From: Wade Humeniuk
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <HOdId.15198$Qb.6842@edtnps89>
Just thought I would point you to a few more links of
useful and unusual Lisp software.
Loom: http://www.isi.edu/isd/LOOM/
Screamer: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~screamer-tools/screamer-intro.html
and though not directly Lisp related, a book:
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach
http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/
by Peter Norvig
http://www.norvig.com/
Wade
I do intend to read books, read code, and write some code to try to get
a better feel for the languages. I never thought the code itself was
going to be a huge stumbling block...I thought the programming
environments and other practical issues were going to be the stumbling
block. The freaking editors scare me more than the code...finding out
that my chosen implementation of a language won't handle something
because of threading support, or OS issues, or " unforeseen X" scares
me more than the code. Feeling like I've wasted years of my life
learning something I will never use scares me...I've done that enought
already ;-)
I am TRYING to manage risk. In part, by speaking to a community of
users instead of just the people selling the tools.
I also thought the learning curve and my business timeframe might be an
issue, so I was trying to get a feel for which
language/environment/community was quicker to get up to speed and
productive with given my problem domain. If I know that someone else
has already tackled a similar problem using X language implementation
on a similar platform, then that encourages me to use that toolset.
Then I can focus on learning that toolset and completing my tasks at
hand, and maybe learn the other language in the future.
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. I don't think you should
have to learn several instruments to play in a band...learning one
instrument allows you to learn quite a bit about music theory in
general, at least enough to start performing. Then, if you choose, you
can learn other instruments - and you have a bit of a headstart in
every one you learn after the first.
And, no, I'm sure that learning to program is not the "best" use of my
time or talents. I will never be a great programmer, or probably even
a decent one. But I've founded and sold three profitable software
companies (I had the idea, financed the idea, marketed the idea, and
sold the company - without ever coding a single line) - and I envied
the programmers the entire time. I guess I would like to be able to
give breath to some of my ideas myself, instead of just handing off the
concepts and blueprints and waiting on someone else to hand me a
"close, but not quite right" instance of my ideas. The communication
overhead is very frustrating. I want to craft my ideas into software
form myself.
I was particularly curious about the strengths and weaknesses of the
two web frameworks I mentioned, because - being a noob - I would like
to have some positive reinforcement as I'm learning to code. Getting
things to work properly is good reinforcement, whereas finding the hard
way that something is not production-ready is not good reinforcement.
I was trying to solicit pointers that might save me problems in the
future, given what I DO know about my goals now.
Knowing that Cincom VW support on OS X is not perfect yet but that
progress is being made is something that is worth knowing now. Knowing
that Smalltalk is or is not good at NLP is worth knowing now (!?)
Knowing that there are people who are using Smalltalk for rules engines
and have exiting code libraries is worth knowing now (thanks for the
pointer, Thomas.)
Links to existing software in CL that focus on similar problem domains
are a good thing (thanks, Wade and Paolo.)
I've just received an order of Lisp books (PAIP, Ansi Common Lisp,
Common Lisp: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, and Winston &
Horn) and Smalltalk books (On to Smalltalk, Smalltalk with Style, An
introduction to OO Programming and Smalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk
Handbook, Smalltalk by Example, Smalltalk and OO, Chamond Liu's book,
etc.)
I'm going to order a few more (Peter Seibel's book, On Lisp when the
new edition comes out, etc.)
BTW, I paid less for ALL of the Smalltalk books off of Amazon and ebay
for less than I paid for ONE of the Lisp books ;-)
I tend to do better reading hardcopies of books versus (free) online
versions, so I went ahead and bought quite a few. But I appreciate the
authors who have allowed their work to be put online for the benefit of
all.
> And, no, I'm sure that learning to program is not the "best" use
> of my time or talents. I will never be a great programmer, or
> probably even a decent one. But I've founded and sold three
> profitable software companies (I had the idea, financed the idea,
> marketed the idea, and sold the company - without ever coding a
> single line) - and I envied the programmers the entire time. I
> guess I would like to be able to give breath to some of my ideas
> myself, instead of just handing off the concepts and blueprints and
> waiting on someone else to hand me a "close, but not quite right"
> instance of my ideas. The communication overhead is very frustrating.
