 10) (print n)), what GF is being invoked on the
> object 10?
What do GF's have to do with objects? Okay, that was rhetorical.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87pszu194s.fsf@nyct.net>
Kenny Tilton <·······@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> <sigh> Lookit, kiddies, there is all objects all the time and then there
> is all objects all the time. I was talking about all objects all the
> time.
>
> eg, In: (dotimes (n 10) (print n)), what GF is being invoked on the
> object 10?
What does a GF have to do with the issue of whether 10 is an object?
Note that (macro-function 'dotimes) also gives you an object. So an
object is being invoked on an object (which is actually a object, a list
of two objects, lists of objects). So where exactly are the non-objects
here?
;)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
·······@runbox.com writes:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
> [...]
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
Ask these people what they want and give it to them. Don't make
decisions on languages you don't know personally on the basis of a
newsgroup posting.
Really: If your programmers are good, they'll know what they need. If
they aren't good your project is doomed, and you'll probably get blamed
for choosing an unconventional language.
From: Espen Vestre
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <kw4qhcyykb.fsf@merced.netfonds.no>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
Ouch. As others have pointed out, this is the main obstacle. You
need programmers to program. Period.
However, given your constraints, I guess this actually means you
have to turn these people into programmers, and then there's no
reason not to start out with lisp. Why go for anything less, if
you actually have the choice, and your pupils' brains (presumably)
haven't been hardwired (yet) with prejudices about curly and non-
curly parantheses?
(I've taught Common Lisp to absolute newbies, and it was great fun!)
--
(espen)
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <dePHd.36664$06.25975@clgrps12>
Espen Vestre wrote:
> ·······@runbox.com writes:
>
>
>>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
>
>
> Ouch. As others have pointed out, this is the main obstacle. You
> need programmers to program. Period.
>
That is not necessarily the case. Some of the programmers need to
write the core application but if they write a domain specific language
that would make it easier on the "systems analysts". Lisp is great
at creating application specific languages.
Wade
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <UJQHd.132359$KO5.73064@clgrps13>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
This is not very important, you need everyone to understand
the problem and develop a vocabulary that your team members can
use to communicate with each other.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
Just details.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
Then your system analysts already have a vocabulary/conceptual
model of the system. You have to tap into this utilize their
knowledge in a meaningful way.
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
There are natural language libraries already written in Lisp.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
What platform?
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
Then you have to convert most of the project to not look like
programming. You need some higher level language. Then "programmers"
are spending their time writing very declarative code. If well done
they do not even feel they are programming.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
You need an infusion of positive thinking. It may be difficult, but
one step at a time.
Pick Lisp.
Wade
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3651shswt.fsf@javamonkey.com>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
I think this is the key point--who are these programmers and what
languages are they familiar with? If you can only have one "real"
programmer they'd better know whatever language you're going to use
quite well *and* be a good teacher. If you have a Smalltalk guru
hanging around use Smalltalk; if you have a Lisp guru hanging around
use Lisp. If you have one of each, use the language of whoever is the
better teacher. Also you'll want to use programmers who are good
students since presumably they will need to come up to speed quickly
on the domain knowledge provided by your non-programmers.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Thanks for all of the replies so.far...it has been very helpful.
I'm going to refactor my question a bit and start a new thread(s),
because I have a better idea of what I'm trying to find out than I did
when I posted my original plea.
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
Well, which is it: natural language processing (NLP) or XML or both?
You will be processing freeform natural language text (e.g., like email
content)?
More detail might help (e.g., "I am a Russian outsourcer rewriting
Carnivore for the FBI").
If it's XML and delimited text, then prototype in Perl which has the
CPAN libraries. It sounds like a typical Perl project anyway!8-))
For NLP Lisp is the only show in town.
Matthias wrote:
> "Michael D. Kersey" <········@hal-pc.org> writes:
>>For NLP Lisp is the only show in town.
>
> Bold statement. Could you explain why?
OK, Lisp or Prolog!8-P
"Michael D. Kersey" <········@hal-pc.org> wrote in message
······························@news.hal-pc.org...
> Matthias wrote:
> > "Michael D. Kersey" <········@hal-pc.org> writes:
> >>For NLP Lisp is the only show in town.
> >
> > Bold statement. Could you explain why?
>
> OK, Lisp or Prolog!8-P
While that was true at one point, a lot of NLP is done in C and Java these
days. Particularly as there has been a big push for statistical methods, but
even amoung the more traditional approaches, the grad students coming in
know C++ or Java, so that's what they use. Sure, *I* use Lisp, but I learned
it back in the 70s, and really haven't used anything else since the mid
80s...
On the other hand, a lot of recent NLP is just reconstructing older systems
too. For the price of learning Lisp they could be making a lot more genuine
progress (at least on the system building end; useful theory construction
continues at the usual glacial pace).
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired
boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
Meeting Lisp/Smalltalk users is useful. I know of regular meetings in
the Lisp world which may be convenient for you to attend.
If you mention your situation beforehand, someone might bring a laptop
loaded with the environments you've been eyeing. Or something equally
useful.
MfG,
Tayssir
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
If your staff is very mature, very hard working, very co-operative then
the choice of platform don't mean much.
If not, then the platform don't mean much either.
Because in the latter case Suicide is sure. - Maybe suicide could be
done in a more funny way.;-)
ps:
If you don't have specs for the project, then the succes of the mission
is gained by having upper managemnt to think it is a success - then the
platform don't mean much either it could be VB6.
just my bet .
soren
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opsky7fsxlpqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 00:05:04 +0100, skogstadNielsen(fjern)
<"skogstadNielsen(fjern)·@ddf.dk> wrote:
> If you don't have specs for the project, then the succes of the mission
> is gained by having upper managemnt to think it is a success - then the
> platform don't mean much either it could be VB6.
>
> just my bet .
> soren
Just a thought. Have you considered design style.
Then take a look at extreme programming.
This is a style that is suitable for both Lisp and Smalltalk.
www.extremeprogramming.org.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
·······@runbox.com wrote:
I'm learning LISP as well, working through Peter Seibel's "Practical Common
LISP". I'm only on Chapter 3 but what I've noticed so far:
1) I love a language with a consitant model. Everything's an object,
everything's a list, etc. It decreases learning curves.
2) LISP's function names are a little too abbreviated for me. Peter skips
over what "getf" means when applied to plists (another abbreviation) but it
seems reasonable it might stand for "get field".
I already know Smalltalk and can confidentally recommend it. I'm anxious to
use LISP because it is another of those languages, like Smalltalk, that is
spoken highly of by people who have used multiple languages professionally.
Both languages are of the sort that I hear a lot of, "This would be so much
easier in LISP," or "We'd be done already if we used Smalltalk."
How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both capable of
accessing the other's symbols?
Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> 2) LISP's function names are a little too abbreviated for me. Peter
> skips over what "getf" means when applied to plists (another
> abbreviation) but it seems reasonable it might stand for "get field".
Actually not. See recent discussion on the subject in c.l.l.
Are function name such as:
UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-DIFFERENT-CLASS UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-REDEFINED-CLASS
LOAD-LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS
MAKE-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER PPRINT-EXIT-IF-LIST-EXHAUSTED
GET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER INVOKE-RESTART-INTERACTIVELY
SET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER CONCATENATED-STREAM-STREAMS
HASH-TABLE-REHASH-THRESHOLD LISP-IMPLEMENTATION-VERSION
MAKE-LOAD-FORM-SAVING-SLOTS UPGRADED-ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE
COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS FUNCTION-LAMBDA-EXPRESSION
READ-PRESERVING-WHITESPACE TRANSLATE-LOGICAL-PATHNAME
UPGRADED-COMPLEX-PART-TYPE
too short for you?
Happily, the often used function get abreviations. For example,
instead of the length FIRST, SECOND and REST, you get the shorter:
CAR, CADR, and CDR.
Isn't it wonderful?
In addition, you can always use your own long names:
(defmacro THE-FIRST-ELEMENT-OF-THE-LIST (THE-LIST) `(CAR ,THE-LIST))
(defmacro THE-OTHER-ELEMENTS-OF-THE-LIST (THE-LIST) `(CDR ,THE-LIST))
> How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both
> capable of accessing the other's symbols?
It's a good idea. We already have a Common-Lisp embedded into Java
(ABCL) and one embedded into emacs (emacs-cl). It would be nice to
have one embedded into Smalltalk. We could use it to do Croquet stuff.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
That will sure show you.
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
>
>>2) LISP's function names are a little too abbreviated for me. Peter
>>skips over what "getf" means when applied to plists (another
>>abbreviation) but it seems reasonable it might stand for "get field".
>
>
> Actually not. See recent discussion on the subject in c.l.l.
>
> Are function name such as:
> UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-DIFFERENT-CLASS UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-REDEFINED-CLASS
> LOAD-LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS
> MAKE-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER PPRINT-EXIT-IF-LIST-EXHAUSTED
> GET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER INVOKE-RESTART-INTERACTIVELY
> SET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER CONCATENATED-STREAM-STREAMS
> HASH-TABLE-REHASH-THRESHOLD LISP-IMPLEMENTATION-VERSION
> MAKE-LOAD-FORM-SAVING-SLOTS UPGRADED-ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE
> COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS FUNCTION-LAMBDA-EXPRESSION
> READ-PRESERVING-WHITESPACE TRANSLATE-LOGICAL-PATHNAME
> UPGRADED-COMPLEX-PART-TYPE
> too short for you?
>
Not, but the all-upper-case stuff looks unappealing (cosmetic, I know, but
worth getting used to, no?)
<snip>
>>How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both
>>capable of accessing the other's symbols?
>
>
> It's a good idea. We already have a Common-Lisp embedded into Java
> (ABCL) and one embedded into emacs (emacs-cl). It would be nice to
> have one embedded into Smalltalk. We could use it to do Croquet stuff.
>
That would be fun. I found one paper at <http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/338691.html>
From: David Steuber
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87vf9n4cja.fsf@david-steuber.com>
Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> Not, but the all-upper-case stuff looks unappealing (cosmetic, I know,
> but worth getting used to, no?)
I NEVER use all upper case.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ufz0r1klj.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> Not, but the all-upper-case stuff looks unappealing (cosmetic, I know,
> but worth getting used to, no?)
Maybe you should just write your source code in lower case
like almost everybody does all the time?
······@news.dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> > Not, but the all-upper-case stuff looks unappealing (cosmetic, I know,
> > but worth getting used to, no?)
>
> Maybe you should just write your source code in lower case
> like almost everybody does all the time?
If that's not obvious, I did not type that list, I typed:
(subseq (sort (list-external-symbols :common-lisp) (lambda (a b) (> (length (string a)) (length (string b))))) 0 50)
[and it happened that my keyboard was not caps-locked at that time],
and my lisp implementation returned the upcases as is specified to be
the default by the standard.
Could we now stop talking about case in lisp?
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
Cats meow out of angst
"Thumbs! If only we had thumbs!
We could break so much!"
From: Joerg Hoehle
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <uis4vdqao.fsf@users.sourceforge.net>
Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> If that's not obvious, I did not type that list, I typed:
>
> (subseq (sort (list-external-symbols :common-lisp) (lambda (a b) (> (length (string a)) (length (string b))))) 0 50)
How comes you forgot about
(sort ... #'> :key #'string)
(or :key #'symbol-name in this case)?
Regards,
Jorg Hohle
Telekom/T-Systems Technology Center
Joerg Hoehle <······@users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon <····@mouse-potato.com> writes:
> > If that's not obvious, I did not type that list, I typed:
> >
> > (subseq (sort (list-external-symbols :common-lisp) (lambda (a b) (> (length (string a)) (length (string b))))) 0 50)
>
> How comes you forgot about
> (sort ... #'> :key #'string)
> (or :key #'symbol-name in this case)?
That'd be:
(sort ... (lambda (a b) (> (length a) (length b))) :key (function string))
or:
(sort ... (function >) :key (lambda (x) (length (string x))))
or:
(defun compose (&rest fns)
(cond ((null fns) (function identity))
((null (cdr fns)) (car fns))
(t (lambda (x)
(dolist (f (reverse fns) x)
(setf x (funcall f x)))))))
(sort ... (function >) :key (compose (function length) (function string)))
In any case, in interactive use,
(sort ... (lambda (a b) (> (length (string a)) (length (string b)))))
comes out more naturally (even with some copy-and-paste).
In a program text, I admit that the use of :key would be better.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds,
Your foot just squashed one.
Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> > Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com> writes:
> >
> >>2) LISP's function names are a little too abbreviated for me. Peter
> >>skips over what "getf" means when applied to plists (another
> >>abbreviation) but it seems reasonable it might stand for "get field".
> > Actually not. See recent discussion on the subject in c.l.l.
> > Are function name such as: UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-DIFFERENT-CLASS
> > UPDATE-INSTANCE-FOR-REDEFINED-CLASS
> > LOAD-LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS LOGICAL-PATHNAME-TRANSLATIONS
> > MAKE-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER PPRINT-EXIT-IF-LIST-EXHAUSTED
> > GET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER INVOKE-RESTART-INTERACTIVELY
> > SET-DISPATCH-MACRO-CHARACTER CONCATENATED-STREAM-STREAMS
> > HASH-TABLE-REHASH-THRESHOLD LISP-IMPLEMENTATION-VERSION
> > MAKE-LOAD-FORM-SAVING-SLOTS UPGRADED-ARRAY-ELEMENT-TYPE
> > COMPUTE-APPLICABLE-METHODS FUNCTION-LAMBDA-EXPRESSION
> > READ-PRESERVING-WHITESPACE TRANSLATE-LOGICAL-PATHNAME
> > UPGRADED-COMPLEX-PART-TYPE
> > too short for you?
> >
> Not, but the all-upper-case stuff looks unappealing (cosmetic, I know,
> but worth getting used to, no?)
You don't need to get used to, just set your readtable-case as it pleases you.
> <snip>
> >>How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both
> >>capable of accessing the other's symbols?
> > It's a good idea. We already have a Common-Lisp embedded into Java
> > (ABCL) and one embedded into emacs (emacs-cl). It would be nice to
> > have one embedded into Smalltalk. We could use it to do Croquet stuff.
> >
> That would be fun. I found one paper at <http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/338691.html>
Interesting.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
This is a signature virus. Add me to your signature and help me to live
From: Ng Pheng Siong
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ct4q5n$jiv$1@nobel.pacific.net.sg>
According to Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com>:
> How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both capable of
> accessing the other's symbols?
There is an implementation of Lisp in Smalltalk written by Aoki Atsushi
that is available as a Smalltalk/X goodie. There is also a
Prolog-in-Smalltalk, also by Aoki Atsushi, which upon closer inspect, is a
Prolog implemented in the Lisp-implemented-in-Smalltalk.
Said Prolog gave the wrong answer to a correct Prolog formulation of
Einstein's riddle, though.
One of my many NATO projects is to write some Lisp to walk a
Prolog-in-Lisp implementation and generate Lisp-in-Smalltalk code, to get to
Prolog-in-Smalltalk.
See http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps/120
Cheers.
--
Ng Pheng Siong <····@netmemetic.com>
http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps -+- M2Crypto, ZServerSSL for Zope, Blog
http://www.sqlcrypt.com -+- Database Engine with Transparent AES Encryption
Ng Pheng Siong wrote:
> According to Thomas Gagne <······@wide-open-west.com>:
>
>>How about a Smalltalk with an embedded LISP processor with both capable of
>>accessing the other's symbols?
>
>
> There is an implementation of Lisp in Smalltalk written by Aoki Atsushi
> that is available as a Smalltalk/X goodie. There is also a
> Prolog-in-Smalltalk, also by Aoki Atsushi, which upon closer inspect, is a
> Prolog implemented in the Lisp-implemented-in-Smalltalk.
>
> Said Prolog gave the wrong answer to a correct Prolog formulation of
> Einstein's riddle, though.
>
> One of my many NATO projects is to write some Lisp to walk a
> Prolog-in-Lisp implementation and generate Lisp-in-Smalltalk code, to get to
> Prolog-in-Smalltalk.
