From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: I dont know anything but why lisp in a nutshell?
Date:
Message-ID: <4k2vemFaamb8U2@individual.net>
gavino wrote:
> I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> WHy?
clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
language specification.
For reasons why Common Lisp is "awesome", see
http://www.lisp.org/table/objects.htm and maybe
http://p-cos.net/lisp/guide.html
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Closer to MOP & ContextL:
http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> gavino wrote:
> > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> > WHy?
>
> clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
> language specification.
>
> For reasons why Common Lisp is "awesome", see
> http://www.lisp.org/table/objects.htm and maybe
> http://p-cos.net/lisp/guide.html
>
>
> Pascal
>
> --
> My website: http://p-cos.net
> Closer to MOP & ContextL:
> http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
Do you think clisp is the best language for getting real work done? I
saw the siebels book but heard that Paul Grahams style is more powerful
but I couldn't get past p 23 of his book; too many undeined terms.
Maybe I should buy it again and try to read it with a problem in mind...
"gavino" <········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>> gavino wrote:
>> > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
>> > WHy?
>>
>> clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
>> language specification.
>
> Do you think clisp is the best language for getting real work done?
clisp is http://clisp.cons.org a specific implementation of Common Lisp.
Common Lisp (CL) is
http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Contents.htm
a programming language specification.
Yes, CL is the best programming language for getting real work done.
That is, compared to other _programming_ _language_ _specifications_.
They all leave unspecified but important stuff up to their
implementations.
Yes, clisp is IMO, one good implementation of CL for getting real work
done. I'm not alone to believe it, Paul Graham wrote ViaWeb with
clisp and made a fortune out of it when he sold it to YahooStore.
> I saw the siebels book but heard that Paul Grahams style is more powerful
> but I couldn't get past p 23 of his book; too many undeined terms.
> Maybe I should buy it again and try to read it with a problem in mind...
Try this book:
Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
David S. Touretzky
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth
contest. They will not concern us again."
Pascal Bourguignon wrote:
> "gavino" <········@yahoo.com> writes:
> > Pascal Costanza wrote:
> >> gavino wrote:
> >> > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> >> > WHy?
> >>
> >> clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
> >> language specification.
> >
> > Do you think clisp is the best language for getting real work done?
>
> clisp is http://clisp.cons.org a specific implementation of Common Lisp.
>
> Common Lisp (CL) is
> http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Contents.htm
> a programming language specification.
>
>
> Yes, CL is the best programming language for getting real work done.
> That is, compared to other _programming_ _language_ _specifications_.
> They all leave unspecified but important stuff up to their
> implementations.
>
>
> Yes, clisp is IMO, one good implementation of CL for getting real work
> done. I'm not alone to believe it, Paul Graham wrote ViaWeb with
> clisp and made a fortune out of it when he sold it to YahooStore.
>
>
> > I saw the siebels book but heard that Paul Grahams style is more powerful
> > but I couldn't get past p 23 of his book; too many undeined terms.
> > Maybe I should buy it again and try to read it with a problem in mind...
>
> Try this book:
>
> Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction to Symbolic Computation
> David S. Touretzky
> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/
>
> --
> __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
>
> "I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth
> contest. They will not concern us again."
Thank you I will read it.
gavino wrote:
> Do you think clisp is the best language for getting real work done?
Getting real work done requires, first and foremost, people who get
real work done.
That pretty much rules you out, doesn't it?
Pascal Costanza wrote:
> gavino wrote:
> > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> > WHy?
>
> clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
> language specification.
>
> For reasons why Common Lisp is "awesome",
When Commune Lisp was spawned, true Lisp died.
Every decision of the committee can be locally rationalized as
the right thing. We believe that the sum of these decisions,
however, has produced something greater than its parts; an
unwieldy, overweight beast, with significant costs (especially on
other than micro-codable personal Lisp engines) in compiler size
and speed, in runtime performance, in programmer overhead needed
to produce efficient programs, and in intellectual overload for a
programmer wishing to be a proficient COMMON LISP programmer.
--- Brooks and Gabriel, "A Critique of Common Lisp"
William James wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
> > gavino wrote:
> > > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> > > WHy?