> I want to craft my ideas into software form myself.
Humbly suggest that you have a well-proven method for bringing your
ideas to fruition and you should stick to it.
On those previous projects would you have hired a lead-programmer who
had no previous experience programming?
········@runbox.com" <·······@runbox.com> writes:
> [...]
> The freaking editors scare me more than the code...
Editors is a solved problem: just use an emacs. If something is
missing or molesting, just write some lisp. (Is there any emacs with
Smalltalk as scripting language?)
> [...]
> BTW, I paid less for ALL of the Smalltalk books off of Amazon and ebay
> for less than I paid for ONE of the Lisp books ;-)
> [...]
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
You're always typing.
Well, let's see you ignore my
sitting on your hands.
Is there a (mature) version of Emacs that allows you to write
extensions using CL instead of Elisp? I read something once about
Climacs or something (?), but I don't think it was ready for use.
Which Emacs-like editor is more user-friendly for people who don't come
from a Unix background? Can you get by just using the LW editors, or
is their a disadvantage to doing that?
·······@runbox.com writes:
> Is there a (mature) version of Emacs that allows you to write
> extensions using CL instead of Elisp? I read something once about
> Climacs or something (?), but I don't think it was ready for use.
There's Hemlock that's available with cmucl (and PortableHemlock which
should work on some other implementations).
http://www.cliki.net/CL-Emacs
climacs development just started a few months ago.
An alternative could be using emacs with emacs-cl:
http://www.cliki.net/emacs-cl
http://www.lisp.se/emacs-cl/
> Which Emacs-like editor is more user-friendly for people who don't come
> from a Unix background? Can you get by just using the LW editors, or
> is their a disadvantage to doing that?
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ _ Software patents are endangering
() ASCII ribbon against html email (o_ the computer industry all around
/\ 1962:DO20I=1.100 //\ the world http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/
2001:my($f)=`fortune`; V_/ http://petition.eurolinux.org/
On 21 Jan 2005 19:17:54 -0800, <·······@runbox.com> wrote:
> Is there a (mature) version of Emacs that allows you to write
> extensions using CL instead of Elisp? I read something once about
> Climacs or something (?), but I don't think it was ready for use.
>
> Which Emacs-like editor is more user-friendly for people who don't come
> from a Unix background? Can you get by just using the LW editors, or
> is their a disadvantage to doing that?
>
LispWorks IED editor is based on the functionality of emacs and
is fully customizabe in common lisp.
--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/
·······@runbox.com writes:
> Is there a (mature) version of Emacs that allows you to write
> extensions using CL instead of Elisp? I read something once about
> Climacs or something (?), but I don't think it was ready for use.
The most promising, Common Lisp based Emacs-like editor is probably
Climacs:
http://common-lisp.net/project/climacs/
but it's indeed not ready for wide use.
Paolo
--
Lisp Propulsion Laboratory log - http://www.paoloamoroso.it/log
Recommended Common Lisp libraries/tools (see also http://clrfi.alu.org):
- ASDF/ASDF-INSTALL: system building/installation
- CL-PPCRE: regular expressions
- UFFI: Foreign Function Interface
·······@runbox.com wrote:
[snip]
> I was particularly curious about the strengths and weaknesses of the
> two web frameworks I mentioned, because - being a noob - I would like
> to have some positive reinforcement as I'm learning to code. Getting
> things to work properly is good reinforcement, whereas finding the hard
> way that something is not production-ready is not good reinforcement.
I use UCW and common lisp to program data-driven web-based business
applications for our members. I've delivered using it, and find it the
quickest way to create reliable web apps with working back buttons :).
If you have any specific questions or want to see some code, feel free
to contact me (drew at tech.coop).
I've never used seaside in production (can't stand the smalltalk
syntax), but it was the first and is probably a great product.
You made a great comment earlier in the thread about musical
instruments. In keeping with that metaphor, Lisp is the language you are
going to want to learn. Lisp is like the piano. In learning lisp you
will learn a lot about programming languages in general, and the skills
and concepts you discover will be easly to translate to a new language.