>
> See http://sandbox.rulemaker.net/ngps/120
>
> Cheers.
The attributions on
<http://www.exept.de/exept/onlineDoc/english/programming/goody_lisp.html> say,
"Ported from the MEI package as found in the smalltalk archives." It's time
to visit the archives.
>
Since this has something to offend everyone, I apologize in advance.
I'm a former Smalltalker and neophypte Lisper currently making a
similar evaluation.
Smalltalk is easier to learn and use, primarily because of the IDE.
There's nothing in the Lisp world (or in any other language, to my
knowledge) to compare with the combination of power and simplicity
you'll get from VW. The everything-is-an-object approach also greatly
lowers the learning curve.
On the other hand, I don't see any compelling reason to do this project
in Smalltalk. VW has development and runtime licensing fees and a weak
HTTP server (if I remember correctly, its own documentation says it's
not a "production quality" server. There may be good open source NLP
libraries out there for ST, but I haven't heard of them.
I also wouldn't use Lisp for the web site part unless you have a very
complex dynamic web app (or some other really compelling reason). PHP,
C# or Java with some good tools (Webwork, velocity, sitemesh) would be
better options if your product's real value is in the nlp and not in
the display. There's no reason to do them both in the same language if
you're batch processing the feeds. If the web requirments are easy,
reduce your risk and go mainstream.
Others have pointed out that Lisp is great for building tools, but
suggested you don't need that. I would guess that if you're doing NLP
in Lisp you'll be building a lot of tools. There are some Lisp tools
for NLP but nothing like a complete library that I've seen. The
situation in other languages is not necessarily better, however, unless
you're considering commercial NLP tools.
Personally, I think Lisp is well suited for exploratory NLP work
because texts naturally decompose into tree structures (paragraphs,
sentences, tokens) easily implemented in lists. Ditto for XML, of
course. Once you get the NLP working, you may need to refactor to use
vectors or whatever, but just making non-trivial NLP apps work a level
appropriate for commercial software can be a very hard problem. If you
get that far, you're ahead of the game.
Finally, if you must use a single tool for both, I'd reconsider Python.
Good luck.
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>
> Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired
boss
> put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
> advanced software using a language they don't know.
>
> Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
> for the project...and why?
>
> 1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> 2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based
UI.
> 3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
> etc.)
> 4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
> processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
> 5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
> VisualWorks Smalltalk.
> 6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
> 7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
> 8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
> Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
> (non-hypothetical) exercise.
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <uhdl5rulv.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
········@gmail.com" <·······@gmail.com> writes:
> I'm a [...] neophypte Lisper
> There's nothing in the Lisp world [...] to compare
How did you manage to survey the entire Lisp world,
while still not knowing Lisp?
Or are you just blowing shit out your ass?
So show me i'm wrong. I've used Lispworks, Allegro, Emacs with Slime
and Dr. Scheme. How many Smalltallk IDEs have you used? Or are you
just blowing shit out YOUR ass?
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ud5vsruet.fsf@news.dtpq.com>
You have provided nothing to back up your assertions.
You mentioned that you've used some of the popular IDEs for some
Lisps, and said that you're a neophyte. I've been programming for
31 years, and over the last 26 years that I've been using Lisp and
developing Lisp systems, I've seen quite a few more things.
What specific details of VW would you cite to back your extraordinary
claim that there is "NOTHING IN THE LISP WORLD that compares with
the combination of power and simplicity you'll get from VW"?
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <wmBJd.172182$6l.104817@pd7tw2no>
·······@gmail.com wrote:
> Since this has something to offend everyone, I apologize in advance.
>
> I'm a former Smalltalker and neophypte Lisper currently making a
> similar evaluation.
>
> Smalltalk is easier to learn and use, primarily because of the IDE.
> There's nothing in the Lisp world (or in any other language, to my
> knowledge) to compare with the combination of power and simplicity
> you'll get from VW. The everything-is-an-object approach also greatly
> lowers the learning curve.
>
> On the other hand, I don't see any compelling reason to do this project
> in Smalltalk. VW has development and runtime licensing fees and a weak
> HTTP server (if I remember correctly, its own documentation says it's
> not a "production quality" server. There may be good open source NLP
> libraries out there for ST, but I haven't heard of them.
>
> I also wouldn't use Lisp for the web site part unless you have a very
> complex dynamic web app (or some other really compelling reason). PHP,
> C# or Java with some good tools (Webwork, velocity, sitemesh) would be
> better options if your product's real value is in the nlp and not in
> the display. There's no reason to do them both in the same language if
> you're batch processing the feeds. If the web requirments are easy,
> reduce your risk and go mainstream.
You can't be serious. None of the languages you mention are in any way
suitable for web development (appeal to the masses will not work here).
I am a professional web developer (whatever that is), and i worked for 5
years in PHP. It is useless unless used simply as a 'hypertext
preprocessor'. Java is even worse. C#, i've never tried, but i can't
imagine such a low-level language being any good for web dev. ASP.net
perhaps, great libraries (modulo security holes and lack of good
support, and i suppose the same libs are available for C#), but really
an inferior PHP/JSP.
Both ST and Lisp have better solutions (seaside and UCW) for web
development. Continuations and syntatic abstractions are crucial in the
web domain lest every app end up looking like this pseudo-code:
if (some-form-var == "yes" && someother-fomr-var == 2) {
foreach (param in HTTR_POST_VARS) {
<do somthing with form>
}
<store some value>
<generate page>
}else if (some-form-var == "no" && someother-fomr-var == 2) {
foreach (param in HTTR_POST_VARS) {
<do somthing with form>
}
<store some different value>
<generate page>
}else {
<generate start page>
}
After 5 years of developing and maintaining such crap, i moved on.
PLEASE don't give such advice to people who are just starting out.
It is much easier to write contnuation style code then the pseudo-state
machine style of most webapps. Easy to read/write and maintaim vs hardly
suitable for the task.
Your answer is like "well, you'll be using guiness in your stew, sure.
makes it rich and creamy. But for just drinking, you probably want to go
with budwieser. It's easier to drink because it's watery and thin and
lacks any flavour.. oh .. and everybody else drinks it, so it MUST be a
good beer... and since you are just starting out drinking beer, you
should start with the worst possible solution."
If you remember correctly, the OP is not yet a programmer. PHP and Java
and whatever other ALGOL like language you want to call 'easy' is only
'easy' if you learned to program in that style. If all you ever knew is
lisp or ST, any of those other languages is going to feel like coding
with your keyboard tied behind your back.
Have you read "Beating the Averages"?
Maybe i haven't had enough coffee yet, but your post really pissed me
off :). Nothing personal.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students
that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they
are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." -- Dijkstra
>
> Others have pointed out that Lisp is great for building tools, but
> suggested you don't need that. I would guess that if you're doing NLP
> in Lisp you'll be building a lot of tools. There are some Lisp tools
> for NLP but nothing like a complete library that I've seen. The
> situation in other languages is not necessarily better, however, unless
> you're considering commercial NLP tools.
>
> Personally, I think Lisp is well suited for exploratory NLP work
> because texts naturally decompose into tree structures (paragraphs,
> sentences, tokens) easily implemented in lists. Ditto for XML, of
> course. Once you get the NLP working, you may need to refactor to use
> vectors or whatever, but just making non-trivial NLP apps work a level
> appropriate for commercial software can be a very hard problem. If you
> get that far, you're ahead of the game.
>
> Finally, if you must use a single tool for both, I'd reconsider Python.
Any reason why? or is this just a whim? good NLP and Web libraries
available? pointers? or is the 'easy to learn' bit again?
Programming is hard, NLP is very hard. Trying to dumb it down is only
going to cause problems in the future. The OP asked "Lisp or Smalltalk,
[which should i use]", and you've been helpful enough to suggest Java,
php, C# and python. Did you read the requirements?
drewc
>
>
> Good luck.
>
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
>
>>An appeal to the collective wisdom of c.l.l. and c.l.s:
>>
>>Assume, for a few terrifying moments, that you are a pointy-haired
>
> boss
>
>>put in charge of a team who are expected to implement some fairly
>>advanced software using a language they don't know.
>>
>>Given the set of parameters below, would you choose Lisp or Smalltalk
>>for the project...and why?
>>
>>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
>>2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based
>
> UI.
>
>>3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
>>etc.)
>>4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
>>processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
>>5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
>>VisualWorks Smalltalk.
>>6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
>>7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
>>8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>>
>>Thanks in advance for helping me with this sick little
>>(non-hypothetical) exercise.
>
>
"drewc" <·····@rift.com> wrote in message
···························@pd7tw2no...
> ·······@gmail.com wrote:
> Programming is hard, NLP is very hard. Trying to dumb it down is only
> going to cause problems in the future. The OP asked "Lisp or Smalltalk,
> [which should i use]", and you've been helpful enough to suggest Java,
> php, C# and python. Did you read the requirements?
Why yes, I did read the requirements. Shall we go through them again?
>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
No CS people. No coders. Analysts and integrators. Systems wonks. Just the
type of people who are capable of building this thing from scratch starting
with atoms and conses...oh..wait...
>2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based
> UI.
COMMODITY interface. You may not like Java, but there are a lot of blinking
web sites driven by it. If you want to write in a CPS style, try Cocoon, or
any of its ports to other frameworks. (Dare we even count the number of
frameworks available for web development that are written in Java?)
>3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
>etc.)
Let's see. Which of these three implementation languages do you think has
the largest availability of "standard business type stuff (groupware etc.)"
in either open source form or commercially available: Please pick one from
this list:
a) Common Lisp
b) Java
c) Smalltalk
>4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
>processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
I don't know squat about NLP. I'm lucky I can communicate at all myself.
However...
http://opennlp.sourceforge.net/projects.html
21 projects listed. 16 of them are in Java. 2 Lisp, 1 Prolog, 1 C++, 1 Perl.
But, I know, that doesn't mean anything. Mark Watson (occasional contributor
to c.l.l) has a set of NLP utilities -- his Java version has a color pdf
brochure! He also has a CL version for "research" purposes. Stanfords NLP
group seems to be doing all of their stuff in Java. Idiots. Imbeciles. Who'd
have thunk that Stanfords standards were so low. To much TV and video games
I tell ya! Kids today....
>5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
>VisualWorks Smalltalk.
I pick D) Sun's JVM...it works purty good.
>6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
Yea. Java's a poor choice. There's just too much to sort through. That will
just slow you down. I conceed this point.
>7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
Yea. It's best to do this whole thing from scratch with only a couple of
programmer mentors (which means what, they kibitz but don't code?).
>8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
The less of the project you have to actually code yourself gives you more
time to make the rest of the project work. Systems analysts are good at
designing, wait for it, SYSTEMS. Big chunks of things wired together in
arcane ways. This is MUCH easier to do when you actually have big chunks
available to actually wire together.
I do not advocate Java for its syntax, for it's elegance, for its lean
runtime, or because it advanced computer programming 20 years in a
heartbeat. It doesn't have any of those things going for it.
It has going for it, however, ubiquity, portability, and abundance. It is
everywhere. Even those who hate it, know the language. It runs on
everything, and it has millions of lines of code available to do pretty much
whatever you want (including, apparently, NLP). Some of that code may be
easier to recreate than integrate, who knows, but it is available on an
unbelievable scale.
Hell, there is even a Common Lisp (to a point) that integrates well with it
and runs on the JVM. Even Allegro has a layer to interface easily with Java.
If this project with the given skill set has ANY chance to succeed, it will
be because it leverages the strengths of the team. Programming is NOT,
apparently, one of those strengths.
Heck, if nothing else, turn the analysts loose on evaluating the potential
of the components you need and their availability in Java. But to discard it
out of hand is as bad as rejecting Lisp because it has too many parentheses.
I know, I know, the OP doesn't like Java. That's OK. Java will work with him
anyway. It doesn't hold grudges.
Regards,
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <7uHJd.176279$8l.82723@pd7tw1no>
Will Hartung wrote:
> "drewc" <·····@rift.com> wrote in message
> ···························@pd7tw2no...
>
>>·······@gmail.com wrote:
>>Programming is hard, NLP is very hard. Trying to dumb it down is only
>>going to cause problems in the future. The OP asked "Lisp or Smalltalk,
>>[which should i use]", and you've been helpful enough to suggest Java,
>>php, C# and python. Did you read the requirements?
>
>
> Why yes, I did read the requirements. Shall we go through them again?
I'm sorry .. I'm a little confused here. Are you ·······@gmail.com as
well as Will Hartung? If so, could you mention that when posting from
gmail? i like to know who i am talking to.
look, if the OP was asking for 'the best language for this task with a
bunch of non-coders" i'd probably say Java or C# as well (and would
recommend Cocoon + flow for the web app) just because the appeal to the
masses is sound advice in this case . there is lots of crap available
for Java that will make it easier to build this from commodity
components... it will be easier to get help for Java issues from the
local "Java Guru".
But ...
the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide
Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i should use".
He also stated that he will be hiring a specialist in the langauge he
chooses, to develop the tools and mentor the team. Lisp is the best
langauge to build other languages on, bar none. If this expert can make
a simple DSL for the domain experts to use, it would certainly be a
better language for the task than Java or whatever other general purpose
langauge you think is the easiest to learn (not easy to use, mind you).
I don't like to see people opine on something that is unrelated to the
question asked. Great, you like Java, i'm happy to hear that. But how is
'use Java' the answer to the OP's question? Did he not mention he
expects to fail? perhaps he already has good reasons for not choosing
Java. How does your opinion help the OP solve his problem?
Shall we all go over to c.l.Java and when someone asks "how do i declare
and anonymous inner class" we'll all shout "Use lisp and closures
instead"? so why do the inverse here?
>
>
>>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
>>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
>
>
> No CS people. No coders. Analysts and integrators. Systems wonks. Just the
> type of people who are capable of building this thing from scratch starting
> with atoms and conses...oh..wait...
I'm glad you read the requirements so well. "Most of team members are
'systems analysts'" Does not mean that there are no programmers any more
then "Most programmers use Java" means that nobody uses C.
>
>
>>2. Project will be internet and intranet software -> browser-based
>>UI.
>
>
> COMMODITY interface. You may not like Java, but there are a lot of blinking
> web sites driven by it. If you want to write in a CPS style, try Cocoon, or
> any of its ports to other frameworks. (Dare we even count the number of
> frameworks available for web development that are written in Java?)
>
>>3. Much of functionality is standard business-type stuff (groupware,
>>etc.)
>
>
> Let's see. Which of these three implementation languages do you think has
> the largest availability of "standard business type stuff (groupware etc.)"
> in either open source form or commercially available: Please pick one from
> this list:
>
> a) Common Lisp
> b) Java
> c) Smalltalk
Which langauges did the OP state he was interested it? same list.
>
>
>>4. Part of functionality, however, will rely on natural language
>>processing of 30,000 or so data feeds, many of which are XML-based.
>
>
> I don't know squat about NLP. I'm lucky I can communicate at all myself.
>
> However...
>
> http://opennlp.sourceforge.net/projects.html
>
> 21 projects listed. 16 of them are in Java. 2 Lisp, 1 Prolog, 1 C++, 1 Perl.
> But, I know, that doesn't mean anything. Mark Watson (occasional contributor
> to c.l.l) has a set of NLP utilities -- his Java version has a color pdf
> brochure! He also has a CL version for "research" purposes. Stanfords NLP
> group seems to be doing all of their stuff in Java. Idiots. Imbeciles. Who'd
> have thunk that Stanfords standards were so low. To much TV and video games
> I tell ya! Kids today....
Great! these libs exist for lisp! Pointing the OP in that direction may
help more than suggesting he use Java instead.
>
>
>>5. Specific implementation choices are between SBCL or LispWorks and
>>VisualWorks Smalltalk.
>
>
> I pick D) Sun's JVM...it works purty good.
D is NOT on the list. tell me again how well you read the requirements?
>>6. Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible.
>
>
> Yea. Java's a poor choice. There's just too much to sort through. That will
> just slow you down. I conceed this point.
Ok .. i'll just fire up my complete Open Source JVM for 1.5 and ... oh
wait. Ok .. i'll just use the freebsd port .... oh wait, sun yanked the
license. hrm.
