Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
"Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
Languages" and in this appendix the section "F.8. LISP" has to say
(quoting verbatim, indentation unmodified):
BASIC, C, Pascal, and FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar. Also,
programs written in these languages can be made quite readable,
especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There are other
languages that seem not to be readable under any circumstances. For
instance, LISP was developed in the late 1950s by John McCarthy and
Marvin Minsky at MIT, for the purpose of doing list processing (hence
the name) in connection with artificial intelligence applications.
In LISP, everything is a list. Here is a sample:
; LISP sample program to define a predicate
; that takes two lists and returns the value
; T (for true) if the lists are equal and F otherwise
(DEFINE (
'(equal (LAMDBA (list1 list2)
(COND
((ATOM list1) (EQ list1 list2))
((ATOM list1 NIL)
((equal (CAR list1) (CAR list2))
(equal (CDR list1) (CDR list2)))
(T NIL)
)
))
))
I think this paragraph says a lot about the quality of O'Reilly's
editorial office. If someone here is still concerned about the fact
that O'Reilly doesn't publish Lisp books - don't worry. They clearly
don't know what they're talking about anyway...
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Edi Weitz ha escrito:
> Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
> "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
> whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
> Languages"
And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
Javier wrote:
> Edi Weitz ha escrito:
>> Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
>> "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
>> whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
>> Languages"
>
> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
The question Edi raises is: Is O'Reilly as a publisher interested in
publishing high-quality books or not?
Or to put it differently: Can you trust information being put in their
books, for example on topics that you don't know yourself about (the
primary reason why to read a non-fictional book)?
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/
On 16 dic, 18:23, Pascal Costanza <····@p-cos.net> wrote:
> Javier wrote:
> > Edi Weitz ha escrito:
> >> Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
> >> "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
> >> whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
> >> Languages"
>
> > And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
> > editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>
> The question Edi raises is: Is O'Reilly as a publisher interested in
> publishing high-quality books or not?
>
> Or to put it differently: Can you trust information being put in their
> books, for example on topics that you don't know yourself about (the
> primary reason why to read a non-fictional book)?
Edi seems to be to much intransigent. From a human point of view, you
can't generalize an entire editorial from just one comment, the same
you can't say that a particular implementation is bad because a simple
bug, or that an entire newspaper is bad because of the opinion of a
single columnist, etc.
Even worse, the only "prove" he has presented to us is a small comment
in a book about Excel. He seems to be strongly biased against Orelly.
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:06:59 -0800 (PST), Javier <·······@gmail.com>
wrote:
>From a human point of view, you
>can't generalize an entire editorial from just one comment, the same
>you can't say that a particular implementation is bad because a simple
>bug, or that an entire newspaper is bad because of the opinion of a
>single columnist, etc.
Actually you can generalize to multiple works. For example, when
there is obvious bias in what should be a factual report, you can
conclude that all other work by the same author should be viewed with
suspicion.
When the work is purely an opinion piece, you need to take into
account what else the author may do. In the case of a newspaper, a
controversial editorial may have been written by an editor who is in a
position to influence any related stories. Similarly, a column might
be written by a staffer who regularly does other work. In either
case, knowing that person's bias, how can you trust that person going
forward to factually report related news.
I agree in principle that a compilation of work by different authors
shouldn't be judged by the contribution of one, but in practice it
isn't that simple.
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address
P� Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:23:41 +0100, skrev Pascal Costanza <··@p-cos.net>:
>
> The question Edi raises is: Is O'Reilly as a publisher interested in
> publishing high-quality books or not?
>
> Or to put it differently: Can you trust information being put in their
> books, for example on topics that you don't know yourself about (the
> primary reason why to read a non-fictional book)?
>
>
> Pascal
>
The information seems technically correct. Obviously the code is just
pasted from a ancient Lisp book he happened to have around. It's purpose
seems to be to give you some idea of what LISP code looks like. A paste
from elisp code or autolisp code would perhaps be more appropriate. (As
they are application languages like VBA) Quite irrelevant to programming
Excel. Lisp is still a pretty arcane language so I wouldn't expect a
average writer to have extensive knowledge of it. How good is your
knowledge on m4 programming?
I have no problem reading a book on OpenSSL or Apache configuration from
O'Reilly. They seem accurate and to the point. But perhaps I dont expect
you'r level of perfection..
--------------
John Thingstad
John Thingstad wrote:
> How good is your knowledge on m4 programming?