Once you can play the piano, you have a good idea how music works, and
it's easy to pick up another instument. Find a C, and go from there.
Smalltalk is much more specialized. lets call it a guitar. Great
instrument, quite popular in it's day. It only has 6 strings (the piano
has 88), but those 6 strings can be played in many ways. Once you know
the guitar, the lute, bass, or dulcimer is not that hard, but your
knowlege is very specialized. You'd have problems with vibes or
harpsicord because you'd contantly be trying to relate to the guitar
rather then the music.
So, my suggestion would be piano (I play them both). Once you know Lisp,
every other language is just subset.
drewc
>
> I was trying to solicit pointers that might save me problems in the
> future, given what I DO know about my goals now.
>
> Knowing that Cincom VW support on OS X is not perfect yet but that
> progress is being made is something that is worth knowing now. Knowing
> that Smalltalk is or is not good at NLP is worth knowing now (!?)
> Knowing that there are people who are using Smalltalk for rules engines
> and have exiting code libraries is worth knowing now (thanks for the
> pointer, Thomas.)
>
> Links to existing software in CL that focus on similar problem domains
> are a good thing (thanks, Wade and Paolo.)
>
> I've just received an order of Lisp books (PAIP, Ansi Common Lisp,
> Common Lisp: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, and Winston &
> Horn) and Smalltalk books (On to Smalltalk, Smalltalk with Style, An
> introduction to OO Programming and Smalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk
> Handbook, Smalltalk by Example, Smalltalk and OO, Chamond Liu's book,
> etc.)
>
> I'm going to order a few more (Peter Seibel's book, On Lisp when the
> new edition comes out, etc.)
>
> BTW, I paid less for ALL of the Smalltalk books off of Amazon and ebay
> for less than I paid for ONE of the Lisp books ;-)
>
> I tend to do better reading hardcopies of books versus (free) online
> versions, so I went ahead and bought quite a few. But I appreciate the
> authors who have allowed their work to be put online for the benefit of
> all.
>
·······@runbox.com wrote:
> I do intend to read books
[...]
> I've just received an order of Lisp books (PAIP, Ansi Common Lisp,
> Common Lisp: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, and Winston &
> Horn) and Smalltalk books (On to Smalltalk, Smalltalk with Style, An
> introduction to OO Programming and Smalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk
> Handbook, Smalltalk by Example, Smalltalk and OO, Chamond Liu's book,
> etc.)
Read Chamond Liu's book first (of the Smalltalk ones anyway).
IMO, its one of the best books on OO programming that I've ever read. The
nearest thing the Smalltalk world has to "The Structure and Interpretation of
Computer Programs" (which you didn't mention amongst your Lispy books -- I
/trust/ that's because you've already read it ;-).
-- chris
Chris Uppal wrote:
> ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> > I do intend to read books
> [...]
> > I've just received an order of Lisp books (PAIP, Ansi Common Lisp,
> > Common Lisp: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, and
> > Winston & Horn) and Smalltalk books (On to Smalltalk, Smalltalk
> > with Style, An introduction to OO Programming and Smalltalk,
> > Dolphin Smalltalk Handbook, Smalltalk by Example, Smalltalk and
> > OO, Chamond Liu's book, etc.)
>
> Read Chamond Liu's book first (of the Smalltalk ones anyway).
>
> IMO, its one of the best books on OO programming that I've ever
> read. The nearest thing the Smalltalk world has to "The Structure
> and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (which you didn't
> mention amongst your Lispy books -- I /trust/ that's because
> you've already read it ;-).
Unfortunately, people often claim that SICP is a recipe for short-term
confusion if you're really wanting to learn Common Lisp. (And I agree.)
It teaches a Scheme dialect which has no macros -- the only mention of
them is in one rather negative footnote. Among other issues.
It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp at a
copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many things.
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
One might also find Casting Spels in Lisp entertaining and thoughtful.
http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html
MfG,
Tayssir
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <upszx75n9.fsf@agharta.de>
On 22 Jan 2005 09:01:04 -0800, "Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp
> at a copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many
> things. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
It should also be rather inexpensive to wait a couple of weeks and buy
it. I think that giving advice to steal the book instead of buying it
is really a disservice to the (already rather small) Lisp book market.