>>7. There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the team.
>
>
> Yea. It's best to do this whole thing from scratch with only a couple of
> programmer mentors (which means what, they kibitz but don't code?).
Ever worked on a team with more experienced programmers? I have. They
generally are more productive then the others. If yours just kibitz
(great word BTW, i love chess), i suggest some re-organization.
The "real programmers" create the tools for the rest of the team to use.
Lisp is perfect for this sort of thing.
>
>
>>8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
>
>
> The less of the project you have to actually code yourself gives you more
> time to make the rest of the project work.
A great argument _for_ lisp...
> Systems analysts are good at
> designing, wait for it, SYSTEMS. Big chunks of things wired together in
> arcane ways. This is MUCH easier to do when you actually have big chunks
> available to actually wire together.
And these things don't exist in any langauge but Java? Man ... what have
i been doing!
>
> I do not advocate Java for its syntax, for it's elegance, for its lean
> runtime, or because it advanced computer programming 20 years in a
> heartbeat. It doesn't have any of those things going for it.
We agree here :)
>
> It has going for it, however, ubiquity, portability, and abundance. It is
> everywhere. Even those who hate it, know the language. It runs on
> everything, and it has millions of lines of code available to do pretty much
> whatever you want (including, apparently, NLP). Some of that code may be
> easier to recreate than integrate, who knows, but it is available on an
> unbelievable scale.
Great. but one could use the same argument for COBOL.(except maybe the
everybody knows it part .. not as true as it once was. Lisp is still
going strong i might add). It has been said that billions of insects
like to eat shit. I prefer fruit. YMMV.
I'm not arguing against Java in particular (infact i was going off
against php mostly), but the OP didn't ask about Java.
>
> Hell, there is even a Common Lisp (to a point) that integrates well with it
> and runs on the JVM. Even Allegro has a layer to interface easily with Java.
Good point! So the OP could use Lisp (like he wants to) but get all the
benefits of using Java? Why didn't you mention this to him? Heck, seems
like the perfect solution to me.
>
> If this project with the given skill set has ANY chance to succeed, it will
> be because it leverages the strengths of the team. Programming is NOT,
> apparently, one of those strengths.
You still think "most" means "all" here. There will be experienced
programmers on the team. Once expert lisp user will be more productive
than the millions of Java monkeys NOT on the team. and i'd be willing to
bet that a lisp programmer is more productive then a Java programmer in
general.
>
> Heck, if nothing else, turn the analysts loose on evaluating the potential
> of the components you need and their availability in Java. But to discard it
> out of hand is as bad as rejecting Lisp because it has too many parentheses.
For sure, discarding Java out of hand is silly. But the OP already made
the choice (and stated his reasons for it). Trying to bring him back
into the fold is just as silly.
>
> I know, I know, the OP doesn't like Java. That's OK. Java will work with him
> anyway. It doesn't hold grudges.
so you'd recommend a language the OP does not like and does not want to
use because it may or may not be better for the problem domain? You
sound like a Sun salesperson here. It may work for you, but "just use
Java" is not the solution to the problem of choice between lisp and
smalltalk.
drewc
>
> Regards,
>
> Will Hartung
> (·····@msoft.com)
>
>
DREWC WROTE:
[the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific
Suicide Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i
should use". He also stated that he will be hiring a specialist in the
langauge he chooses, to develop the tools and mentor the team. I don't
like to see people opine on something that is unrelated to the question
asked. perhaps he already has good reasons for not choosing Java.
"Most of team members are 'systems analysts'" Does not mean that there
are no programmers any more then "Most programmers use Java" means that
nobody uses C....You still think "most" means "all" here. There will be
experienced programmers on the team. Ever worked on a team with more
experienced programmers? I have. They generally are more productive
than the others.]
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!
I finally feel that someone read all of the main points of what I've
been writing. I was starting to wonder how a few of these people even
program their VCRs with their poor attention to detail...
I'm sorry, but it's very frustrating to explain that we are hiring
professional programmers and that I'm very willing to spend the time
(years!) learning the language, tools, and concepts, only to have
someone follow-up immediately with a post saying that I'm
not willing to learn the language, tools, or concepts and that I'll
probably fail because the task is impossible without real programmers!
We already have two very talented mentors on our staff, with lots of
practical experience and master's degrees in CompSci. We also work
with an outside agency that can provide us with other talented
programmers in the future. One of our current programmers attended
UIUC and one attended IU (and studied under Dan Friedman, for those
schemers out there.) They both have similar experience levels, and
both have served as senior engineers at my past companies (where we
used Java and C/C++, which might hint as to why we are moving on from
those languages now.) One of the guys wants to use Smalltalk, the
other wants to use Common Lisp. If our venture funding closes, we
intend to do simple prototypes in both languages to decide which guy
will be the project lead. (They each have a slightly different
approach to the problem.) Their advocacy for Smalltalk and Lisp is
what started this whole thread. Each has a large stake in the outcome
(stock options,etc.), so I was trying to kill two birds with one stone
by learning more about my newfound interests, and getting -
theoretically - less biased input on the issues. Different
perspectives are a good thing, but I didn't expect to have to deal with
so much background noise.
I still appreciate all of the help everyone has provided, and I think
it will also help other newbies. Make art, not war.
DREWC wrote:
"It has been said that billions of insects like to eat shit. I prefer
fruit. YMMV."
That is priceless :-)
There is probably big money for you in T-Shirts and bumper-stickers if
you wanted to diversify your talents ;-)
- Sergei
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <IyJJd.177638$Xk.102890@pd7tw3no>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> DREWC WROTE:
>
> [the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific
> Suicide Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i
> should use". He also stated that he will be hiring a specialist in the
> langauge he chooses, to develop the tools and mentor the team. I don't
> like to see people opine on something that is unrelated to the question
> asked. perhaps he already has good reasons for not choosing Java.
> "Most of team members are 'systems analysts'" Does not mean that there
> are no programmers any more then "Most programmers use Java" means that
> nobody uses C....You still think "most" means "all" here. There will be
> experienced programmers on the team. Ever worked on a team with more
> experienced programmers? I have. They generally are more productive
> than the others.]
>
>
> Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!
No problem :). Translating between programmers and non-programmers is a
large part of my job.
>
> I finally feel that someone read all of the main points of what I've
> been writing. I was starting to wonder how a few of these people even
> program their VCRs with their poor attention to detail...
>
> I'm sorry, but it's very frustrating to explain that we are hiring
> professional programmers and that I'm very willing to spend the time
> (years!) learning the language, tools, and concepts, only to have
> someone follow-up immediately with a post saying that I'm
> not willing to learn the language, tools, or concepts and that I'll
> probably fail because the task is impossible without real programmers!
>
>
> We already have two very talented mentors on our staff, with lots of
> practical experience and master's degrees in CompSci. We also work
> with an outside agency that can provide us with other talented
> programmers in the future. One of our current programmers attended
> UIUC and one attended IU (and studied under Dan Friedman, for those
> schemers out there.) They both have similar experience levels, and
> both have served as senior engineers at my past companies (where we
> used Java and C/C++, which might hint as to why we are moving on from
> those languages now.) One of the guys wants to use Smalltalk, the
> other wants to use Common Lisp. If our venture funding closes, we
> intend to do simple prototypes in both languages to decide which guy
> will be the project lead. (They each have a slightly different
> approach to the problem.) Their advocacy for Smalltalk and Lisp is
> what started this whole thread. Each has a large stake in the outcome
> (stock options,etc.), so I was trying to kill two birds with one stone
> by learning more about my newfound interests, and getting -
> theoretically - less biased input on the issues. Different
> perspectives are a good thing, but I didn't expect to have to deal with
> so much background noise.
if you posted that last paragraph as the first post in this thread, i
suspect you may have had better responses.
drewc
>
> I still appreciate all of the help everyone has provided, and I think
> it will also help other newbies. Make art, not war.
>
> DREWC wrote:
> "It has been said that billions of insects like to eat shit. I prefer
> fruit. YMMV."
>
> That is priceless :-)
>
> There is probably big money for you in T-Shirts and bumper-stickers if
> you wanted to diversify your talents ;-)
>
> - Sergei
>
drewc wrote:
"if you posted that last paragraph as the first post in this thread, i
suspect you may have had better responses."
Yes, the only reason I didn't start if off that way is because I had to
clear the information thru our (current and potential) investors...they
go a bit crazy with their NDAs and secrecy issues. I also thought it
would cloud the issue (and I would get a million emails about 'better'
ways to choose a project leader, etc.) Then it would become a thread
about hiring and leadership issues instead of about practical matters.
Of course, the thread has largely devolved into namecalling anyway,
so... ;-)
The two guys are about as equal in education and experience as you can
get, and their is no "Best Engineer" DNA test, unfortunately. If I'd
started the thread with that part of my conundrum, I would have had a
bunch of "Well, use the more experienced guy" posts, because many
aren't reading the posts anyway, just responding.
Thanks,
Sergei the Egomaniac
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <mWNJd.319$FD5.316@clgrps12>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> approach to the problem.) Their advocacy for Smalltalk and Lisp is
> what started this whole thread. Each has a large stake in the outcome
> (stock options,etc.), so I was trying to kill two birds with one stone
> by learning more about my newfound interests, and getting -
> theoretically - less biased input on the issues. Different
> perspectives are a good thing, but I didn't expect to have to deal with
> so much background noise.
>
Ooohhh, oooohhh! I have a suggestion. Use both languages.
I hope your two mentors (whom you do not beleieve) are
reading these posts. Perhaps they could post some comments?
Wade
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <m3ekg811pq.fsf@javamonkey.com>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> One of the guys wants to use Smalltalk, the other wants to use
> Common Lisp. If our venture funding closes, we intend to do simple
> prototypes in both languages to decide which guy will be the project
> lead. (They each have a slightly different approach to the problem.)
Here's what you should do: let each guy do a prototype *in the other
guy's language*. Then whoever writes the best prototype gets to be the
project lead and to pick the language you'll write the real software
in. If these guys are really cut out to be project leads they'll be
happy to take on this challenge and perfectly capable of learning
enough about the other language to do their prototype. And then you'll
have two people you trust who actually have informed opinions about
both languages. And they'll probably bicker less.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
"That is a great idea, actually. Thank you."
was intended for Peter Seibel, who wrote:
"Here's what you should do: let each guy do a prototype *in the other
guy's language*. Then whoever writes the best prototype gets to be the
project lead and to pick the language you'll write the real software
in. If these guys are really cut out to be project leads they'll be
happy to take on this challenge and perfectly capable of learning
enough about the other language to do their prototype. And then you'll
have two people you trust who actually have informed opinions about
both languages. And they'll probably bicker less."
Google Groups isn't inserting all the posts in the proper place in the
thread, and I just realized that a few of my posts never even showed up
at all, which is not helping anyone understand me any better :-(
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <874qh3zfk1.fsf@nyct.net>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> I'm sorry, but it's very frustrating to explain that we are hiring
> professional programmers and that I'm very willing to spend the time
> (years!) learning the language, tools, and concepts, only to have
> someone follow-up immediately with a post saying that I'm
> not willing to learn the language, tools, or concepts and that I'll
> probably fail because the task is impossible without real programmers!
So you changed the story from under us. If it quacks like a troll, walks
like a troll, and looks like a troll...
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain wrote:
"So you changed the story from under us. If it quacks like a troll,
walks like a troll, and looks like a troll..."
A TIMELINE:
·······@runbox.com (Jan 19, 11:49 pm) wrote: "MOST of team members are
"systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS majors), not
programmers.There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the
team."
** "couple" is usually taken to mean two, yes? ***
Pascal Bourguignon (Jan 20): "Why don't you hire programmers to do
programming works?"
·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 1:24 am) wrote: "Though obviously not an
ideal situation, there are two reasons for this requirement: 1. It is a
low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a budget to bring
in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary..."
·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 2:30 am) wrote: "The "real programmers"
that will mentor the team will probably be drawn from a consulting
agency we work with depending on which language we choose. They have
several full-time Smalltalk and Lisp programmers that all have
experience as instructors."
*** Since I've already said we have two programmers (which existed very
early on, and were not conjured out of 'thin air'), then when I talk
about bringing in outside programmers - funds permitting - you can
logically reach the conclusion that they are ADDITIONAL programmers.
****
·······@runbox.com (Jan 21, 7:14 pm): "And I don't mean, in any way, to
demean or diminish the work or skills of professional programmers. I'm
also NOT TRYING TO ENTIRELY SUPPLANT THEM on this or any other project.
And, again, I AM willing to learn...it is the "thinking like a
programmer" part of the equation that most fascinates me..."
Rahul Jain (Jan 23):
"He specifically wants people with no understanding of what a computer
is, what it can do, how it can mess up, or how to structure things
logically to write this program. Of course, it's bound to fail no
matter what language he uses."
** Yes, by "real programmers" I mean people with no understanding of
what a computer is or what it can do...yep ***
Will Hartung (25th January):
"No CS people. No coders."
**** WTF! Confusing 'most' with 'all.' Poor attention to detail.
Semantic Arguments. Antagonism. ****
ANOTHER Timeline:
Jonathon Bartlett (21 January 21, 6:23 am):
"If you are wanting to become a programmer but don't want to invest the
time to truly learn how it works, I forsee disastrous problems...You're
planning on doing AI but don't want to bother with computer
science?!?!?!?"
·······@runbox.com (Jan 21, 1:41 pm): "I do intend to read books, read
code, and write some code to try to get a better feel for the
languages. When I said I didn't want to be a computer scientist, I only
meant that I'm not interested in learning languages primarily for the
intellectual challenge or for a full-time career as in academia...I AM
very willing to learn the theory and skills that are necessary to be a
proficient programmer and to achieve my practical goals..."
Darin Johnson (Jan 21, 4:04 pm): "The reason I ask is that your
statement here (and your requirements elsewhere) lead me to think of
the analogy: "I want to build my own
house, but I don't want to learn much carpentry or be an electrician."
"
·······@runbox.com (Jan 23, 10:37 pm): "Yet it is obvious that most
have not read much of what I've written about my willingness to learn
and the fact that there WILL be professional programmers brought in on
the project to help us."
Will Hartung (Jan 24, 4:23 pm): "However, if you are not a tool maker,
not interested in tool making, nor inclined to master the skills
necessary to become a tool maker.."
Who is trying to communicate, and who is arguing semantics and being
antagonistic on these threads? If you think we are miscommunicating,
why not try to clarify instead of being a SLW?
From: Will Hartung
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <35t256F4mrqgmU1@individual.net>
<·······@runbox.com> wrote in message
····························@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Rahul Jain wrote:
> "So you changed the story from under us. If it quacks like a troll,
> walks like a troll, and looks like a troll..."
>
> A TIMELINE:
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 19, 11:49 pm) wrote: "MOST of team members are
> "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS majors), not
> programmers.There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the
> team."
"Most ... are ... systems analysts, not programmers. There are ONLY a couple
of real programmers to MENTOR the team."
Note, it doesn't say "we have programmers, but the rest and most of the team
are SA's, and we'll have a couple of OTHER real programmers mentoring the
team."
For all we knew those on the team that weren't Systems Analysts were domain
experts, or something else. In no way is it clear here that you have
programmers other than the "couple of mentors".
And mentors are not programmers. They're teachers. They just happen to teach
programming.
>
> ** "couple" is usually taken to mean two, yes? ***
>
> Pascal Bourguignon (Jan 20): "Why don't you hire programmers to do
> programming works?"
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 1:24 am) wrote: "Though obviously not an
> ideal situation, there are two reasons for this requirement: 1. It is a
> low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a budget to bring
> in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary..."
So, again, this doesn't say anything about actually HAVING programmers. You
didn't respond with "We already have programmers, but it's a low budget
thing and we can't bring in any NEW programmers unless absolutely
necessary." At this point, there STILL doesn't seem to be any programmers.
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 2:30 am) wrote: "The "real programmers"
> that will mentor the team will probably be drawn from a consulting
> agency we work with depending on which language we choose. They have
> several full-time Smalltalk and Lisp programmers that all have
> experience as instructors."