Shameless plug:
http://repo.or.cz/w/sbcl/autoconf.git
SHA1 3620724f0dcfade0588208b6bed4b6f65c19b0c7
should be usable (tested on x86 linux).
> ./autogen.sh
> ./configure
> make
If autogen.sh fails, you may need to upgrade the autotools.
- Daniel
"John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> writes:
> P� Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:23:41 +0100, skrev Pascal Costanza <··@p-cos.net>:
>
>>
>> The question Edi raises is: Is O'Reilly as a publisher interested in
>> publishing high-quality books or not?
>>
>> Or to put it differently: Can you trust information being put in
>> their books, for example on topics that you don't know yourself
>> about (the primary reason why to read a non-fictional book)?
>>
>>
>> Pascal
>>
>
> The information seems technically correct. Obviously the code is just
> pasted from a ancient Lisp book he happened to have around. It's
> purpose seems to be to give you some idea of what LISP code looks
> like. A paste from elisp code or autolisp code would perhaps be more
> appropriate. (As they are application languages like VBA) Quite
> irrelevant to programming Excel. Lisp is still a pretty arcane
> language so I wouldn't expect a average writer to have extensive
> knowledge of it. How good is your knowledge on m4 programming?
>
> I have no problem reading a book on OpenSSL or Apache configuration
> from O'Reilly. They seem accurate and to the point. But perhaps I
> dont expect you'r level of perfection..
The point here is really that the author, not knowing anything
about Lisp, should rather not mention Lisp at all. If the author
does not even know that he knows nothing about Lisp, it seems likely
that his knowledge might be similarly restricted in other areas :-)
So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
Den Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:36:37 +0100 skrev Raymond Wiker:
> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do not
> add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
Oh, but it does. It helps spread the random unfounded[1] myths about Lisp
and ensure their survival. Did you think those propagated by themselves?
It takes a lot of hard work to keep them alive.
Cheers,
Maciej
[1] Or long since untrue, as the case might be.
Maciej Katafiasz <········@gmail.com> writes:
> Den Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:36:37 +0100 skrev Raymond Wiker:
>
>> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
>> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do not
>> add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
>
> Oh, but it does. It helps spread the random unfounded[1] myths about Lisp
> and ensure their survival. Did you think those propagated by themselves?
> It takes a lot of hard work to keep them alive.
Sorry, a couple of words got dropped from the above... it
should read "to the body of knowledge about Excel". Untruths about
Lisp are not part of the body of knowledge about Excel, unless it is
assumed that the body of knowledge about Excel consists mainly of
untruths...
>
> Cheers,
> Maciej
>
> [1] Or long since untrue, as the case might be.
Den Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:50:12 +0100 skrev Raymond Wiker:
>>> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
>>> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
>>> not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
>>
>> Oh, but it does. It helps spread the random unfounded[1] myths about
>> Lisp and ensure their survival. Did you think those propagated by
>> themselves? It takes a lot of hard work to keep them alive.
>
> Sorry, a couple of words got dropped from the above... it
> should read "to the body of knowledge about Excel". Untruths about Lisp
> are not part of the body of knowledge about Excel, unless it is assumed
> that the body of knowledge about Excel consists mainly of untruths...
I guess I should apologise too, for ambigous quoting, I thought it'd be
clear enough: my statement pertained only to the first sentence in the
quote, the one about the body of knowledge about Lisp.
Cheers,
Maciej
P� Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:36:37 +0100, skrev Raymond Wiker <···@RawMBP.local>:
> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> writes:
>
> The point here is really that the author, not knowing anything
> about Lisp, should rather not mention Lisp at all. If the author
> does not even know that he knows nothing about Lisp, it seems likely
> that his knowledge might be similarly restricted in other areas :-)
>
> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
> not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
Knowledge is a relative thing. He is probably just a guy that had a one
week crash course in LISP and hated it. The experience is not that
different from my own. My first impression of Scheme at uni was not a
pleasant one. It seemed cryptic and difficult to read and write. The
cource focused only on list manipulation and recursion so it would be
simple to conclude this was all it could do. It was only a couple of years
later when writing some elisp code that I realised Lisp could be readable
and easy to write.
Some of the statements given here on the value of Excel seem somewhat less
than informed too...