Cheers,
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz wrote:
> On 22 Jan 2005 09:01:04 -0800, "Tayssir John Gabbour"
<···········@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp
> > at a copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many
> > things. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
>
> It should also be rather inexpensive to wait a couple of weeks and
> buy it. I think that giving advice to steal the book instead of
> buying it is really a disservice to the (already rather small) Lisp
> book market.
I had a feeling someone might call my suggestion "advice to steal." The
original poster already mentioned his difficulty reading things on the
web.
- I've preordered despite being able to print it out myself. I assumed
it would help him be more successful in his endeavor, which could only
have the effect of possibly widening the Lisp book market.
- The PDF availability and lack of warnings led me to believe that
Peter had a liberal view of this sort of thing.
- It's not likely to be available very soon. It took forever to obtain
Hackers & Painters after it was released. (I recall it took a while for
Amazon.com to ship.) Having it lie around work would provide
entertaining reading and keep one's eyes peeled at the bookstore.
- For businesses, it's pretty demoralizing to have a ghetto copy when
one can buy it; it looks bad, feels bad, and if they use Lisp, they'll
feel really disrespectful. This was covered in Steve McConnell's Code
Complete.
Now, if I get the impression from Peter that I was in error, I'll
certainly retract my statement.
MfG,
Tayssir
From: Peter Seibel
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <m3hdl8arbq.fsf@javamonkey.com>
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
>> On 22 Jan 2005 09:01:04 -0800, "Tayssir John Gabbour"
> <···········@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp
>> > at a copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many
>> > things. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
>>
>> It should also be rather inexpensive to wait a couple of weeks and
>> buy it. I think that giving advice to steal the book instead of
>> buying it is really a disservice to the (already rather small) Lisp
>> book market.
>
> I had a feeling someone might call my suggestion "advice to steal."
> The original poster already mentioned his difficulty reading things
> on the web.
I appreciate both Tayssir's and Edi's advice to the OP. On the one
hand, he can't buy it yet and I'd rather he read it than not, even if
that means printing it out. On the other, of course I'd hope that if
he does read it and likes it he'll buy it when it becomes available in
print either because he wants a nicely bound printed copy or because
he recognizes that it's worth supporting the authors and the
publishers that made it possible for the book to exist. And if he
reads it and doesn't like it, I hope he'll pass his samizdat copy on
to someone who is interested in Lisp so maybe they'll read it, like
it, and, eventually, buy it. This is, of course, my opinion and may or
may not reflect how Apress feels about it.
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel ·····@javamonkey.com
Lisp is the red pill. -- John Fraser, comp.lang.lisp
Peter,
I've already pre-ordered (multiple copies) via Amazon...which I'd
thought I'd already mentioned (?) So I don't think there is a reason
for anyone to debate...
Although I don't like reading things online, it doesn't take me long to
realize that something is worth purchasing. Your book is very
interesting, whether I ever use Lisp in a commercial setting or not.
Thanks,
- Sergei
Tayssir John Gabbour schrieb:
> Edi Weitz wrote:
> > On 22 Jan 2005 09:01:04 -0800, "Tayssir John Gabbour"
> <···········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp
> > > at a copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many
> > > things. http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
> > It should also be rather inexpensive to wait a couple of weeks and
> > buy it. I think that giving advice to steal the book instead of
> > buying it is really a disservice to the (already rather small) Lisp
> > book market.
> I had a feeling someone might call my suggestion "advice to steal." The
> original poster already mentioned his difficulty reading things on the
> web.
Ahja-
You can also take a text2speak program, burning a CD and listen to that
while sitting in your car waiting to drive on, hm?
stefan
Up spake lin8080:
> > The original poster already mentioned his difficulty reading things
> > on the web.
>
> You can also take a text2speak program, burning a CD and listen to that
> while sitting in your car waiting to drive on, hm?
I have done this in the past (read books via TTS). It doesn't work for
technical manuals because
- You don't read them at a constant pace (unlike fiction).