"...as instructors". Programming is a roll up the sleeves, dig in, ponder
arcane bits for hours on end. No real "programming" is done in class. It's
all done in the labs, typically AWAY from the instructors, at least that's
how I learned it. Again, it is not clear in any way that you have any full
time programmers on the team, rather you have qualified instructors to
mentor...who?
> *** Since I've already said we have two programmers (which existed very
> early on, and were not conjured out of 'thin air'), then when I talk
> about bringing in outside programmers - funds permitting - you can
> logically reach the conclusion that they are ADDITIONAL programmers.
> ****
And as I've noted, it sounded a lot more like you had two teachers, not
programmers.
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 21, 7:14 pm): "And I don't mean, in any way, to
> demean or diminish the work or skills of professional programmers. I'm
> also NOT TRYING TO ENTIRELY SUPPLANT THEM on this or any other project.
> And, again, I AM willing to learn...it is the "thinking like a
> programmer" part of the equation that most fascinates me..."
>
> Rahul Jain (Jan 23):
> "He specifically wants people with no understanding of what a computer
> is, what it can do, how it can mess up, or how to structure things
> logically to write this program. Of course, it's bound to fail no
> matter what language he uses."
>
> ** Yes, by "real programmers" I mean people with no understanding of
> what a computer is or what it can do...yep ***
>
> Will Hartung (25th January):
> "No CS people. No coders."
>
> **** WTF! Confusing 'most' with 'all.' Poor attention to detail.
> Semantic Arguments. Antagonism. ****
Everything to this point said "'systems analysts' (i.e. business and MIS
majors), not programmers", other undeclared team members (those that aren't
part of "most"), and two "mentors". Where are the full time CS people and
coders? Who's going to write the thousands upon thousands of lines of code?
How many are there? (Obviously, less than the SA's...)
> Will Hartung (Jan 24, 4:23 pm): "However, if you are not a tool maker,
> not interested in tool making, nor inclined to master the skills
> necessary to become a tool maker.."
>
> Who is trying to communicate, and who is arguing semantics and being
> antagonistic on these threads? If you think we are miscommunicating,
> why not try to clarify instead of being a SLW?
SLW? I didn't see that in the glossary. I think I'm being insulted.
I've done nothing but give you PRACTICAL advice to what I saw as a solution
to your problem, as presented. A domain knowledge rich, yet inexperienced
development team with a couple of "mentors" doing a project with a lot of
commodity boiler plate software and one specialty component, and with little
budget. Your project appeared to me to be in a classic "build or buy"
scenario where I advocated that you basically "buy" as much as practical,
and suggested Java because of it's large market place of "stuff to buy".
You want to be a programmer, not to be a programmer, but to better
understand and communicate with your programmers. You want to know as little
as practical to become more proficient. Your goal is not to become a "good"
programmer, it is to become "as adequate as necessary" to get your project
done. You are not doing this project to learn to program, you are learning
to program to do this project. It is the results (a finished project) that
matter here to you, not the process (how or what it is written in). As you
can imagine, most of the c.l.l and c.l.s crowd have an interest more in the
process.
Most of us who DO program computers do so because we LIKE to program
computers. We're programmers for the means, for the work, not the end. We
all want to work on interesting projects, but only so that we can develop
our personal process to create that project. (Yes, a sweeping
generalization, but largely true of most programmers.) You want to be a
programmer for the end result. If you did not think you had to learn
programming to aid this project, you would not be doing it. But now you feel
that's necessary, and decided to dive in and "become a programmer", with the
stated goal of not being a particularly good one.
Some may take that position as trivializing the work we do year in and year
out and take great pride in. It is not easy. It is not something that you
can just "pick up", regardless of the toolset. Most folks don't like seeing
their work belittled.
If someone asked you if you were a house builder, the proper response is
"No, but I have built houses." You've written contracts, but you are not a
lawyer.
You came here with the thinking that the IDE and tool set is going to enable
your project, when the fact of the matter is simply that the toolset is far
less important than you think. Your project will not succeed or fail based
on this decision. Experienced programmers can bring success from most any
environment. Inexperienced programmers can create disaster with the best of
tools. A novice chef can dull the sharpest of knives.
Now you condemn the community with the position that you've been the most
candid, forthcoming and the pinnacle of clarity and that the community
simply responded negatively through no effort on your part. The community
just spontaneously directs rage and ichor in your direction because you're
handy. "It's all a misunderstanding", but we're the only ones at fault. It's
all WE who are dense and "don't get it".
I've been nothing but fair to you, trying to help you with your project as
stated, trying to lift it above the details of computing language and focus
on a solution to the problem. You take my "isn't a tool maker" comment as
some sort of direct slight, when you should have just acknowledged it for
the observation of what your true motives and true goals were. I don't
condemn those motives. You're a businessman trying to make a business
decision.
But its pretty clear you need to work on interpersonal communications a bit.
Regards,
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
Your criticisms of me are very valid, my criticisms of some of you are
very valid. It is pointless to continue arguing, since we are still
missing each others points. I was using your tool message in context
of how I took it...your advice HAS been very practical and helpful.
Thank you, Will.
We all miscommunicated....and I was expected too much out of usenet
discussion. Expecting too much based on the amount of information that
was provided, the manner in which it was provided, etc. Expecting too
much when I was using words that have different interpretations (mentor
in programming vs. just 'programmer', etc.)
I do not expect the tools or the language to be a silver bullet, and I
have never had the GOAL of failure or of being a mediocre programmer.
Admitting that I will probably never be a very good programmer because
I lack a formal CS education and lots of experience is, to me, some
acceptance of reality - not a "stated" goal. I want to be a great
programmer AND a more effective manager by learning to communicate
easier with my staff. We all know ambition does not equal achievement,
though. The "suicide mission" thread title is more my sense of humor
and an attempt to forestall some of the response types I had seen on
other c.l.l threads. An acknowledgement of the difficulty of our
situation, so that I wouldn't be told to give up instantly. Getting
information like the suggestion of the possibility of creating a domain
specific language that our analysts could use is why I was here.
I have never tried to pick a fight or start a language war, and was
careful to note that in most of the posts that might lead in that
direction. Many seem to be interpreting everything that was written in
black or white, all or none. The world is grey.
I also think I went out of my way NOT to trivialize your chosen
profession.
Please understand that I have not "condemned the community," nor do I
think I was blameless in the discussion. Obviously, many of the
communication issues were my problem. But receiving shitty emails and
then (essentially) being called a liar is not something I thought was
appropriate, given the thread direction. Although I was at fault for
my level of expectations and my sometimes poor wording, I have been in
a largely defensive posture - not offensive. I'm an Israeli, so I
don't like to be treated poorly and then have the offender strut away
like a peacock. To have the exact OPPOSITE of what I had actually
written be posted as my words is frustrating. If it due to a
miscommunication, as it largely was, then that is no problem - we
simply reframe the discussion and move on. Instead I was also called a
troll, a Smalltalk prosletyzer, dishonest, etc. I felt the need to
post timelines to try to defend myself and get back on track, but now
I'm being told that I should have never expected anyone to actually
follow my long meandering posts. If Kenny and Rahul (etc.) can parse
my posts enough to read my mind and motivations, then they should damn
well be willing to parse what was actually said. But even Kenny and
Rahul offered very good suggestions.
Since it has been pointed out that I can't cite the nasty private
emails without posting them in their entirety, I have limited my
defense to what (and when) everything was posted to the thread.
Questioning the motivations and honesty of posts in a particularly smug
manner ("Here is a tip on how to remain undetected...") seems an odd
response to what I had written. I can now understand some of the
reasons for that type of thing, but...I can ALSO understand why there
are wikis and articles written about the social problems of Lisp. (A
fact that should clue some in to the actual existence of a problem,
since I know of no other language that has such sites and writing.)
When I experienced some aspects of the " Lisp culture" that most would
view as negative, I started asking legitimate questions about it in an
attempt to better understand it. It looks like I will be becoming a
member of the Lisp community due to business direction, and I like the
communities I participate in to be healthier. It is all usenet babble,
so not to be taken very seriously - but I find it funny that some
bemoan the lack of attention Lisp has received from
corporations/management etc. and then they want to be excused from
driving away corporations by virtue of the fact that they have been
ignored too long! I find it confusing to read people wishing they
could use Lisp in their day jobs, only to have them be jerks to people
who are large potential employers of Lisp programmers. Every time I
said something that could be taken in a negative manner about Lispers -
or "human beings that program in Lisp" - I said something to indicate
that there was a peripheral problem, not a core problem. 99% of
Lispers are, I'm sure, great people. Iconoclasm, neglect, etc. are
only excuses for a problem that does exist, though. If one can't be
honest enough to admit the existence of the problem, there is no hope
for improvement. It no longer matters to me, we will use the tool that
is most appropriate, and try to avoid the few assholes. If anyone
still feels the need to bicker, please do so via private email. And,
again, many thanks to everyone who is providing answers to my questions
privately and on other threads.
Regards,
Sergei the Egomaniac (who was given the title by a Lisper, not
himself.)
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87acquqk6y.fsf@nyct.net>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> We all miscommunicated....and I was expected too much out of usenet
> discussion. Expecting too much based on the amount of information that
> was provided, the manner in which it was provided, etc. Expecting too
> much when I was using words that have different interpretations (mentor
> in programming vs. just 'programmer', etc.)
Zen without the Zen. Beautiful. I think you need to take a break from
trying to defend yourself by criticizing others and realize that either
you should stop trolling or you should try to say what you _mean_.
Semantics is not an irrelevant topic. But who am I to say. Maybe you
write what you write because you like the position of the space
characters and periods, and that's what we should focus on.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: Svein Ove Aas
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ctarem$p14$1@services.kq.no>
start quoting ·······@runbox.com :
Yep, it's usenet, all right.
That said, (with-rampant-corrections ...
> Rahul Jain wrote:
> "So you changed the story from under us. If it quacks like a troll,
> walks like a troll, and looks like a troll..."
>
> A TIMELINE:
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 19, 11:49 pm) wrote: "MOST of team members are
> "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS majors), not
> programmers.There are only a couple real programmers to mentor the
> team."
>
> ** "couple" is usually taken to mean two, yes? ***
>
Well, no. "A couple" *can* mean "two complementary things", but I read the
way you used it as "a few", meaning "3-5, or thereabouts".
> Pascal Bourguignon (Jan 20): "Why don't you hire programmers to do
> programming works?"
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 1:24 am) wrote: "Though obviously not an
> ideal situation, there are two reasons for this requirement: 1. It is a
> low-budget "skunkworks"-type project. Not enough of a budget to bring
> in outside consultants unless absolutely necessary..."
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 20, 2:30 am) wrote: "The "real programmers"
> that will mentor the team will probably be drawn from a consulting
> agency we work with depending on which language we choose. They have
> several full-time Smalltalk and Lisp programmers that all have
> experience as instructors."
>
> *** Since I've already said we have two programmers (which existed very
> early on, and were not conjured out of 'thin air'), then when I talk
> about bringing in outside programmers - funds permitting - you can
> logically reach the conclusion that they are ADDITIONAL programmers.
> ****
>
Maybe. I didn't, but of course there's the matter of giving you the benefit
of the doubt. (I do; some others appear not to, but the thread is plenty
large enough for some context to be lost. You certainly shouldn't depend on
logical inferences; they won't happen. This is usenet.)
>
> ·······@runbox.com (Jan 21, 7:14 pm): "And I don't mean, in any way, to
> demean or diminish the work or skills of professional programmers. I'm
> also NOT TRYING TO ENTIRELY SUPPLANT THEM on this or any other project.
> And, again, I AM willing to learn...it is the "thinking like a
> programmer" part of the equation that most fascinates me..."
>
As long as we're clear on that - it's the part you're most likely to succeed
at. Would you consider the project a success if it's the *only* thing you
accomplish?
> Rahul Jain (Jan 23):
> "He specifically wants people with no understanding of what a computer
> is, what it can do, how it can mess up, or how to structure things
> logically to write this program. Of course, it's bound to fail no
> matter what language he uses."
>
> ** Yes, by "real programmers" I mean people with no understanding of
> what a computer is or what it can do...yep ***
>
> Will Hartung (25th January):
> "No CS people. No coders."
>
>
> **** WTF! Confusing 'most' with 'all.' Poor attention to detail.
> Semantic Arguments. Antagonism. ****
>
I don't know your people, but the problem seems hard enough that programming
would be a small part of it anyway. (How small? Lisp/Smalltalk are probably
the best choices. I'd go with Lisp, but then, I'm a Smug Lisp Weenie (tm).)
>
> ANOTHER Timeline:
>
*Much confusion elided.*
In fact, confusion seems to be the prevalent condition here. How's about we
all calm down, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and program quines
for relaxation?
There is rarely one absolute truth, and I don't recall this thread
*starting* as a flamewar. If it can become one, maybe it can stop being
one?
You are a wise man, Svein Ove Aas. One shouldn't depend on logical
inferences from usenet. There is rarely one absolute truth. Both say
very eloquently what I tried to say in other posts with greater
verbosity.
This also should not continue to be a flamewar or even a lukewarm
skirmish...and I would like to get away from sentence parsing and
semantics...I feel that, with the exception of a few jokes while
defending myself, I've been trying to get back on track. I was also
trying to understand the motivations and causes for why we got so off
track, but that isn't really important in the long run.
It is just usenet, and I don't take the noise too seriously - but it
does make it more difficult to hear the signal. I had to look up the
definition of elided, by the way, thanks for improving my English ;-)
- Sergei
From: Paul F. Dietz
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <vaudnXIPgpX-SWXcRVn-tQ@dls.net>
Rahul Jain wrote:
> So you changed the story from under us. If it quacks like a troll, walks
> like a troll, and looks like a troll...
Once a person has demonstrated dishonesty like that, it's best
to just ignore them.
Paul
Perhaps you should read c.l.l. to get a better idea of whether there
was any dishonesty involved or not...
From: Cameron MacKinnon
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <N6udnQZmo_Jux2rcRVn-gw@golden.net>
drewc wrote:
> the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific
> Suicide Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i
> should use".
Actually, that's just the thread title. The question keeps getting
"refactored."
From what I've read, the OP:
- claims he's probably going to fail
- "Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible"
- has assembled a crack team of expensive non-programmers, which is
- led by a non-programmer
- plans on hiring a programmer as an instructor(!)*
- has a bifurcated problem domain:
- mostly boring reimplementation of standard business apps
- the occasional NLP bit
Why on earth should we help this egomaniac to fail? Especially since, as
he's pointed out, he's succeeded on three other occasions (by delegating
to experts), so the headline is going to be "Thrice successful
entrepreneur chooses [your language here], disappears without a trace."
My vote's for Java. The folks here who have fallen into the trap of
advocating for Lisp or Smalltalk are hoping that the multiplication of a
long series of low probabilities (see above) with a silver bullet will
miraculously produce a winner. It's a waste of a bullet, if you ask me.
* - I find this bit funny because it assumes the existence of a labour
pool who are both good at language X and good at teaching. Probably not
true for all values of X.
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <itJJd.177807$8l.7398@pd7tw1no>
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> drewc wrote:
>
>> the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific
>> Suicide Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i
>> should use".
>
>
> Actually, that's just the thread title. The question keeps getting
> "refactored."
>
> From what I've read, the OP:
> - claims he's probably going to fail
> - "Would like to benefit from as much open-source code as possible"
> - has assembled a crack team of expensive non-programmers, which is
> - led by a non-programmer
> - plans on hiring a programmer as an instructor(!)*
> - has a bifurcated problem domain:
> - mostly boring reimplementation of standard business apps
> - the occasional NLP bit
>
> Why on earth should we help this egomaniac to fail? Especially since, as
> he's pointed out, he's succeeded on three other occasions (by delegating
> to experts), so the headline is going to be "Thrice successful
> entrepreneur chooses [your language here], disappears without a trace."
On the off chance the he succeeds! The headline you describe is never
seen because it's an everyday event. "Non-programmers fail at
programming project" is not much of a headline. "I chose Lisp and it
made me rich!" is a great headline, at least in my experience. I came to
lisp from such an article.
