I just picked up Mark Watson's "Common LISP Modules:Artificial
Intelligence in the Era of Neural Networks and Chaos Theory" (1991) at a
used book sale.
Chapter two starts with:
"One of the best uses for a high-level language like Common LISP is in
the rapid prototyping of window-based user interfaces, now an accepted
part of the software development process. Common LISP is especially
appropriate for developing user interfaces when augmented with one of
the current OOP packages: Object Lisp, CLOS or Portable Common Loops.
However, one requirement for a programming language book is to enable
readers to effortlessly get the sample programs ion a book up and
running (with no modifications!) on their computer and within their
language environment. For this reason, the example programs in this book
will use a simple set of graphic primitives and will not use any OOP
language extensions despite their obvious benefit. Once the graphics
library described below is implemented, all example programs should
execute without modification on any system.
The example programs in this book use the following graphics primitives:
[one line descriptions of each primitive elided]
init-plot, plot-fill-rect, plot-size-rect, clear-plot, pen-width,
plot-frame-rect, plot-line, show-plot, plot-string, plot-string-bold,
plot-string-italic, plot-mouse-down"
The author then gives a sample implementation of the primitives for MCL
(4 1/2 pages). It struck me that the author's assumption that a
motivated reader will be willing and able to code up such an adapter
library to his implementation's graphics primitives (or download an
add-on set, or code his own...) stands in stark contrast to many posts
seen here, where one gets the distinct impression that the poster is
both unwilling and unable to do anything beyond a download and an install.
That may be a bit unfair -- after all, who knows how many people don't
ask because they were able to do it themselves. As well, software reuse
should be a virtue, and reinventing the wheel avoided where possible.
Still, I found the author's attitude refreshing and noteworthy, and
thought others might enjoy it as well.
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: Common Lisp graphics: An earlier attitude
Date:
Message-ID: <BF79F1F3.1AF9F%joswig@lisp.de>
Am 17.10.2005 23:40 Uhr schrieb "Cameron MacKinnon" unter
<··········@clearspot.net> in ······················@rogers.com:
> I just picked up Mark Watson's "Common LISP Modules:Artificial
> Intelligence in the Era of Neural Networks and Chaos Theory" (1991) at a
> used book sale.
The code for the book: http://www.markwatson.com/books/lispbook.zip
>
> Chapter two starts with:
>
> "One of the best uses for a high-level language like Common LISP is in
> the rapid prototyping of window-based user interfaces, now an accepted
> part of the software development process. Common LISP is especially
> appropriate for developing user interfaces when augmented with one of
> the current OOP packages: Object Lisp, CLOS or Portable Common Loops.
>
> However, one requirement for a programming language book is to enable
> readers to effortlessly get the sample programs ion a book up and
> running (with no modifications!) on their computer and within their
> language environment. For this reason, the example programs in this book
> will use a simple set of graphic primitives and will not use any OOP
> language extensions despite their obvious benefit. Once the graphics
> library described below is implemented, all example programs should
> execute without modification on any system.
>
> The example programs in this book use the following graphics primitives:
> [one line descriptions of each primitive elided]
> init-plot, plot-fill-rect, plot-size-rect, clear-plot, pen-width,
> plot-frame-rect, plot-line, show-plot, plot-string, plot-string-bold,
> plot-string-italic, plot-mouse-down"
>
>
> The author then gives a sample implementation of the primitives for MCL
> (4 1/2 pages). It struck me that the author's assumption that a
> motivated reader will be willing and able to code up such an adapter
> library to his implementation's graphics primitives (or download an
> add-on set, or code his own...) stands in stark contrast to many posts
> seen here, where one gets the distinct impression that the poster is
> both unwilling and unable to do anything beyond a download and an install.
>
> That may be a bit unfair -- after all, who knows how many people don't
> ask because they were able to do it themselves. As well, software reuse
> should be a virtue, and reinventing the wheel avoided where possible.
> Still, I found the author's attitude refreshing and noteworthy, and
> thought others might enjoy it as well.
I enjoyed Watson's presentation of neural networks. And since the
group has a chess thread these days, note that the book also has a
chess program. He says it plays fairly well positionally, but doesn't
look very deep, and so is vulnerable to tactical traps like knight
forks. He stresses how easy it is to modify the code (as always with
Lisp) to experiment with your own chess strategies.
From: Robert Uhl
Subject: Re: Common Lisp graphics: An earlier attitude
Date:
Message-ID: <m33bmxwbvr.fsf@4dv.net>
Cameron MacKinnon <··········@clearspot.net> writes:
>
> The author then gives a sample implementation of the primitives for
> MCL (4 1/2 pages). It struck me that the author's assumption that a
> motivated reader will be willing and able to code up such an adapter
> library to his implementation's graphics primitives (or download an
> add-on set, or code his own...) stands in stark contrast to many posts
> seen here, where one gets the distinct impression that the poster is
> both unwilling and unable to do anything beyond a download and an
> install.
Well, one does get spoilt now that most other language implementations
have high-quality, high-level GUI packages available (e.g. pygtk).
There was a time when I typed in BASIC programs from the Electric
Company magazine, and had to translate from IBM or Apple BASIC to that
of the TI 99/4a, too...
--
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
12 is a semiperfect number. A number is semiperfect if some subset of
the divisors less than it sum to it. (12=1+2+3+6)
Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>
> The example programs in this book use the following graphics primitives:
> [one line descriptions of each primitive elided]
> init-plot, plot-fill-rect, plot-size-rect, clear-plot, pen-width,
> plot-frame-rect, plot-line, show-plot, plot-string, plot-string-bold,
> plot-string-italic, plot-mouse-down"
>
>
> The author then gives a sample implementation of the primitives for MCL
> (4 1/2 pages). It struck me that the author's assumption that a
> motivated reader will be willing and able to code up such an adapter
> library to his implementation's graphics primitives (or download an
> add-on set, or code his own...) stands in stark contrast to many posts
> seen here, where one gets the distinct impression that the poster is
> both unwilling and unable to do anything beyond a download and an install.
>
> That may be a bit unfair -- after all, who knows how many people don't
> ask because they were able to do it themselves. As well, software reuse
> should be a virtue, and reinventing the wheel avoided where possible.
> Still, I found the author's attitude refreshing and noteworthy, and
> thought others might enjoy it as well.
WTF do we care about toy graphics for? What most people want is an
entire OpenGL or GTK or SDL binding or some such.
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every
(cruise (director (of SeaFunc)
'(Seattle Functional Programmers)))
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaFunc
"Cruise Director" <···········@gmail.com> writes:
> WTF do we care about toy graphics for? What most people want is an
> entire OpenGL or GTK or SDL binding or some such.
> Cameron MacKinnon wrote:
>
> > Still, I found the author's attitude refreshing and noteworthy, and
> > thought others might enjoy it as well.
Thank you, it was enjoyably refreshing.
--
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