- You don't read them linearly -- you flip to the glossary and
appendices, you refer back to earlier passages, you skip examples or
re-read them.
Also, neither code / algorithms nor diagrams translate to speech well.
(The best material for TTS is short fiction; stuff like Lovecraft.)
One thing you *can* do is get a PostScript or PDF book printed by your
local PSP (print service provider). I paid AU$35 to have On Lisp
printed last week. Compared to cloth or card, ring binding isn't great,
but it's easier to handle than the original PostScript file.
Another thing I often do for HTML books is to open them in w3m-el (read:
emacs), and pipe individual paragraphs to TTS with the M-S-| chord.
This works well at home, but it's not portable.
--
-trent
<foo> I'm off the hard liquor for a while. I gave it up for lent.
<bar> What does lent do to you?
<bar> Does it fuck you up?
Trent Buck schrieb:
> Up spake lin8080:
Right. There are some problemes with technical books. Needs time to do
some editing, but who have time for that? Even to rewrite pdf-files.
But well, I have a copy of the HyperSpec and edit that to have frames,
only to flip quickly to the interesting parts. Also I do this to the
CL-Impnotes, but this text updates nearly 2 times a year, so my actual
version is old.
While typing this, I have logox runing (text2speech) and listen the next
posting, but as you say, this is not portable, at least until now...
Also I have three cds with lisp-oriented books on it for a cdplayer, but
meanwhile I know them by heart.
stefan
In article <························@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Chris Uppal wrote:
> > ·······@runbox.com wrote:
> > > I do intend to read books
> > [...]
> > > I've just received an order of Lisp books (PAIP, Ansi Common Lisp,
> > > Common Lisp: Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation, and
> > > Winston & Horn) and Smalltalk books (On to Smalltalk, Smalltalk
> > > with Style, An introduction to OO Programming and Smalltalk,
> > > Dolphin Smalltalk Handbook, Smalltalk by Example, Smalltalk and
> > > OO, Chamond Liu's book, etc.)
> >
> > Read Chamond Liu's book first (of the Smalltalk ones anyway).
> >
> > IMO, its one of the best books on OO programming that I've ever
> > read. The nearest thing the Smalltalk world has to "The Structure
> > and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (which you didn't
> > mention amongst your Lispy books -- I /trust/ that's because
> > you've already read it ;-).
>
> Unfortunately, people often claim that SICP is a recipe for short-term
> confusion if you're really wanting to learn Common Lisp. (And I agree.)
> It teaches a Scheme dialect which has no macros -- the only mention of
> them is in one rather negative footnote. Among other issues.
I wouldn't recommend SICP for learning Common Lisp. Actually
SICP isn't about learning a programming language. It is about
learning to develop software. For that purpose it uses
a kind of Scheme as a vehicle. Some Scheme that you can
learn in a very short time - but then the fun begins.
Not using macros is a good thing. It just brings confusion
and hard to debug code to students.
If you do know a bit of Common Lisp, then you will find it useful to
read SICP to get basic knowledge of recursion, iteration,
higher-order functions, symbolic programming, queues, constraints,
logic programming, implementing Scheme, and much more.
>
> It should be rather inexpensive to print out Practical Common Lisp at a
> copyshop, and I think it has the best explanation of many things.
> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
>
> One might also find Casting Spels in Lisp entertaining and thoughtful.
> http://www.lisperati.com/casting.html
>
> MfG,
> Tayssir
From: Alain Picard
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <87zmz0hf8a.fsf@memetrics.com>
"Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Unfortunately, people often claim that SICP is a recipe for short-term
> confusion if you're really wanting to learn Common Lisp. (And I agree.)
Maybe so. But it's still a marvellous as a book which teaches _programming_.
I certainly don't think there's anything difficult about reading it on it's
own terms and applying said learnings to CL (or SmallTalk, Python, etc. for
that matter).
I'd recommend reading it to any would-be programmer, irrespective of
their final choice of language.
Alain Picard wrote:
> "Tayssir John Gabbour" <···········@yahoo.com> writes:
> > Unfortunately, people often claim that SICP is a recipe for
> > short-term confusion if you're really wanting to learn Common
> > Lisp. (And I agree.)