>
> My vote's for Java. The folks here who have fallen into the trap of
> advocating for Lisp or Smalltalk are hoping that the multiplication of a
> long series of low probabilities (see above) with a silver bullet will
> miraculously produce a winner. It's a waste of a bullet, if you ask me.
Granted, the project is doomed. We knew that. But i'd rather see a Lisp
programmer employed by some crazy "egomaniac" who has been succesful and
therefore has the resources to pay the guy/gal, than yet another java
programmer.
I'd take a job like that... I've done a few crazy ones :). It would be
interesting, to say the least.
drewc
> * - I find this bit funny because it assumes the existence of a labour
> pool who are both good at language X and good at teaching. Probably not
> true for all values of X.
From: Friedrich Dominicus
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87is5kehq1.fsf@q-software-solutions.de>
drewc <·····@rift.com> writes:
>
> the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific
> Suicide Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i
> should use".
Well we should see it differently. If the program fails it will be
easy to blame either Common Lisp or Smalltalk for it, so the
suggestion to use Java is really a good one.
If it fails one can say: Blame Java for it.....
After that one can come back and do a serious try, and then he better
use Java and/or Common Lisp ;-)
Salve
Friedrich
--
Please remove just-for-news- to reply via e-mail.
I've tried - and mostly failed - to come up with the energy to respond
to some of the negative stuff that has been privately emailed to me
(and to address posts on the list that I feel questioned my veracity
about said negative emails.) Or even to address the general cynicism
and condescension that seems to pervade certain corners of usenet.
It's tough to waste energy on such things, especially in light of all
the GREAT emails and posts I have received.
In general, I guess I find it humorous that anyone would find it so
hard to believe that someone would write something nastier in a PRIVATE
email than in a PUBLIC forum.
I know, it is a quantum leap to go from something rather mild like
this:
"He specifically wants people with no understanding of what a computer
is, what it can do, how it can mess up, or how to structure things
logically to write this program. Of course, it's bound to fail no
matter what language he uses." [a PUBLIC post]
to:
"You are doomed to failure, and I only hope there is a pr announcement
so that I can revel in your f*cking failure and stupidity. Use
smalltalk and leave lisp alone, we have enough problems without lazy
cretins giving us a bad name. Or better yet, go back to teaching in
f*cing moscow so that your children starve and your not trying to take
jobs away from /real/ programmers." [a PRIVATE email]
But, unfortunately, people DO make that leap. (To be clear, Rahul did
NOT send any private emails, but I needed a sample text for my example,
and his public post was convenient to find. Also, I'm not from
Moscow.)
To Wade and Kenny: There is really no point in my posting the full
contents of the private emails I received...if you don't believe me, I
can live with that. I do not wish to stoop to their level, and I also
don't want to spend anymore time than this on the matter.
It would be unfair for me to post their email addresses, when I don't
believe their companies would support their remarks.
- Sergei
From: Friedrich Dominicus
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87k6q0cudl.fsf@q-software-solutions.de>
You should have known that you will get harsh answers while posting
such a question. Programming languages are just one part of
programming, it's importance can rank from 100% (just coding) to as
less as maybe 15-20 % or the like. And well you wrote "suicide
mission", so what do you think will happen if things go wrong wildly?
You have suggested to use either Smalltalk or Common Lisp. So you'll
get it and of course Smalltalk and Common Lisp will get blamed. Do you
think we appriciate that outlook?
Common Lisp was blamed before for the "failure of AI". Because Lisp
was the language of choice to that time. Of course it is unfair,
because to that time neither the power not the complexity of that
areas was none. The used Common Lisp for what it can be used best,
exploring new areas. Well the Common Lisp users have had the same
attitude to that time the "mainstream" languages user have today.
Hybris, well to put it more nicly extremly optimistic, today we have
another thing added the believe that programming is unimportant, just
put together a nice UML design and just let the "code monkeys" do the
programming. This attitude had got so on my nerves that I resigned
from the ACM. They always wrote about breathtaking abstract things and
spit out more wishiwashi as I could stand any longer.
Well they may be right sometimes but at least I have learned something
different. So have something you have to write/implement/comprehend it
yourself. That means you do have to make you hands dirty. Nothing has
give me more confidence in that I'm on the right track, but the first
principal working program, it can be as small as one can imagine, and
it can be written as bad as one can imagine, fact is: it worked.
I always try to make it as simple as I can, for that kind of working a
large kind of machinery is just a hindrance. Because of this I do like
languages which immediate feedback, languages in which I can try out
my ideas fast, even if I use "cathedral" languages like e.g Eiffel, I
try to get a running system up in which I then add features. I
ususally do not get things right from the start, but that's
independent of the language I use. Just over time and after some
versions am I satisfied with the result. I can not see how any work
can be done without such circles.
My strong opinion is that you have to start as small as possible. A
handful people, which shake out ideas try different approaches and
always accept they could be wrong is the best one can do to succeed in
the end.
Of course I accept that others have other idea and ideals, just this
group are about programming and I do expect to see passioned
programmers here. Or if you like that better practioners, I do not
expect a lot of working academics in comp.lang.smalltalk and
comp.lang.lisp. Because it's much more exiting and interesting to
write papers about "new" or re-invented things. What do we have seen
in the last few years: Java and .NET hype, Patterns, AOP, XML and and
Just see the now gone Hype of Patterns, a lot of patterns I have seen
are simply work-arounds of constraints in the diverse languages, they
are not necessary in less constrained languages.
If would have your choice. I would divide the task. Those who do not
have to learn the used language can start the migration and the others
will get though the used language and while learning they'd get some
"mini-projects of 'real-work'" from those who have started the
work. Of course I
would ask those who start on their estimates, if the constraints are
way too tigtht, it's better not to start....
Regards
Friedrich
--
Please remove just-for-news- to reply via e-mail.
Friedrich,
I understood most of what you said, and I can understand some of the
bitterness. I'm feeling a little bitter also, to be honest. I feel
that I am making more of an effort than most in my position would as
far as trying to understand things from a programmer's perspective and
to make things better for programmers in the ways I can - such as
giving them a choice in their language selection, tool selection,
operating system selection, working methodologies, etc.
I do this because I respect programmers and believe that they know much
more than I about their profession than I ever will. I have an
interest and curiosity about the field myself, and I also believe that
as their colleague in a business endeavor, I should try to understand
and relate to them as much as possible so that we may communicate
clearly. That is why I was here asking questions that would help me
learn more about various approaches to this project.
In return, I feel I'm being mocked a bit by some and told that my
overtures are a sure road to failure...or that I'm wasting my valuable
time engaging as a troll or a Smalltalk spy. I realize that everyone
on the list doesn't have full knowledge of EXACTLY what I'm doing in
general, or on this project in particular, but it is frustrating. I
don't think we should be harsh to each other, though, irregardless of
our sensitivities and miscommunications. I clearly can't tell you
everything about my project and decisions, anymore than any of you can
hand me a finished, bug-free codebase for the project.
_________________________________________________________________
MEMO TO MY FELLOW POINTY-HAIRED BOSSES:
Please disregard my last memo about the whole "Beating the Averages"/
Empowering the Programmer/Open Door of Communication thing. As it
turns out, it was just a red herring, a little feint to remind us that
our programmers have a sense of humor also. In reality, they were just
joking about wanting to choose their own implementation languages based
on suitability to the task and programmer productivity. Lisp and
Smalltalk were obviously outlandish suggestions. From now on,
everything MUST be written in C# or Cobol. Particularly talented
programmers will be allowed to use Intercal.
The programmers also wish to relinquish their freedom to choose their
own tools, from now on editors must be selected from the Microsoft
VisualStudio or Microfocus lines. Programming teams are to be composed
of at least 150 programmers, with at least 50 of those being project
managers. The Extreme Programming exercise we mentioned last week was
just a communist demonstration, and it has been quelled. Anyone using
a computer with a non-Microsoft operating system is to have it
confiscated. Managers are no longer expected to take night classes on
computer science, and the Norvig, Knuth and internet reading
assignments will cease. Instead, managers are expected to quickly skim
industry trade magazines and analyst reports in order to compile
buzzword crossword puzzles. Buzzwords are to be shouted at the
slaves...er, programmers, and should NEVER make any sense. Please
laugh maniacally when you have thrown off a particularly confusing
string of acronyms. This keeps the code monkees off balance, and keeps
them from asking questions about pay and benefits.
The mathematically proven heart of our product is to be discarded, as
our programmers find it much easier to have a constantly evolving idea
of what they think management maybe wants accomplished by next week,
unless it's raining. Feature creep is a blessing.
Managers should not know anything about the industry they work in.
Please use the time that is freed up by never having to learn anything
to get some practice out on the links, because we all know that golfing
is a core competency of management. Any managers seen attempting to
write code will be fired. Any managers seen conversing with
programmers in an attempt to understand code will be fired.
Additionally, any managers who have successfully completed software
launches in the past are to be fired. We cannot have that sort of
egomania in our halls.
That is all,
- THE MANAGEMENT
·······@runbox.com writes:
> Friedrich,
>
> I understood most of what you said, and I can understand some of the
> bitterness. I'm feeling a little bitter also, to be honest.
Well it may sound as beeing bitter but was thought of some form of
sarcasm at least in parts.
> I feel
> that I am making more of an effort than most in my position would as
> far as trying to understand things from a programmer's perspective and
> to make things better for programmers in the ways I can - such as
> giving them a choice in their language selection, tool selection,
> operating system selection, working methodologies, etc.
Well the ansers you got were not too dicouriging AFAICT. Everyone said
better use either Smalltalk or Common Lisp then anything else. Of
course some see the what might happen.
>
> In return, I feel I'm being mocked a bit by some and told that my
> overtures are a sure road to failure...or that I'm wasting my valuable
> time engaging as a troll or a Smalltalk spy. I realize that everyone
> on the list doesn't have full knowledge of EXACTLY what I'm doing in
> general, or on this project in particular, but it is frustrating.
Well you are in a news group here. Of course we do not know you
project. But there's no inherent reason why either Common Lisp or
Smalltalk should not be useful for the project.
> I
> don't think we should be harsh to each other, though, irregardless of
> our sensitivities and miscommunications.
Pleae remember where we are. What you or I think may be harsh could be
seen as direct in other contexts. If someone shouts you are trolling,
well you could simply ignore it. I think you got some very good
suggestions here, and if you feel you should give it try then do so.
I know that many Lispers are just waiting to bite the bullet and
"proof" that Lisp is worth to use.
> I clearly can't tell you
> everything about my project and decisions, anymore than any of you can
> hand me a finished, bug-free codebase for the project.
Of course I can just let me work on it a few months ;-) it probably
will not be fully bug-free but usable ;-)
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> MEMO TO MY FELLOW POINTY-HAIRED BOSSES:
>
> Please disregard my last memo about the whole "Beating the Averages"/
> Empowering the Programmer/Open Door of Communication thing. As it
> turns out, it was just a red herring, a little feint to remind us that
> our programmers have a sense of humor also. In reality, they were just
> joking about wanting to choose their own implementation languages based
> on suitability to the task and programmer productivity. Lisp and
> Smalltalk were obviously outlandish suggestions. From now on,
> everything MUST be written in C# or Cobol. Particularly talented
> programmers will be allowed to use Intercal.
Well you should not make the error selling either Smalltalk or Common
Lisp as silver bullet. They are useful tools and it's more fun to do
programming in "our choosen language"
>
> The programmers also wish to relinquish their freedom to choose their
> own tools, from now on editors must be selected from the Microsoft
> VisualStudio or Microfocus lines. Programming teams are to be composed
> of at least 150 programmers, with at least 50 of those being project
> managers.
You have to exaggerate with a bit more elegance ;-)
Regards
Friedrich
--
Please remove just-for-news- to reply via e-mail.
Hello,
Why not do a small pilot project in both Lisp and Smalltalk. Say, a
small set of dynamic web pages that perform some simple task. Get
your feet wet in each language; try out the web frameworks that are
availablel with each and see what feels right.
--
Fred Gilham ······@csl.sri.com
The opponents of income taxation in 1912 said that we would see the
day when taxes would extract 25% of people's income. Such Cassandras
were ridiculed. -- Gary North
Fred Gilham wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Why not do a small pilot project in both Lisp and Smalltalk. Say, a
> small set of dynamic web pages that perform some simple task. Get
> your feet wet in each language; try out the web frameworks that are
> availablel with each and see what feels right.
>
Why not do a small project in Python? Then, depending on what you use
more -- inheritance and
dynamic dispatches or list comprehension and higher order functions --
choose Smalltalk or Lisp.
David
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Python to choose between Lisp and Smalltalk
Date:
Message-ID: <87651iqjuc.fsf@nyct.net>
·············@gmail.com" <············@gmail.com> writes:
> Why not do a small project in Python? Then, depending on what you use
> more -- inheritance and
> dynamic dispatches or list comprehension and higher order functions --
> choose Smalltalk or Lisp.
Hmm... sneaky. :)
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Give it up, dude! Sheesh, go argue politics with an anarchist or
religion with an atheist or something...maybe write a book on
conspiracy theories?
Better yet, start programming in assembler so you have less time to
bicker on usenet. I think you're TOO productive in Lisp ;-)
Rahul Jain wrote:
> ·············@gmail.com" <············@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>>Why not do a small project in Python? Then, depending on what you use
>>more -- inheritance and
>>dynamic dispatches or list comprehension and higher order functions --
>>choose Smalltalk or Lisp.
>
>
> Hmm... sneaky. :)
Unless macros turn out to be the key. Or performance, or maturity, or...
oh, wait, this is not being cross-posted to c.l.python...
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 11:50:22 -0800, ············@gmail.com wrote:
> Why not do a small project in Python? Then, depending on what you use
> more -- inheritance and
> dynamic dispatches or list comprehension and higher order functions --
> choose Smalltalk or Lisp.
>
> David
Why not write a small essay in Japanese? Then, depending on what
you use more -- nouns and vowels or tones and mono-symbolism -- choose
English or Chinese for your book.
Sorry, couldn't help myself :)
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <MENJd.209$FD5.69@clgrps12>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
>
> To Wade and Kenny: There is really no point in my posting the full
> contents of the private emails I received...if you don't believe me, I
> can live with that. I do not wish to stoop to their level, and I also
> don't want to spend anymore time than this on the matter.
> It would be unfair for me to post their email addresses, when I don't
> believe their companies would support their remarks.
>
Someone sends you an _abusive_ email and you think it stoops to
their level to bring it out in the open? How do you think
bullying and abuse are stoppped? Post the emails, with the
names of those who sent them. Yes I do doubt the veracity
of your statements, you are still an *anonymous* poster and
I am looking for verification of your statements.
Wade
From: Cameron MacKinnon
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <NrOdnftK6aL8UWrcRVn-jg@golden.net>
Wade Humeniuk wrote:
> Someone sends you an _abusive_ email and you think it stoops to
> their level to bring it out in the open? How do you think
> bullying and abuse are stoppped? Post the emails, with the
> names of those who sent them. Yes I do doubt the veracity
> of your statements, you are still an *anonymous* poster and
> I am looking for verification of your statements.
Give it a rest, Wade. Private emails are private emails, no matter how
abhorrent, and their copyright rests with the sender. Our OP could
certainly go to the constabulary if they contained threats against his
person. Were he instead to publish them, he would be breaching the
senders' copyright, as well as etiquette so long established that it
(gasp!) predates the 'net. Were he to publish them after being
[counseled, hectored, badgered] to do so by YOU, the copyright holder
might have a cause of action against you, as well.
Apropos of SOMETHING, at least, here's an NLP classifier that picks the
flames out of incoming mail:
http://www.mills.edu/ACAD_INFO/MCS/SPERTUS/Smokey/smokey.html
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <4hQJd.8$CI5.7@clgrps12>
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
> Wade Humeniuk wrote:
>
>> Someone sends you an _abusive_ email and you think it stoops to
>> their level to bring it out in the open? How do you think
>> bullying and abuse are stoppped? Post the emails, with the
>> names of those who sent them. Yes I do doubt the veracity
>> of your statements, you are still an *anonymous* poster and
>> I am looking for verification of your statements.