> >
> > clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
> > language specification.
> >
> > For reasons why Common Lisp is "awesome",
>
> When Commune Lisp was spawned, true Lisp died.
>
> Every decision of the committee can be locally rationalized as
> the right thing. We believe that the sum of these decisions,
> however, has produced something greater than its parts; an
> unwieldy, overweight beast, with significant costs (especially on
> other than micro-codable personal Lisp engines) in compiler size
> and speed, in runtime performance, in programmer overhead needed
> to produce efficient programs, and in intellectual overload for a
> programmer wishing to be a proficient COMMON LISP programmer.
> --- Brooks and Gabriel, "A Critique of Common Lisp"
I agree that common lisp is nasty in all kinds of ways.
But if you want a proper programmable programming language there isn't
really anything else viable. Scheme is nice but to do anything
substantial with it you have to use the dialect of a specific
implementation. Practically your choice is either CL or leaving
yourself in the hands of language designers.
It's worth mentioning also that all the criticisms Brooks and Gabriel
make of CL performance apply even more so to Perl, Python and Ruby,
which were designed with performance as an even lower priority.
From: Pascal Costanza
Subject: Re: I dont know anything but why lisp in a nutshell?
Date:
Message-ID: <4klcdqFchrrtU1@individual.net>
William James wrote:
> Pascal Costanza wrote:
>> gavino wrote:
>>> I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
>>> WHy?
>> clisp is a concrete implementation of Common Lisp, which in turn is a
>> language specification.
>>
>> For reasons why Common Lisp is "awesome",
>
> When Commune Lisp was spawned, true Lisp died.
>
> Every decision of the committee can be locally rationalized as
> the right thing. We believe that the sum of these decisions,
> however, has produced something greater than its parts; an
> unwieldy, overweight beast, with significant costs (especially on
> other than micro-codable personal Lisp engines) in compiler size
> and speed, in runtime performance, in programmer overhead needed
> to produce efficient programs, and in intellectual overload for a
> programmer wishing to be a proficient COMMON LISP programmer.
> --- Brooks and Gabriel, "A Critique of Common Lisp"
This paper was written as a reaction to CLtL1, before ANSI
standardization of Common Lisp even started. For a more recent statement
on Common Lisp by Richard Gabriel, see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/feyerabend-project/message/252 , and
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/brooks95common.html shows that Rodney Brooks
also didn't think that Common Lisp has died.
Pascal
--
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> gavino wrote:
> > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
>
> I keep seeing useless postings from an insipid troll calling itself
> gavino.
Useless to you, but not to other beginners. I see in Gavino's posts a
brevity, and a distaste for FAQs and RTFM, but I haven't seen trolling.
He's not yanking your chain; you're just irritated that he doesn't
communicate the same way you do. I think asking brief questions that
knowledgeable people can easily answer without much effort, is a
perfectly valid use of a forum.
> > WHy?
>
> Ditto.
Because he doesn't know what you know, and isn't as crusty about how
people have to speak as you are.
Gavino, I never said clisp was awesome. I never got to the point of
actually using it, so I wouldn't know. I did determine, however, that
it is the best supported open source Common Lisp on Windows. Where
"support" means things like editors and libraries that are known to
work on a particular CL implementation, are tested all the time, work
out of the box without additional futzing, have a viable user community
surrounding them, etc. clisp certainly wasn't awesome for my purposes,
it's only an interpreter. But your needs may be different from my
needs.
As always, YMMV. At some point you'll have to actually use something,
rather than continue to ask questions about your available options.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Mallor wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> > gavino wrote:
> > > I keep hearing clisp is awesome.
> >
> > I keep seeing useless postings from an insipid troll calling itself
> > gavino.
>
> Useless to you, but not to other beginners. I see in Gavino's posts a
> brevity, and a distaste for FAQs and RTFM, but I haven't seen trolling.
> He's not yanking your chain; you're just irritated that he doesn't
> communicate the same way you do. I think asking brief questions that
> knowledgeable people can easily answer without much effort, is a
> perfectly valid use of a forum.
Yes.
In addition, he's provoked some of the wittiest usenet I've seen in a
long time...
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.programming/browse_frm/thread/793a19924cc2d8ac/#