>
> Maybe so. But it's still a marvellous as a book which teaches
> _programming_. I certainly don't think there's anything difficult
> about reading it on it's own terms and applying said learnings to
> CL (or SmallTalk, Python, etc. for that matter).
>
> I'd recommend reading it to any would-be programmer, irrespective of
> their final choice of language.
My ambivalence with SICP comes from our b0rken computing culture. Had
computing proceeded well, with community-built things like the
condition system and CLOS+MOP being fairly commonplace, I'd agree that
SICP's a beautiful little minimalistic text.
However, in the really piteous way things are, people use SICP as a
Great Book. A flaming sword in the dark. But it's not, with any
universality. As with any skillful book or entertainment, some people
like it immensely, and I just happen not to be in that group. It's
simply a riff on what one can do with a minimum of well-chosen tools.
Insightful for being a simplification.
It doesn't seriously talk about errorhandling or many other things. And
parens are silly without code-is-data, which is only considered near
the end -- in a section about building your own interpreter, which is
about as interesting to me as becoming a machinist to learn how to
build a lathe.
I dunno. Depressing subject, except the walls of the modern world are
noticeably being chipped away.
MfG,
Tayssir
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <87vf9oyn9g.fsf@nyct.net>
"Chris Uppal" <···········@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> writes:
> "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (which you
> didn't mention amongst your Lispy books -- I /trust/ that's because
> you've already read it ;-).
He's got PAIP, which is SICP for Lisp, both in terms of language and in
terms of motivation.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
Rahul Jain wrote:
> > "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (which you
> > didn't mention amongst your Lispy books -- I /trust/ that's because
> > you've already read it ;-).
>
> He's got PAIP, which is SICP for Lisp, both in terms of language and in
> terms of motivation.
PAIP ?
I realize that there's probably a more explicit ref. somewhere in this large
(and /far/ too excitable) thread-group, but I can't find it looking back. TIA
(BTW, for anyone who cares, I never meant to suggest that SICP was a book
/about/ lisp, only that it was a good book about programming, and /relevant
to/, and indeed a good advert for, lispy languages.)
-- chris
From: Bulent Murtezaoglu
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <87oeffj422.fsf@p4.internal>
>>>>> "CU" == Chris Uppal <···········@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> writes:
[...]
CU> PAIP ? [...]
http://www.norvig.com/paip.html
(Google does know it, it turns out. It also knows SICP and CLHS. I also
checked SICM: it has one link above it).
cheers,
BM
Bulent Murtezaoglu wrote:
> http://www.norvig.com/paip.html
Thanks.
-- chris
From: Rahul Jain
Subject: PAIP vs. SICP (Was: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II)
Date:
Message-ID: <877jm217yn.fsf_-_@nyct.net>
Getting a bit off the original subject, so I'll change the subject line.
"Chris Uppal" <···········@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> writes:
> (BTW, for anyone who cares, I never meant to suggest that SICP was a book
> /about/ lisp, only that it was a good book about programming, and /relevant
> to/, and indeed a good advert for, lispy languages.)
SICP is a good book about programming for certain goals, to which scheme
is aligned. PAIP is a good book about programming for certain other
goals, to which lisp is aligned. There is definitely some overlap in the
problems and there is a little overlap in the solutions, but there is
quite a bit of scope where they differ.
E.g., the Y combinator is a cool thing to know about and a cool thing to
put in answers to usenet requests for homework answers and definitely
something to show you just how to get turing-completeness using just the
lambda calculus. But it's hardly a way to write efficient code. SICP is
about learning about opening your mind to the strange corners that exist
in computing. PAIP is about opening your computer to the strange corners
that exist in your mind.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
From: David Steuber
Subject: Re: PAIP vs. SICP (Was: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II)
Date:
Message-ID: <87oefd498x.fsf@david-steuber.com>
comp.lang.smalltalk trimmed for irrelevance...
Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
> SICP is a good book about programming for certain goals, to which scheme
> is aligned. PAIP is a good book about programming for certain other
> goals, to which lisp is aligned. There is definitely some overlap in the
> problems and there is a little overlap in the solutions, but there is
> quite a bit of scope where they differ.