>
>
> Give it a rest, Wade. Private emails are private emails, no matter how
> abhorrent, and their copyright rests with the sender. Our OP could
> certainly go to the constabulary if they contained threats against his
> person. Were he instead to publish them, he would be breaching the
> senders' copyright, as well as etiquette so long established that it
> (gasp!) predates the 'net. Were he to publish them after being
> [counseled, hectored, badgered] to do so by YOU, the copyright holder
> might have a cause of action against you, as well.
>
Then he should not be making any statements about emails he
may have received. He is making assertions which are like
slander behind the safety of keeping "everyone" anonymous.
Wade
Wade H wrote:
"He is making assertions which are like slander behind the safety of
keeping "everyone" anonymous."
Although I think Cameron is correct about the copyright/etiquette
issues of my posting the emails, I can also agree with what you are
saying about my quoting the private email as (pseudo-) slander.
I should not have posted the quotes, and I can (kinda sorta) understand
where you and Kenny are coming from. I was griping about others being
inflammatory, while I was responding in a similar inflammatory manner.
As I said in the earlier post, though, part of the reason I brought the
subject up was because I'm interested in the cultural aspects of the
communities, as well. You have to understand that the emails pissed me
off, and that I was curious as to why the Lispers seemed so defeatist
in comparison to Smalltalkers when Lisp is a superset of
Smalltalk...and why some seem so bitter, arrogant, and shift blame so
much. It seems that people would be happier because they have such a
productivity advantage...?
You have to understand, reading about Lisp on wikipedias and usenet
tends to raise many flags of concern for someone who has a background
in trying to find harmonius solutions to problems and improving the
signal to noise ratio. For better or worse, much of Lisp's 'PR' is not
very positive, and it is due to social, not technical, reasons.
To have a firsthand exposure to some of this human ugliness makes one
want to learn more before one gets in too deep while chasing the pretty
code.
(http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SocialProblemsOfLisp )
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <3I%Jd.28957$Ob.13603@edtnps84>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
>
> You have to understand, reading about Lisp on wikipedias and usenet
> tends to raise many flags of concern for someone who has a background
> in trying to find harmonius solutions to problems and improving the
> signal to noise ratio. For better or worse, much of Lisp's 'PR' is not
> very positive, and it is due to social, not technical, reasons.
> To have a firsthand exposure to some of this human ugliness makes one
> want to learn more before one gets in too deep while chasing the pretty
> code.
>
> (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SocialProblemsOfLisp )
>
I have never gone to this Wiki before. I quickly perused some of it.
Would you elaborate on what ugliness you are seeing?
Wade
http://www3.telus.net/public/whumeniu/kung_fu.txt
Wade wrote:
"I have never gone to this Wiki before. I quickly perused some of it.
Would you elaborate on what ugliness you are seeing?"
[This is not intended to be flamebait. I'm only responding to a
question from MY perspective. ]
Follow all of the links on that (and similar wikis) about Lisp, and
read what they say. They are some of the main things that come up when
you do a search of Lisp on the web. Kent Pitman's interview on
Slashdot is another example...do a search for Lisp on Slashdot. I'm
not saying that these wikis or Slashdot are great or journalistic
pinnacles or anything...or even that they are a pocket of intelligence
on the web. I'm only saying that they are the first exposure to Lisp
for many, and are therefore important as a "PR" doorway.
Then try to put yourself in the mindset of a neophyte and read a bunch
of Lisp usenet threads. Then, to be fair, read a bunch of usenet
threads from other languages. If you can do this with an open mind, I
think you will find that - from a neophyte perspective - the Lisp
community can seem to have, relative to other languages:
A general unfriendliness to neophytes. More smugness and
condescension. More name calling. More blame shifting. More whining.
More bitterness. More arguing semantics and "hidden motivations" for
saying something instead of just trying to make a sincere answer.
More citing of obscure examples, seemingly to either confuse or show
off. More antagonism. Less interest or tolerance of other
perspectives. More noise, less signal.
I can probably dig up a bunch of "ugliness" examples if you have
trouble...or, better yet, post a "Why do people hate Lispers?" or
similar thread on a more general programming list. A Lisp focus-group
;-)
Having said all of that, I didn't enter the Lisp gates with those
preconceptions. I came to Lisp via the writing of Graham and Norvig,
so I basically thought that the AI winter, the parentheses seeming
alien to Algol programmers, the myth of huge size and incredible
slowness, etc. were the only reasons people didn't use Lisp. Only when
I started reading usenet posts, replies, emails, etc. did I realize
that there was a large kernel of truth to some of the "social problems
of Lisp."
I think a tiny minority of Lisper 'bad apples' are giving an unpleasant
odor to the larger community. And I KNOW that I'm not alone in
thinking that, as many Lispers have posted publicly and privately about
the same issues. Most stereotypes have their genesis in fact, and some
Lispers would rather argue - and reinforce the stereotypes - rather
than do something to try to change them.
Have you ever had an older relative who had a great deal of wisdom and
could contribute a great deal to the world, but that was such a
know-it-all and asshat that the pure misery of your conversations
outweighed any benefit you received by talking to them? I had a
(maternal) grandfather like that. It was upsetting, because being
intelligent and being a paranoid blowhard CAN be mutually exclusive.
My grandfather would speak in circles, question our motivations and
intelligence, argue semantics, berate us for not listening or doing the
'obvious' thing, etc. All the while HE was not listening. He would
rather listen to himself rattle. Pontificate. He was an intelligent
man, but seemed senile. His children, grandchildren, and great
grandchildren learned to avoid him at all costs - even though they
loved him and he had a cool farm with the only swimming hole in the
area. My paternal grandfather had had similar life experiences to my
maternal one (war, depression, etc.), but he didn't blame them for his
lot in life like my maternal grandfather. My paternal grandfather was
fun to be around, and we learned alot from him. If we were five and
asked a question, he would give a fairly accurate answer, but one that
was suited to our age. Our maternal grandfather was different. If we
asked why the sky was blue, he might scream something about optical
refraction and our being too stupid to understand, and then ask us to
define blue and what we mean by 'sky.' If we were college students,
this might be interesting, but it would not be cool for a 5 year old.
Dealing with some in the Lisp community reminds me of dealing with my
maternal grandfather.
When I talk about arguing semantics, it seems like Lispers are less
aware that human language is not as precise as mathematics and code.
Some become antagonistic and smug unnecessarily. It's as if some are
motivated more out of a desire for oneupsmanship and an "Ah ha, got
ya!" than they are out of altruism or helping the community grow
stronger. Two people may not always have the EXACT same concept in
mind when they use a given word...and this problem can be exacerbated
if some of them are not native speakers of the language or if their
medium of communication is not entirely perfect (lost google posts,
cellphone static, etc.)
The word "neophyte" may mean one thing to one person and something else
to another, for example. I've used the word neophyte alot above, so
I'll use that as an example To one person, it may mean that you don't
know how to turn on a computer and have never tried to program. To the
'neophyte' it may mean that you have been programming for several
years, but that you haven't been exposed to multi-methods, or multiple
inheritance and that you think you still have a great deal to learn.
If the 'neophyte' mentions something about programming, is it better
for the person who thinks neophyte meant "complete and total idiot,
never before exposed to anything" to say "AH HA, GOT YA!!! You're a
troll! You have no right to speak!" or is it better to simply try to
reframe the conversation because you realize their was a problem in
your scope?
I once heard a very respected programmer with a lot of relative
software success speak at a YEO meeting (I think it was Charles
Simonyi, but I wasn't that interested in programming at the time, so
I'm not sure) call himself a neophyte programmer. That was laughable
to me at the time, like Einstein calling himself a 'newbie physicist',
but I think it was simply a matter of scope and perspective. So, for
various reasons, we spend tons of time talking about social issues
instead of technical ones.
From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <PY6Kd.154287$KO5.148085@clgrps13>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
[a bunch of negative stuff about Lispers]
Here is an exercise for you. Go back to the wiki and
write down 10 good things about the people posting
there. Now I say people instead of Lispers, because
they are just that, your fellow human beings. If
you can find ten things increase it to 50.
Also sit down and write down 50 good things
you like about your grandfather. (as a side
write down 3 things you like about yourself)
Part of the problem is that everyone is trying to
fix everyone else. Trying to right an injustice.
But they just end up being part of the problem.
Wade
http://www3.telus.net/public/whumeniu/kung_fu.txt
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87hdl2qkls.fsf@nyct.net>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> A general unfriendliness to neophytes. More smugness and
> condescension. More name calling. More blame shifting. More whining.
> More bitterness. More arguing semantics and "hidden motivations" for
> saying something instead of just trying to make a sincere answer.
> More citing of obscure examples, seemingly to either confuse or show
> off. More antagonism. Less interest or tolerance of other
> perspectives. More noise, less signal.
Hmm, interesting that _you_ are the one complaining about this...
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain wrote:
> ·······@runbox.com writes:
>
>
>>A general unfriendliness to neophytes. More smugness and
>>condescension. More name calling. More blame shifting. More whining.
>>More bitterness. More arguing semantics and "hidden motivations" for
>>saying something instead of just trying to make a sincere answer.
>>More citing of obscure examples, seemingly to either confuse or show
>>off. More antagonism. Less interest or tolerance of other
>>perspectives. More noise, less signal.
>
>
> Hmm, interesting that _you_ are the one complaining about this...
>
Yeah, I had a feeling he would self-destruct if I pushed his buttons the
right way. Too bad he was such an easy stomp. Cockroaches are faster.
But it has been /months/ since we had so much fun, so I for one have no
complaints. And his investors have asked me to take over the project, so
it's all good. Anyone familiar with Cells should send me a resume.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
BwaHAHAhHAHAHAHAHa....
That Kenny, always good for a laugh...thanks, man.
From: Svein Ove Aas
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ctd8d6$cma$1@services.kq.no>
start quoting Kenny Tilton :
> Yeah, I had a feeling he would self-destruct if I pushed his buttons the
> right way. Too bad he was such an easy stomp. Cockroaches are faster.
> But it has been /months/ since we had so much fun, so I for one have no
> complaints. And his investors have asked me to take over the project, so
> it's all good. Anyone familiar with Cells should send me a resume.
>
Hmm, now there's an idea.
(I'm seriously considering autoposting "Documentation?" whenever you mention
Cells, by the way.)
Svein Ove Aas wrote:
> start quoting Kenny Tilton :
>
>
>>Yeah, I had a feeling he would self-destruct if I pushed his buttons the
>>right way. Too bad he was such an easy stomp. Cockroaches are faster.
>>But it has been /months/ since we had so much fun, so I for one have no
>>complaints. And his investors have asked me to take over the project, so
>>it's all good. Anyone familiar with Cells should send me a resume.
>>
>
> Hmm, now there's an idea.
>
> (I'm seriously considering autoposting "Documentation?" whenever you mention
> Cells, by the way.)
Hey, it might be happening soon because of other requirements.
Meanwhile, have you seen Bill Clementson's blog entry on Cells? Or
looked at the comments in the test suite?
The links on the c-l.net page are broken, but the ones here work:
http://www.tilton-technology.com/cells_top.html
One of those leads to Bill's write-up.
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Svein Ove Aas
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ctdruk$al8$1@services.kq.no>
start quoting Kenny Tilton :
>> Hmm, now there's an idea.
>>
>> (I'm seriously considering autoposting "Documentation?" whenever you
>> mention Cells, by the way.)
>
> Hey, it might be happening soon because of other requirements.
>
> Meanwhile, have you seen Bill Clementson's blog entry on Cells? Or
> looked at the comments in the test suite?
>
No, I hadn't found either one.
> The links on the c-l.net page are broken, but the ones here work:
>
> http://www.tilton-technology.com/cells_top.html
>
> One of those leads to Bill's write-up.
>
Thanks!
Now, should I start nagging you to fix the links on c-l.net? :D
Svein Ove Aas wrote:
> start quoting Kenny Tilton :
>
>
>>>Hmm, now there's an idea.
>>>
>>>(I'm seriously considering autoposting "Documentation?" whenever you
>>>mention Cells, by the way.)
>>
>>Hey, it might be happening soon because of other requirements.
>>
>>Meanwhile, have you seen Bill Clementson's blog entry on Cells? Or
>>looked at the comments in the test suite?
>>
>
> No, I hadn't found either one.
>
>
>>The links on the c-l.net page are broken, but the ones here work:
>>
>> http://www.tilton-technology.com/cells_top.html
>>
>>One of those leads to Bill's write-up.
>>
>
> Thanks!
>
> Now, should I start nagging you to fix the links on c-l.net? :D
>
The correct way to get things out of an open source fairy is to knock
out a tooth each night and leave it under your pillow and see if the
fairy leaves what you want under the pillow.
When you run out of teeth, you can try fixing the links yourself and
submitting the HTML to the project admin. that would be what we call a
"contribution", as opposed to what we call "leeching", aka sucking
productivity out of an energetic organism so as to avoid lifting a
finger yourself.
Now your average lispnik collapses in a pathetic, writhing heap of
self-pity when confronted by the first build error. They would get more
sympathy if total newbies were not sending me patches after building and
running cells-gtk for the first time under new platforms (as happened
tonight #+(And (linux lw4.4))).
Now I know you like doc, so here it is: Molars are harder to knock out,
do the least cosmetic damage, but are most useful in mastication. The
trade-off computation is clearly a challenge, and clearly best left to
the user because of individual variation.
:)
kenny
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Kenny Tilton
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <41FD412A.5040204@nyc.rr.com>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>
> Svein Ove Aas wrote:
>
>> Now, should I start nagging you to fix the links on c-l.net? :D
I compromised. I simply deleted all the dead links. (The linked-to stuff
seems to have disappeared from the Cells FTP area.) The new
"documentation" link simply redirects you to the old Cells page on
tilton-technology site.
Here is the revised page on c-l.net:
http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/
I plan to write up some doc shortly and will link the c-l.net Cells page
to the latest draft version -- better yet, make it part of the CVS tree,
since the doc will involve a lot of source? Whatever I do, the news will
appear on cells-devel so folks know where to look.
Anyone interested in Cells should start tracking the cells-devel mailing
list and harrass me with questions and complaints as the doc develops.
This will make the process easier, actually.
Anyone not interested in signing up for cells-devel will eventually find
a link on the c-l.net/cells page telling them where to find the doc. I
am leaning towards the CVS thing, so it may be as simple as tracking the
Cells CVS repository.
kt
--
Cells? Cello? Cells-Gtk?: http://www.common-lisp.net/project/cells/
Why Lisp? http://lisp.tech.coop/RtL%20Highlight%20Film
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87llaeqko4.fsf@nyct.net>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> It seems that people would be happier because they have such a
> productivity advantage...?
We just have more free time to post to usenet.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: Espen Vestre
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <kw4qh2ortp.fsf@merced.netfonds.no>
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
>> It seems that people would be happier because they have such a
>> productivity advantage...?
>
> We just have more free time to post to usenet.
Thus the sum of destructive energy remains constant, and the laws
of the universe are preserved :-)
--
(espen)
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> To Wade and Kenny: There is really no point in my posting the full
> contents of the private emails I received...if you don't believe me, I
> can live with that. I do not wish to stoop to their level, and I also
> don't want to spend anymore time than this on the matter.
> It would be unfair for me to post their email addresses, when I don't
> believe their companies would support their remarks.
Hey, I am enjoying your troll. Clearly you have simply adopted Gabriel's
suggestion "pick a fight" and are attempting a stealth proselytization
of the Smalltalk community. Your motives are good.
Just to show I am on your side, here is a tip on how to remain
undetected: the above over-explains your not providing back-up for the
imagined seven bits of hate mail. Dead give-away. As was the imagined
excerpt. Too pat, and not really motivated by anything you had written
prior to the claim.
Not that I could do a better job of bamboozling everyone. I am just
letting you know which bits make the farce obvious from this side of the
stage lights.
hth, kt
ps. The bit about having one Lisp expert and one ST expert and doing a
shoot-out to see who gets the project lead was pretty bad, too.