--------------
John Thingstad
John Thingstad wrote:
> P� Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:36:37 +0100, skrev Raymond Wiker <···@RawMBP.local>:
>
>> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> writes:
>>
>> The point here is really that the author, not knowing anything
>> about Lisp, should rather not mention Lisp at all. If the author
>> does not even know that he knows nothing about Lisp, it seems likely
>> that his knowledge might be similarly restricted in other areas :-)
>>
>> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
>> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
>> not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
>
> Knowledge is a relative thing. He is probably just a guy that had a one
> week crash course in LISP and hated it. The experience is not that
> different from my own. My first impression of Scheme at uni was not a
> pleasant one. It seemed cryptic and difficult to read and write. The
> cource focused only on list manipulation and recursion so it would be
> simple to conclude this was all it could do. It was only a couple of
> years later when writing some elisp code that I realised Lisp could be
> readable and easy to write.
>
> Some of the statements given here on the value of Excel seem somewhat
> less than informed too...
Well, this is usenet, that is a book.
It's always a good idea to imagine what it would mean if this happened
in other professions. Like, say, a physics book complaining about the
fact that chemical formulas are hard to read and implying that
therefore, chemistry is not a worthwhile subject. (Or something...)
What would you think of a publisher who would let something like that
through?
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/
P� Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:45:59 +0100, skrev Pascal Costanza <··@p-cos.net>:
>
> It's always a good idea to imagine what it would mean if this happened
> in other professions. Like, say, a physics book complaining about the
> fact that chemical formulas are hard to read and implying that
> therefore, chemistry is not a worthwhile subject. (Or something...)
>
> What would you think of a publisher who would let something like that
> through?
>
>
I do see it. Wasn't it Lord Kelvin that boldly stated that all major
physics had been discovered in 1890 ?
Note that BASIC seems to be the most frequently underestimated language in
CS books. Using 1965 BASIC to critique Visual Basic is every bit as wrong.
Modern Basic's has procedures, control structures, type declarations,
classes, a compiler... So much of the original criticism of BASIC doesn't
apply.
(Personally I find Perl to to be the most offensive language.)
We all have ill formed opinions.. The usual procedure is for the author to
put in a disclaimer stating that the opinions herein is his own and do not
reflect the company attitude. I am not convinced that censoring opinions,
even silly ones is necessarily a good thing. It takes away some of the
freedom of expression. At least in this case where it does not (except to
some lispers) directly reflect on the topic of the book.
Also I don't see any evidence this is a general attitude at O'Reilly.
--------------
John Thingstad
On 17 dic, 07:45, Pascal Costanza <····@p-cos.net> wrote:
> John Thingstad wrote:
> > På Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:36:37 +0100, skrev Raymond Wiker <····@RawMBP.local>:
>
> >> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> writes:
>
> >> The point here is really that the author, not knowing anything
> >> about Lisp, should rather not mention Lisp at all. If the author
> >> does not even know that he knows nothing about Lisp, it seems likely
> >> that his knowledge might be similarly restricted in other areas :-)
>
> >> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
> >> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
> >> not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
>
> > Knowledge is a relative thing. He is probably just a guy that had a one
> > week crash course in LISP and hated it. The experience is not that
> > different from my own. My first impression of Scheme at uni was not a
> > pleasant one. It seemed cryptic and difficult to read and write. The
> > cource focused only on list manipulation and recursion so it would be
> > simple to conclude this was all it could do. It was only a couple of
> > years later when writing some elisp code that I realised Lisp could be
> > readable and easy to write.
>
> > Some of the statements given here on the value of Excel seem somewhat
> > less than informed too...
>
> Well, this is usenet, that is a book.
>
> It's always a good idea
It's always a good idea? Ein???
> to imagine what it would mean if this happened
> in other professions. Like, say, a physics book complaining about the
> fact that chemical formulas are hard to read and implying that
> therefore, chemistry is not a worthwhile subject. (Or something...)
Bad analogy. Physic is not BASIC, and Chemistry is not LISP.
Lisp is a computation language like BASIC. They do the same thing.
> What would you think of a publisher who would let something like that
> through?
A publisher which do not try to control up to that extreme what
writers write.
Den Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:56:32 -0800 skrev Javier:
>> to imagine what it would mean if this happened in other professions.
>> Like, say, a physics book complaining about the fact that chemical
>> formulas are hard to read and implying that therefore, chemistry is not
>> a worthwhile subject. (Or something...)
>
> Bad analogy. Physic is not BASIC, and Chemistry is not LISP. Lisp is a
> computation language like BASIC. They do the same thing.
Physics is a science, and chemistry is a science. They do the same thing.
>> What would you think of a publisher who would let something like that
>> through?
>
> A publisher which do not try to control up to that extreme what writers
> write.