Both books have a lot to offer and I don't see why one should choose
one over the other. One should get both! I suppose with time
constraints, I would spend more time on PAIP than SICP because I am
more into Common Lisp than Scheme. In an ideal world, I wouldn't make
that compromise.
The SICP lectures posted in another thread:
http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
are pretty cool. I'm fetching all the Divx encoded ones and burning
them to CD. I don't have the room for the MPEG versions :-(.
Anyway, I have both in dead tree form and I have spent more time on
PAIP.
--
An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
--- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
A second set of lectures, should a different take prove useful, is
here:
http://aduni.org/courses/sicp/index.php?view=cw
I have no idea about their quality, since I didn't watch them.
MfG,
Tayssir
David Steuber wrote:
> comp.lang.smalltalk trimmed for irrelevance...
>
> Rahul Jain <·····@nyct.net> writes:
>
> > SICP is a good book about programming for certain goals, to which
scheme
> > is aligned. PAIP is a good book about programming for certain other
> > goals, to which lisp is aligned. There is definitely some overlap
in the
> > problems and there is a little overlap in the solutions, but there
is
> > quite a bit of scope where they differ.
>
> Both books have a lot to offer and I don't see why one should choose
> one over the other. One should get both! I suppose with time
> constraints, I would spend more time on PAIP than SICP because I am
> more into Common Lisp than Scheme. In an ideal world, I wouldn't
make
> that compromise.
>
> The SICP lectures posted in another thread:
>
> http://swiss.csail.mit.edu/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/
>
> are pretty cool. I'm fetching all the Divx encoded ones and burning
> them to CD. I don't have the room for the MPEG versions :-(.
>
> Anyway, I have both in dead tree form and I have spent more time on
> PAIP.
>
> --
> An ideal world is left as an excercise to the reader.
> --- Paul Graham, On Lisp 8.1
David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> writes:
> Both books have a lot to offer and I don't see why one should choose
> one over the other. One should get both! I suppose with time
> constraints, I would spend more time on PAIP than SICP because I am
> more into Common Lisp than Scheme. In an ideal world, I wouldn't make
> that compromise.
Yes, that was my point :)
Although the Y combinator is the only thing I can think of in SICP that
is useful to read after PAIP, but I didn't read SICP in too much detail,
as I only picked it up seriously after having read PAIP and seeing the
references to how SICP's solutions to those problems were different.
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
"Rahul Jain" <·····@nyct.net> wrote in message
···················@nyct.net...
> David Steuber <·····@david-steuber.com> writes:
>
>> Both books have a lot to offer and I don't see why one should choose
>> one over the other. One should get both! I suppose with time
>> constraints, I would spend more time on PAIP than SICP because I am
>> more into Common Lisp than Scheme. In an ideal world, I wouldn't make
>> that compromise.
>
> Yes, that was my point :)
>
> Although the Y combinator is the only thing I can think of in SICP that
> is useful to read after PAIP, but I didn't read SICP in too much detail,
> as I only picked it up seriously after having read PAIP and seeing the
> references to how SICP's solutions to those problems were different.
All I found on Y in SICP was a footnote pointing to another
publication.
--
Geoff
"Geoffrey Summerhayes" <·············@hotmail.com> writes:
> All I found on Y in SICP was a footnote pointing to another
> publication.
Heh. Maybe that's all I got out of SICP, then.[1] :P
--
Rahul Jain
·····@nyct.net
Professional Software Developer, Amateur Quantum Mechanicist
[1] Sometimes, the best parts are in the footnotes.
Geoffrey Summerhayes wrote:
> All I found on Y in SICP was a footnote pointing to another
> publication.
SICP has an excercise showing how you could write a recursive factorial
function with just lambdas and function calls, which is a simplified
and expanded case of the Y combinator, and tell the student to write a
recursive Fibonnaci function using the same technique. They then say,
in a footnote, that this is called the Y combinator. It's just a
mind-stretching excercise, not a formal introduction to the Y
combinator.
(Disclaimer: details above are hopefully remembered correctly, but I
don't have the book in front of me at the moment)
-Peter