From: Rene de Visser
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <ct8k2o$o09$1@news.sap-ag.de>
"Kenny Tilton" <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
··························@twister.nyc.rr.com...
> Just to show I am on your side, here is a tip on how to remain
> undetected: the above over-explains your not providing back-up for the
I found his use of "smug lisp wienies" suspicous.
That doesn't sound like the terminology that I would expect from such a
person
as he portrays himself to be.
Rene de Visser wrote:
"I found his use of "smug lisp wienies" suspicous. That doesn't sound
like the terminology that I would expect from such a person as he
portrays himself to be."
Yes, Rene, you've caught me. Because, after all, one must be a
brilliant computer scientist or a "Smalltalk spy" who has infiltrated
the inner sanctum of the Holy Lisp Temple to have read and understood
something like
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SmugLispWeenie
which is one of the FIRST things you come across when you are
researching Lisp!!! No, a curious amateur programmer who works as a
regular management drone would NEVER be able to decipher such secret
text.
I jest, but I find it more and more humorous how some people respond to
a newbie who is curious and is interested in putting time and money
into your community. I always thought the 'cultish' aspects of the
Mac were neat, because passion about a great thing is neat. But I'm
finding that the cultish aspects of Lisp are not always so neat,
because even though the language is great, some of the people are a
little too crazy-eyed in a BAD way. I'd always thought the AI winter
was responsible for most of Lisp's 'public relations' problems, but now
I think that a few bad apples have EARNED Lisp its PR problems. It's
kinda sad, actually.
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <87acqvijhu.fsf@p4.internal>
>>>>> "d" == devmail <·······@runbox.com> writes:
d> ... I'd always thought the AI winter was
d> responsible for most of Lisp's 'public relations' problems, but
d> now I think that a few bad apples have EARNED Lisp its PR
d> problems. It's kinda sad, actually.
It is probably this kind of talk that's causing people to practice
their, um, PR skills on you. Might I remind you that this is just
usenet and what happens here doesn't have much to do with what the
language or the people are actually capable of? Nor does it have much
to do with how people behave in general. If the bad apple people were
actually called in to pitch lisp in a real setting, they probably
wouldn't spend time theorizing about the trollish nature of their
audience. (Actually, I do occasionally try to get lispers hooked up
with prospects and _none_, to this date, have given me any reason to
regret introducing clients to them -- people just think I have an
endless supply of smart and knowledgeable folks hidden somewhere.)
cheers,
BM
Rene de Visser wrote:
> "Kenny Tilton" <·······@nyc.rr.com> wrote in message
> ··························@twister.nyc.rr.com...
>
>>Just to show I am on your side, here is a tip on how to remain
>>undetected: the above over-explains your not providing back-up for the
>
>
> I found his use of "smug lisp wienies" suspicous.
>
> That doesn't sound like the terminology that I would expect from such a
> person
> as he portrays himself to be.
Right. Everything is just slightly off key. I loved not one but two
hardcore engineers (of course one liking Lisp and one ST) materializing
out of thin air (of course because he had to clear the disclosure of
their existence with investors, as well as not skew our advice).
He would have done better not to justify their mysterious appearance at
all and let Drew's observation just slip away into the ether. Instead,
he compounds the error by explaining further that the investors are
obsessive.
basically, he is sitting there making it all up and realizing how dopey
it is and then making the mistake of pre-answering challenges.
great fun, actually, and no harm is being done.
kt
--
"Doctor, I wrestled with reality for forty years, and I am happy to
state that I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <OvVJd.182176$6l.169020@pd7tw2no>
Kenny Tilton wrote:
> great fun, actually, and no harm is being done.
Having a great time myself! We need a little more excitement around here.
drewc
Kenny Tilton wrote: "I loved not one but two hardcore engineers (of
course one liking Lisp and one ST) materializing out of thin air (of
course because he had to clear the disclosure of their existence with
investors, as well as not skew our advice). He would have done better
not to justify their mysterious appearance at all and let Drew's
observation just slip away into the ether."
Please review this timeline, Kenny:
·······@runbox.com wrote the folliowing on Jan 25, 3:32 am: "There is
also another aspect to the LANGUAGE DECISION which I have avoided
discussing so far because of SECRECY ISSUES and because I thought it
would cloud the CLOUD THE DISCUSSION..."
·······@runbox.com wrote the following on Jan 26, 1:16 am: "We already
have two very talented mentors on our staff..."
drewc wrote the following on Jan 26, 1:38 am: "if you posted that last
paragraph as the first post in this thread, i suspect you may have had
better responses."
·······@runbox.com wrote the following on Jan 26, 1:53 am: "Yes, the
only reason I didn't start if off that way is because I had to clear
the information thru our (current and potential) investors...they go a
bit crazy with their NDAs and SECRECY ISSUES. I also thought it would
CLOUD THE ISSUE..."
Kenny Tilton (Jan 26): "I loved not one but two hardcore engineers (of
course one liking Lisp and one ST) materializing out of thin air (of
course because he had to clear the disclosure of their existence with
investors, as well as not skew our advice). He would have done better
not to justify their mysterious appearance at all and let Drew's
observation just slip away into the ether."
······@runbox.com wrote the following on January 27: Yes, Kenny, once
again you have outsmarted me. I couldn't just let Drew's observation
just slip away into the ether...I had to respond to it by conjuring two
programmers out of "thin air" and I had to make up two excuses
(CLOUDING THE THREAD, SECRECY ISSUES) for why I didn't mention the
programmers and their impact on the LANGUAGE DECISION to start with.
And please notice I had the INCREDIBLE FORESIGHT to make that excuse
BEFORE Drew even made his observation. Yep, us Smalltalk SpyTrolls
sure are smart what with our crystal balls and all...
If you spent half as much energy...well, never mind...I'm sick of
arguing. Let's try to get along. I still want to learn...and I do
really like most of your posts. Is Cello being used in any commercial
endeavors?
- Sergei
From: Cameron MacKinnon
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <8O2dnUvmqayCtWTcRVn-1g@golden.net>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> Please review this timeline, Kenny:
Stop the insanity, please. One week ago, you posted an opening gambit to
this list. My mental response was "Quit! Find another job elsewhere.
There's no sense working on something that you know will fail." I didn't
bother to post. Those who did weren't all helpful, but, in cross posting
a "Let's you and him fight" invitation to two newsgroups of language
advocates, what did you expect?
Over the past week, you've slowly done a dance of the seven veils,
revealing more information about your situation, in several threads.
You've become frustrated that not everyone here has printed off, cut up
and cross-correlated all the facts you've dribbled out in post after
post, and that some people apparently can't parse English. Well Sergei,
welcome to Usenet! Had you presented everything all at once, you'd at
least have stood a fighting chance.
Lisp advocates sometimes show "ugliness"? Yep, you've discovered
something about Lispers: WE'RE ALL ICONOCLASTS! Given that Lisp has a PR
problem, that it isn't taught in very many places, that it has been
written off by most programmers and academics as outdated and slow, and
that no large corporation is pushing the language as part of a
market-share strategy, how do you suppose that most of us came to Lisp?
It wasn't because we're adopters of the popular, the marketable, the
fashionable and new, or the easy to defend.
Are we bitter? I think I'd prefer cynical for myself. We're watching XML
take over the world, and XML is an inefficient, illegible poor cousin to
S expressions, which were being used for data transfer between otherwise
incompatible Lisp systems three and four decades ago. Paul Graham wrote
a great article about "Beating the Averages", but it isn't lost on us
that the corporate yahoos who purchased Viaweb ended up rewriting it in
a more plebeian-friendly language. It is difficult to continue reading
about buffer overflow viruses week after week, with Microsoft claiming
that it is doing all it can, knowing that solutions have existed since
before Microsoft did. OK, maybe a bit bitter.
In the final analysis, you've come to a group of self-selected,
overachieving, experienced programmers and asked them for help with a
management decision, the details of which have been woefully slow in
coming. Many of us have seen this sort of management in action. Want to
benefit from as much open source code as possible? Find and evaluate the
available stuff, and use or bridge to the language it is written in. Got
an employment agency that promises you bench strength in both of your
favourite obscure technologies, with programmers who can teach, too?
Don't take it on faith. Got an otherwise intractable decision to make?
Flip a coin.
Personally, I find your story intriguing. There's a lot to be learned
from a three time winner, even if his current story seems to be
deviating from what's made him successful in the past. But you haven't
provided enough detail for me to look up or read about any of your past
successes, so I'll have to remember you merely as the guy who signs
himself "Sergei the egomaniac." :-)
"Given that Lisp has a PR problem, that it isn't taught in very many
places, that it has been written off by most programmers and academics
as outdated and slow, and that no large corporation is pushing the
language as part of a market-share strategy, how do you suppose that
most of us came to Lisp? ...In the final analysis, you've come to a
group of self-selected, overachieving, experienced programmers and
asked them for help with a management decision, the details of which
have been woefully slow in coming. Many of us have seen this sort of
management in action...."
Yes, you are correct. I'm guilty of thinking like a manager and poor
communication, but I'm also here trying to learn so that I can, in all
likelihood, push Lisp as part of a market-share strategy. Which, as
you note, is a risk for me as it deviates from my past strategy. I'm
largely here asking questions because I am taking a huge risk, and I
want to better manage that risk. To get comfortable. So the people
that are helpful are helping a manager who is at least open to ideas
and can effect some degree of change and improvement for the things you
cite as being problems for Lisp. I have corporate, financial, and
university ties, which could help the community. Instead, some people
are more concerned that if I fail in Lisp it will cause harm to the
community. That is backwards. I think there are bigger PR issues with
Lisp to focus on than any harm I could cause with my (apparently
predestined) corporate failure. You probably won't hear about my
success or failure anyway, because if we get all of our funding, it is
still only a day's worth rounding error to the investors. Kenny has
mocked the secrecy issues I talk about, but please read up a bit about
DE Shaw, SAC Capital and the like. Now think about what problem domain
I'm working in...now think about whether we are going to be making
press releases if we succeed OR fail ;-)
Part of the Lisp "PR problem" is self-reinforcing, and people might
want to look into adjusting part of the equation to get better
feedback.
Kenny,
Thanks for the advice. I greatly appreciate your entertainment value,
as well. If you pay a bit more attention, you might get some of the
foreshadowing right before I supposedly conjure things out of "thin
air." By the way, did Naggum personally hand you the crown and sceptre
in the changing of the guard, or was it done by a committee?
- Sergei
From: Will Hartung
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <35q5nuF4oi5mjU1@individual.net>
"drewc" <·····@rift.com> wrote in message
··························@pd7tw1no...
> Will Hartung wrote:
> > "drewc" <·····@rift.com> wrote in message
> > ···························@pd7tw2no...
> >
> >>·······@gmail.com wrote:
> >>Programming is hard, NLP is very hard. Trying to dumb it down is only
> >>going to cause problems in the future. The OP asked "Lisp or Smalltalk,
> >>[which should i use]", and you've been helpful enough to suggest Java,
> >>php, C# and python. Did you read the requirements?
> >
> >
> > Why yes, I did read the requirements. Shall we go through them again?
>
> I'm sorry .. I'm a little confused here. Are you ·······@gmail.com as
> well as Will Hartung? If so, could you mention that when posting from
> gmail? i like to know who i am talking to.
Nope, I'm different. Sorry about that.
> look, if the OP was asking for 'the best language for this task with a
> bunch of non-coders" i'd probably say Java or C# as well (and would
> recommend Cocoon + flow for the web app) just because the appeal to the
> masses is sound advice in this case . there is lots of crap available
> for Java that will make it easier to build this from commodity
> components... it will be easier to get help for Java issues from the
> local "Java Guru".
That was my approach. Based on the "8 pts" and some of the other stuff
(since clarified further down), he seemed more glassy eyed and sold on
CL/Smalltalk as "silver bullets" rather than actually having folks behind
him pushing the solutions. The original query seemed like, to me, a
misinformed choice where he dumped Java out of hand.
> But ...
>
> the question was (and still is) " Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide
> Mission (er...Project)?" .. not "What language do you think i should use".
>
> He also stated that he will be hiring a specialist in the langauge he
> chooses, to develop the tools and mentor the team. Lisp is the best
> langauge to build other languages on, bar none. If this expert can make
> a simple DSL for the domain experts to use, it would certainly be a
> better language for the task than Java or whatever other general purpose
> langauge you think is the easiest to learn (not easy to use, mind you).
Yup, if he can get talented folks to build the system for him, he can better
enable his knowledge workers (I need more buzzwords..help me out here...Oh,
I know!). Empowered knowledge workers can then become stakeholders in order
better leverage the team for a positive outcome. (There..that's pretty
good.)
> >>1. Most of team members are "systems analysts" (i.e. business and MIS
> >>majors), not programmers. No experience with Emacs or Store, etc.
> >
> >
> > No CS people. No coders. Analysts and integrators. Systems wonks. Just
the
> > type of people who are capable of building this thing from scratch
starting
> > with atoms and conses...oh..wait...
>
> I'm glad you read the requirements so well. "Most of team members are
> 'systems analysts'" Does not mean that there are no programmers any more
> then "Most programmers use Java" means that nobody uses C.
No, but "Most of team members are "system analysts"..., not programmers" is
a pretty damning statement IMHO.
> Ever worked on a team with more experienced programmers? I have. They
> generally are more productive then the others. If yours just kibitz
> (great word BTW, i love chess), i suggest some re-organization.
Yes I have. I've been in that role. But I was in that role as a programmer,
rather than a teacher. Teaching is a by product simply through exposure and
osmosis, but it wasn't the goal. As presented it suggest the mentors were
basically teachers rather than the primary coders on the team.
> >>8. Would like at least a remote possibility of project succeeding...
> >
> > The less of the project you have to actually code yourself gives you
more
> > time to make the rest of the project work.
>
> A great argument _for_ lisp...
>
> > Systems analysts are good at
> > designing, wait for it, SYSTEMS. Big chunks of things wired together in
> > arcane ways. This is MUCH easier to do when you actually have big chunks
> > available to actually wire together.
>
> And these things don't exist in any langauge but Java? Man ... what have
> i been doing!
No, but they exist is VAST ABUNDANCE in Java, making it more likely that
they'll be able to find a large scale, suitable component.
> > I do not advocate Java for its syntax, for it's elegance, for its lean
> > runtime, or because it advanced computer programming 20 years in a
> > heartbeat. It doesn't have any of those things going for it.
>
> We agree here :)
Yup! Cheers!
> > It has going for it, however, ubiquity, portability, and abundance. It
is
> > everywhere. Even those who hate it, know the language. It runs on
> > everything, and it has millions of lines of code available to do pretty
much
> > whatever you want (including, apparently, NLP). Some of that code may be
> > easier to recreate than integrate, who knows, but it is available on an
> > unbelievable scale.
>
> Great. but one could use the same argument for COBOL.(except maybe the
> everybody knows it part .. not as true as it once was. Lisp is still
> going strong i might add). It has been said that billions of insects
> like to eat shit. I prefer fruit. YMMV.
That phrase runs through my head as well.
> I'm not arguing against Java in particular (infact i was going off
> against php mostly), but the OP didn't ask about Java.
He didn't ask about PHP either ;-).
> > Heck, if nothing else, turn the analysts loose on evaluating the
potential
> > of the components you need and their availability in Java. But to
discard it
> > out of hand is as bad as rejecting Lisp because it has too many
parentheses.
>
> For sure, discarding Java out of hand is silly. But the OP already made
> the choice (and stated his reasons for it). Trying to bring him back
> into the fold is just as silly.
>
> > I know, I know, the OP doesn't like Java. That's OK. Java will work with
him
> > anyway. It doesn't hold grudges.
>
> so you'd recommend a language the OP does not like and does not want to
> use because it may or may not be better for the problem domain? You
> sound like a Sun salesperson here. It may work for you, but "just use
> Java" is not the solution to the problem of choice between lisp and
> smalltalk.