So not writing inflammatory bullshit is "extreme"? Man, you really need
to be larted.
Maciej
On 18 dic, 14:20, Maciej Katafiasz <········@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Bad analogy. Physic is not BASIC, and Chemistry is not LISP. Lisp is a
> > computation language like BASIC. They do the same thing.
>
> Physics is a science, and chemistry is a science. They do the same thing.
Then, an orange is something, and a dog is something. They both are
something. So they do the same thing. Your point is ridiculous.
Chemistry and Physics are not the same thing, as a programming
language is not the same as the design of a microchip. I feel that
this analogy is more correct. Comparing hardware with software is not
correct from a logical point of view, the same as comparing Chemistry
with Physic is not.
But comparing a microchip with another one is correct. As comparing a
language with another one is, too.
> >> What would you think of a publisher who would let something like that
> >> through?
>
> > A publisher which do not try to control up to that extreme what writers
> > write.
>
> So not writing inflammatory bullshit is "extreme"? Man, you really need
> to be larted.
"Inflamatory bullshit" is your opinion, because you are strongly
biased about Lisp, and are very intransigent about anything else.
Javier escribi�:
> Then, an orange is something, and a dog is something. They both are
> something. So they do the same thing. Your point is ridiculous.
See? The same reasoning could be applied to your affirmation that "nil
is a list, and cons is a list, so nil should be a cons"
I'm happy you finally got the idea.
Leandro
Den Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:38:18 -0800 skrev Javier:
> Your point is ridiculous.
NO U. And you have proven you lack the basic English comprehension
capabilities, therefore I win.
Maciej
Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
> NO U. And you have proven you lack the basic English comprehension
> capabilities, therefore I win.
ROTFL. =B-)
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u
JT> Knowledge is a relative thing. He is probably just a guy that had a one
JT> week crash course in LISP and hated it.
probably. i think the problem is in his attitude, not in his lack of
knowledge of some language:
"There are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
circumstances."
the problem with this statement is that readability depends on reader. for
reader that is not experienced BASIC _seems_ to be more readable than Lisp.
but having enough experience, any language would be readable.
you can find example of MUMPS in wikipedia [1]:
%DTC
%DTC ; SF/XAK - DATE/TIME OPERATIONS ;1/16/92 11:36 AM
;;19.0;VA FileMan;;Jul 14, 1992
D I 'X1!'X2 S X="" Q
S X=X1 D H S X1=%H,X=X2,X2=%Y+1 D H S X=X1-%H,%Y=%Y+1&X2
K %H,X1,X2 Q
;
C S X=X1 Q:'X D H S %H=%H+X2 D YMD S:$P(X1,".",2) X=X_"."_$P(X1,".",2) K
X1,X2 Q
S S %=%#60/100+(%#3600\60)/100+(%\3600)/100 Q
;
seems to be a horrible mess, however it's just abbreviated code, it's not
inteded to be seen by person who does not know abbreviations.
once you know them, this should be perfectly readable.
so, book's author has wrong attitude -- he judges from first sight, but not
from sight of experienced person. probably he have tried other languages,
but was impatient to learn anything but that VBA.
if he knew other language and was honest, he'd say about learning curves
rather than about absolute readability. only benefit of VBA as a language is
that it has pretty gentle learning curve, and even if you do not know
anything about programming, you still can understand some parts of program.
but for professional programmers it would be harder to see algorithms behind
this "easy" syntax, so BASIC is _less_ readable for them.
so, BASIC is good only for people who are not going to learn programming
deeply. but i'm afraid no VBA book author would honestly mention this..
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS_(programming_language)
On Dec 16, 10:36 pm, Raymond Wiker <····@RawMBP.local> wrote:
> "John Thingstad" <·······@online.no> writes:
> > På Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:23:41 +0100, skrev Pascal Costanza <····@p-cos.net>:
>
> >> The question Edi raises is: Is O'Reilly as a publisher interested in
> >> publishing high-quality books or not?
>
> >> Or to put it differently: Can you trust information being put in
> >> their books, for example on topics that you don't know yourself
> >> about (the primary reason why to read a non-fictional book)?
>
> >> Pascal
>
> > The information seems technically correct. Obviously the code is just
> > pasted from a ancient Lisp book he happened to have around. It's
> > purpose seems to be to give you some idea of what LISP code looks
> > like. A paste from elisp code or autolisp code would perhaps be more
> > appropriate. (As they are application languages like VBA) Quite
> > irrelevant to programming Excel. Lisp is still a pretty arcane
> > language so I wouldn't expect a average writer to have extensive
> > knowledge of it. How good is your knowledge on m4 programming?
>
> > I have no problem reading a book on OpenSSL or Apache configuration
> > from O'Reilly. They seem accurate and to the point. But perhaps I
> > dont expect you'r level of perfection..
>
> The point here is really that the author, not knowing anything
> about Lisp, should rather not mention Lisp at all. If the author
> does not even know that he knows nothing about Lisp, it seems likely
> that his knowledge might be similarly restricted in other areas :-)
>
> So, in summary: that mention that Lisp gets adds nothing to
> the body of knowledge about Lisp. Erroneous statements about Lisp do
> not add anything to the body of Excel (or anything else), either.
I am very munch convinced that the author had some bad start and
experience with Lisp in the distance past otherwise it would make
absolutely no sense to call in Lisp for any reasons. The author would
have been better of to referencing to FORTH instead because that FORTH
is all about unhumanity.
···········@yahoo.de wrote:
> I am very munch convinced that the author had some bad start and
> experience with Lisp in the distance past otherwise it would make
> absolutely no sense to call in Lisp for any reasons.
What if the author actually really knew what he was talking about and was
right on the money?
--
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/?u
On Dec 20, 12:30 am, Jon Harrop <······@jdh30.plus.com> wrote:
> ···········@yahoo.de wrote:
> > I am very munch convinced that the author had some bad start and
> > experience with Lisp in the distance past otherwise it would make
> > absolutely no sense to call in Lisp for any reasons.
>
> What if the author actually really knew what he was talking about and was
> right on the money?
That is why it often makes me wondering: I have seen a lot of people
posting their resumes which included such 'modern languages' as Common
Lisp, Haskell, OCaml but in the end they prefer C++ over any other
language. Now put that in relation to the marketing departments of the
functional programming camps (which still include Scheme and Common
Lisp).
Jon would you have been happy the authors had put OCaml into some bad
light. I mean as we all know: OCaml has one of the worse idiosyncratic
syntax out there.
I am now tempted to count the key-words in the Bigloo manual because I
came across a Common Lisp rant which states Common Lisp has nearly
1000 of such keywords or functions.
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:55:26 +0100, John Thingstad wrote:
> I have no problem reading a book on OpenSSL or Apache configuration from
> O'Reilly. They seem accurate and to the point. But perhaps I dont expect
> you'r level of perfection..
>
> --------------
> John Thingstad
I was going to say that's a very original way to spell "your", but
according to google you were preceded by 3,380,000 others.
Tim Josling
Den Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:30:51 +0000 skrev Tim Josling:
>> I have no problem reading a book on OpenSSL or Apache configuration
>> from O'Reilly. They seem accurate and to the point. But perhaps I dont
>> expect you'r level of perfection..
>>
>> --------------
>> John Thingstad
>
> I was going to say that's a very original way to spell "your", but
> according to google you were preceded by 3,380,000 others.
That's only because google treates "you r" as matching "you'r". So most
of it are probably instances of netsp33k.
Cheers,
Maciej
??>> Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
??>> "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
??>> whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
??>> Languages"
J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
"Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
be readable under any circumstances".
btw it would be pretty interesting to compare that 50 years old example to
VBA. iirc VBA doesn't have lists at all. so i wonder how would they emulate
it, and whether it would be readable under some circumstances.
once i had a univeristy teacher who demanded writting programs (including
graph algorithms and A.I. stuff) in VBA. that was PITA..
On 16 dic, 18:15, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
> J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>
> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
> know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
> be readable under any circumstances".
They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
because it says:"programs written in these languages can be made quite
readable, especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There
are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
circumstances."
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800, Javier wrote:
> On 16 dic, 18:15, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>> J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the
>> entire J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>>
>> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they
>> do not know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP
>> is "not to be readable under any circumstances".
>
> They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
> circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it, because
> it says:"programs written in these languages can be made quite readable,
> especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There are other
> languages that seem not to be readable under any circumstances."
"There are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
circumstances. For instance, LISP...."
Seems pretty clear to me.
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800 (PST), Javier wrote:
> On 16 dic, 18:15, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
> wrote:
>> J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
>> J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>>
>> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
>> know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
>> be readable under any circumstances".
> They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
> circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
> because it says:"programs written in these languages can be made quite
> readable, especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There
> are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
> circumstances."
And the quote continues: "For example, LISP...".