I suggested it because while everyone else is convinced the project will
fail, I was providing an idea that would leverage the team AS PRESENTED to
give a better chance for the project to succeed. For the bulk of what he
asked about, Analysts can glue together high level, pre-written systems to
do a lot of what he said he wanted to do. The NLP stuff will require,
certainly, specialized effort and expertise, but I argue the rest of it
requires less of that, and can be tasked to the folks already existing,
while the specialists work on the NLP portion. The point of arguing for Java
was simply that it has this large resource and array of a variety of
solutions (is there a lot of open source COBOL? I never looked), far more
than exists in either CL or ST, making it more probable that they would find
a solution that closely matches their needs with, ideally, little tuning. If
they're willing and able to soften whatever requirements that they have to
leverage available systems, then that is less stuff they have to write and
develop, they can do it with less programming expertise, and it lets their
programming experts focus on the Hard stuff vs the Mundane stuff.
I was only working off of the 8 pts presented, and the suggestions were
presented not as a slam against CL or ST, but as a good faith effort to
offer an alternative that I felt provided a better chance for success.
I think if they were REALLY smart they'd do the NLP stuff in CL (the Hard
Part), perhaps write some integration stuff in CL (maybe), and then do the
mundane stuff in Java. But he mentioned he didn't want to learn more than
one language, so...
But based on his later posting, where he clarified many things, I feel that
this whole exercise was pretty much folly, and that he should have done his
"code off" between his two engineers (as he suggested) and then let them
choose the tools and basically, get out of the way.
Regards,
Will Hartung
(·····@msoft.com)
drewc wrote:
> ·······@gmail.com wrote:
We'll I'm getting an awful lot of shit for ONLY recommending Lisp for
the NLP part. From now on I'll be good and drink the Kool-Aid like
everybody else. BTW, if it didn't show, I REALLY like Lisp and
Smalltalk, so let me add this note: I am absolutely convinced that Lisp
and Smalltalk are the two most elegant mainstream programming languages
ever invented. Now to the problem at hand...
> > I also wouldn't use Lisp for the web site part unless you have a
very
> > complex dynamic web app (or some other really compelling reason).
PHP,
> > C# or Java with some good tools (Webwork, velocity, sitemesh) would
be
> > better options if your product's real value is in the nlp and not
in
> > the display.
>
> You can't be serious. None of the languages you mention are in any
way
> suitable for web development (appeal to the masses will not work
here).
I never used PHP so maybe it does suck.
On the other hand, in spite of the fact that java and C$ aren't
"suitable for Web development" the vast majority of
commercially-developed, enterprise-class Web applications (not sites)
are written in Java or being ported to java. And according to the
Financial Times, C# just passed Java as the most widely used language
in corporate MIS shops. I'm not just saying that lots of people use
these tools, but that lots of people build stuff that works well in
these tools. I'm talking about a track record, not popularity. BTW,
Peter Deutsch has had some very nice things to say about Java in a
published email conversation with Alan Kay. So has Guy Steele for that
matter :-). And Phil Greenspun has said if he had to build a web app
today, he'd use C#/.Net. If only they knew what you know....
> Both ST and Lisp have better solutions (seaside and UCW) for web
> development. Continuations and syntatic abstractions are crucial in
the
> web domain.
Unless the developer is extraordinarily modest, UCW is a long way from
fully cooked. Maybe Seaside is for real, I don't know. Does it provide
it's own HTTP server or use the VW one? More important, does it avoid
the issues that make Cincom say the VW server isn't "production
quality"? This is not an attempt to knock Seaside, I've read some
stuff by it's author and he's an extremely bright and talented guy.
My point is that if I was funding this project with my money, I'd want
them to take risks where there was a real payoff. If they're building a
generic web front-end to present the results of some kick-ass NLP work,
there's no need to use bleeding edge web tools. There'll be plenty of
blood drawn on the fraud analysis stuff. If they were building a
bleeding edge web app, I'd have a different recommendation.
> Have you read "Beating the Averages"?
Yeah, but I try to get more than one opinion on a subject. Do you? A
lot has changed since ViaWeb was founded 10 years ago. And lets not
forget that ViaWeb had (at least) two of the world's top Lisp hackers
on the team. Not exactly what the OP's has planned.
> Maybe i haven't had enough coffee yet, but your post really pissed me
> off :). Nothing personal.
No problem. Your response really pissed me off, too.
> > Personally, I think Lisp is well suited for exploratory NLP work
> > because texts naturally decompose into tree structures (paragraphs,
> > sentences, tokens) easily implemented in lists. Ditto for XML, of
> > course. Once you get the NLP working, you may need to refactor to
use
> > vectors or whatever, but just making non-trivial NLP apps work a
level
> > appropriate for commercial software can be a very hard problem. If
you
> > get that far, you're ahead of the game.
> >
> > Finally, if you must use a single tool for both, I'd reconsider
Python.
>
> Any reason why? or is this just a whim? good NLP and Web libraries
> available? pointers? or is the 'easy to learn' bit again?
Yeah, I like Python because it's easy to learn, and also because it's
interpreted and it provides pretty good support for objects, as well as
first-class procs and other good lisp-y stuff. Also, more people seem
to build Web apps in Python than in Lisp so the tools may be better
tested. It's also free and open source, unlike the most reliable Lisps
and STs. Also important is the fact that there's (effectively) one
Python implementation, so you don't need to worry that your vendor (or
your chosen implementation) will disappear and the community developing
the language and tools aren't spreading their efforts over 15 or 20
more or less incompatable versions. In a few years time that
concentration of effort can make a big difference. (So, no it's not
just a whim)
> Programming is hard, NLP is very hard. Trying to dumb it down is
only
> going to cause problems in the future. The OP asked "Lisp or
Smalltalk,
> [which should i use]", and you've been helpful enough to suggest
Java,
> php, C# and python. Did you read the requirements?
Yeah I did. Do you want to help the guy or just promote your favorite
language?
Cheers.
·······@gmail.com wrote:
<snip>
>
> Unless the developer is extraordinarily modest, UCW is a long way from
> fully cooked. Maybe Seaside is for real, I don't know. Does it provide
> it's own HTTP server or use the VW one? More important, does it avoid
> the issues that make Cincom say the VW server isn't "production
> quality"? This is not an attempt to knock Seaside, I've read some
> stuff by it's author and he's an extremely bright and talented guy.
We use VW's web server in production, but it lives behind Apache which
reverse-proxies request to it. All the serious configuration, security,
aliasing, logging, etc. is Apache's responsibility. VW's servers works very
well behind it. I wouldn't use VW's web server in front. It's a poor example
of reuse. Why redo what someone else has already done? No sense re-inventing
Apache inside Smalltalk, just put Smalltalk behind it.
Thomas Gagne wrote:
> ·······@gmail.com wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > Unless the developer is extraordinarily modest, UCW is a long way
from
> > fully cooked. Maybe Seaside is for real, I don't know. Does it
provide
> > it's own HTTP server or use the VW one? More important, does it
avoid
> > the issues that make Cincom say the VW server isn't "production
> > quality"? This is not an attempt to knock Seaside, I've read some
> > stuff by it's author and he's an extremely bright and talented guy.
>
> We use VW's web server in production, but it lives behind Apache
which
> reverse-proxies request to it. All the serious configuration,
security,
> aliasing, logging, etc. is Apache's responsibility. VW's servers
works very
> well behind it. I wouldn't use VW's web server in front. It's a
poor example
> of reuse. Why redo what someone else has already done? No sense
re-inventing
> Apache inside Smalltalk, just put Smalltalk behind it.
I went back and looked again at the documentation as well as at an
interesting ongoing discussion on threading on the "smalltalk rants"
blog. It looks like VW can work fine even in high-load environments,
though interestingly, they quote EZBoard, a truly huge VW web
implemetation as saying that they wrote their own web server. But if
you have less than their 10M users per month, you probably can skip
that.
Also my comments on Lisp-based web solutions being bleeding edge, may
not apply to implementations based on Allegro/AllegroServe. I don't
know. I can't afford it.
From: drewc
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <G7VJd.182152$6l.173348@pd7tw2no>
·······@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I never used PHP so maybe it does suck.
>
> On the other hand, in spite of the fact that java and C$ aren't
> "suitable for Web development" the vast majority of
> commercially-developed, enterprise-class Web applications (not sites)
> are written in Java or being ported to java. And according to the
> Financial Times, C# just passed Java as the most widely used language
> in corporate MIS shops. I'm not just saying that lots of people use
> these tools, but that lots of people build stuff that works well in
> these tools. I'm talking about a track record, not popularity. BTW,
> Peter Deutsch has had some very nice things to say about Java in a
> published email conversation with Alan Kay. So has Guy Steele for that
> matter :-). And Phil Greenspun has said if he had to build a web app
> today, he'd use C#/.Net. If only they knew what you know....
So you are basing your opinions on what you have read rather than you
own experience. Fair enough, if you don't have the experience.
I'm glad to hear a bunch of computer scientists have good things to say
about Java and C#. And it's nice to know that a bunch of companies use
them. How about you? You like java and C# for web apps? how about lisp
and smalltalk?
Do you have any opinion that is your own?
>
>
>>Both ST and Lisp have better solutions (seaside and UCW) for web
>>development. Continuations and syntatic abstractions are crucial in
>
> the
>
>>web domain.
>
>
> Unless the developer is extraordinarily modest, UCW is a long way from
> fully cooked.
I've delivered application using UCW and allegroserve on sbcl. Once such
app has had an uptime of of few months (as of today). I've recently
switched to araneida on the server side (another production qualilty
lisp web server). UCW works behind mod_lisp as well.
With regards to the authors modesty, how do you know? did you email
Marco and ask him how 'ready' UCW is? I'm pretty sure he uses UCW to
deliver his apps as well.
> Maybe Seaside is for real, I don't know. Does it provide
> it's own HTTP server or use the VW one? More important, does it avoid
> the issues that make Cincom say the VW server isn't "production
> quality"? This is not an attempt to knock Seaside, I've read some
> stuff by it's author and he's an extremely bright and talented guy.
Again, all you have is hearsay. The answer to your question is a google
away. Why don't you ask Alan Kay?
>
> My point is that if I was funding this project with my money, I'd want
> them to take risks where there was a real payoff. If they're building a
> generic web front-end to present the results of some kick-ass NLP work,
> there's no need to use bleeding edge web tools. There'll be plenty of
> blood drawn on the fraud analysis stuff. If they were building a
> bleeding edge web app, I'd have a different recommendation.
Building your web app in the same language you happen to be using for
the rest of the project is hardly a risk. Especially b/c these
frameworks make a lot of things easy (or even possible) that are not so
in other languages (the dreaded back button and session cloning come to
mind).
So, in your experience, was it easier to develop _your_ webapps in Java
or in UCW/Seaside? If your just going to repeat the stuff other people
have said, you may as well just point the poster at google.
>>Have you read "Beating the Averages"?
>
>
> Yeah, but I try to get more than one opinion on a subject. Do you?
I do .. and one of them is always my own. Sure, if you want to use Java
because Guy Steele says it's good.. go for it. Me, i use lisp for my web
apps because it saves me time and money, and my clients get a superior
product with less outlay.
If i wanted Greenspun's opinion, i would have looked for it. The OP may
have done the same. Your dropping of names has in no way helped to make
your point, and has certianly made you less credible in my eyes.
Alan Turing was a homosexual and was of the opinion that men were more
attractive and better in bed. I respect his work and his opinion, but i
still prefer women.
>A
> lot has changed since ViaWeb was founded 10 years ago. And lets not
> forget that ViaWeb had (at least) two of the world's top Lisp hackers
> on the team. Not exactly what the OP's has planned.
True enoough. But It doesn't sound like the authors webapp is anything
quite as complex as viaweb. Infact, it is so simple that it actually
_could_ be done in Java.
How many Web Apps have you delievered in the following languages?
Java, Common Lisp, PHP, perl, Smalltalk and C ?
What are the advantages vs the disadvantages of each langauge for the
task? Why did you choose that specific language. WWGSD? (What would Guy
Steele do?)
>
>
>>Maybe i haven't had enough coffee yet, but your post really pissed me
>
>
>>off :). Nothing personal.
>
>
> No problem. Your response really pissed me off, too.
Sweet! lets drop the gloves then. With no hockey this year i need my fix.
>
>>>Personally, I think Lisp is well suited for exploratory NLP work
>>>because texts naturally decompose into tree structures (paragraphs,
>>>sentences, tokens) easily implemented in lists. Ditto for XML, of
>>>course. Once you get the NLP working, you may need to refactor to
>
> use
>
>>>vectors or whatever, but just making non-trivial NLP apps work a
>
> level
>
>>>appropriate for commercial software can be a very hard problem. If
>
> you
>
>>>get that far, you're ahead of the game.
>>>
>>>Finally, if you must use a single tool for both, I'd reconsider
>
> Python.
>
>>Any reason why? or is this just a whim? good NLP and Web libraries
>>available? pointers? or is the 'easy to learn' bit again?
>
>
> Yeah, I like Python because it's easy to learn, and also because it's
> interpreted and it provides pretty good support for objects, as well as
> first-class procs and other good lisp-y stuff. Also, more people seem
> to build Web apps in Python than in Lisp so the tools may be better
> tested.
You like being comfortable and knowing that there are others doing what
you are doing .. that i can understand (but i can't sympathize). If i
were not capable, i might use python as well. It is a neat little
language, if a little hackish.
You probably use windows of your desktop as well. I'm of the opinion
that Lisp is a better language with better tools. I don't need others to
validate this for me.
Wait ... "seem to" build apps ... "may" be better tested? are you trying
to tell me this is another thing (like seaside and UCW) that you have no
experience with? What did Richard Gabriel say about pyhton? oh wait..
Paul Graham said python was good! is that where you got these ideas from?
Let me add python to my earlier list. I have never delivered a web
application in python BTW, so i can't say if it is suitable or not.
I did write a multi-threaded data visualisation tool for marking up
gigabytes of automated testing data. But it was in WxPython. No web
involved.
> It's also free and open source, unlike the most reliable Lisps
> and STs.
Where do you get your data? Ever heard of Squeak? SBCL ? CMUCL ?
> Also important is the fact that there's (effectively) one
> Python implementation,
and this is a good thing? and what does that say about Jython? or a port
to Parrot?
>so you don't need to worry that your vendor (or
> your chosen implementation) will disappear and the community developing
> the language and tools aren't spreading their efforts over 15 or 20
> more or less incompatable versions.
This is true of ALL open source applications. SBCL is 'more free' than
python. the 'incompatable versions' might have some weight to it if you
used a specifc example of how this happened to you. But the ANSI
standard is pretty specific, and any Lisp that claims to implement ANSI
is compatable with any other (for what is specified in ANSI). for things
that are not in ANSI, well, yes, there are some incompatabilities.
How do you call a Java function from C python? How do you call a C
function from Jython?
Look, if you chose one implementation (which you seem to have no problem
doing with python), then incompatabilities with CL implementations that
your project is NOT using ain't gona matter much .. is it?
How many C++ compilers are there? Java VMs? is that the best you can do?
>
> Do you want to help the guy or just promote your favorite
> language?
Both. Anything wrong with that? How about we look at "the guy"'s
responses in this thread (and to my response to you) and figure out who
he thought was more helpful. And besides, 'the guy' is obviously a bit
off, and i couldn't care less about his project or it's success. But, I
do know, from my _experience_, that Lisp can be a great tool for just
the sort of thing he wants to do, and i'll at least try to answer the
question he asked rather then spout a bunch of uninformed drivel.
If you want to advocate python or java, that's fine. but there are
newsgroups for that as well, where the OP would have posted if he had
not already dismissed them.
You are just wasting everybodys time. 'Cept mine. I'm having a blast :).
<ding>
drewc
From: John Thingstad
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk for Specific Suicide Mission (er...Project)?
Date:
Message-ID: <opsk9ycny0pqzri1@mjolner.upc.no>
On 25 Jan 2005 06:25:58 -0800, ·······@gmail.com <·······@gmail.com> wrote:
No offence, but you must have enough information now!
Try one or both, I suggest a prototype.
If you are unsure in both.
Then come back..
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
"...you must have enough information now!"
Ummm...yes and no. I'm asking specific questions on another thread and
in private emails. I'm getting GREAT answers there. The noise
surpassed the signal on this thread some time ago ;-)