Lisp does not appear in the list of "these languages" that precedes the
quote. It is instead the very first example cited as one of those "other
languages".
--
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>
On 16 dic, 18:48, Dave Seaman <·······@no.such.host> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800 (PST), Javier wrote:
> > On 16 dic, 18:15, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
> > wrote:
> >> J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
> >> J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>
> >> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
> >> know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
> >> be readable under any circumstances".
> > They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
> > circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
> > because it says:"programs written in these languages can be made quite
> > readable, especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There
> > are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
> > circumstances."
>
> And the quote continues: "For example, LISP...".
>
> Lisp does not appear in the list of "these languages" that precedes the
> quote. It is instead the very first example cited as one of those "other
> languages".
My opinion is that LISP is included into the list of "these languages"
because at the start of the paragraph he says: "BASIC, C, Pascal, and
FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar." Similar to what? To each
other or to Lisp? Because of the omission of "each other" I think he
is refering to Lisp, if the context of the paragraph is to talk about
Lisp.
On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:13:49 -0800 (PST), Javier wrote:
> On 16 dic, 18:48, Dave Seaman <·······@no.such.host> wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800 (PST), Javier wrote:
>> > On 16 dic, 18:15, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
>> > wrote:
>> >> J> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
>> >> J> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
>>
>> >> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
>> >> know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
>> >> be readable under any circumstances".
>> > They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
>> > circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
>> > because it says:"programs written in these languages can be made quite
>> > readable, especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There
>> > are other languages that seem not to be readable under any
>> > circumstances."
>>
>> And the quote continues: "For example, LISP...".
>>
>> Lisp does not appear in the list of "these languages" that precedes the
>> quote. It is instead the very first example cited as one of those "other
>> languages".
> My opinion is that LISP is included into the list of "these languages"
> because at the start of the paragraph he says: "BASIC, C, Pascal, and
> FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar." Similar to what? To each
> other or to Lisp? Because of the omission of "each other" I think he
> is refering to Lisp, if the context of the paragraph is to talk about
> Lisp.
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that he actually intended to
exclude LISP from that list of languages. How could he have rephrased
what he wrote in order to make that clearer?
--
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>
(message (Hello 'Javier)
(you :wrote :on '(Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800 (PST)))
(
J>>> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
J>>> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
??>>
??>> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they
??>> do not know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP
??>> is "not to be readable under any circumstances".
J> They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
J> circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
reread it:
BASIC, C, Pascal, and FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar. Also,
programs written in these languages can be made quite readable,
especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There are other
languages that seem not to be readable under any circumstances. For
instance, LISP was developed in the late 1950s by John McCarthy and
Marvin Minsky at MIT, for the purpose of doing list processing (hence
the name) in connection with artificial intelligence applications.
for those with limited brain stack i'll shorten:
BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN .. CAN BE MADE QUITE READABLE.
OTHER LANGUAGES, FOR INSTANCE LISP, ARE NOT READABLE.
On 16 dic, 18:49, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> (message (Hello 'Javier)
> (you :wrote :on '(Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:27:14 -0800 (PST)))
> (
>
> J>>> And what do you expect from an Excel book? Are you judging the entire
> J>>> editorial just for a comment in an Excel book?
> ??>>
> ??>> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they
> ??>> do not know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP
> ??>> is "not to be readable under any circumstances".
>
> J> They are not saying that LISP is not to be readable under any
> J> circumstances. In fact, it says exactly the contrary. Reread it,
>
> reread it:
>
> BASIC, C, Pascal, and FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar. Also,
> programs written in these languages can be made quite readable,
> especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There are other
> languages that seem not to be readable under any circumstances. For
> instance, LISP was developed in the late 1950s by John McCarthy and
> Marvin Minsky at MIT, for the purpose of doing list processing (hence
> the name) in connection with artificial intelligence applications.
>
> for those with limited brain stack i'll shorten:
>
> BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN .. CAN BE MADE QUITE READABLE.
> OTHER LANGUAGES, FOR INSTANCE LISP, ARE NOT READABLE.
You have badly shorten, read it carefully:
"BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN are in many way quite similar. Also,
programs writen in these languages..." is clearly referring to BASIC,
C, PASCAL, and FORTRAN *and* Lisp, because it is "quite similar". He
is refering to all of them.
The limiting brain stack is only your own one.
On Dec 16, 3:56 pm, Javier <·······@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN are in many way quite similar. Also,
> programs writen in these languages..." is clearly referring to BASIC,
> C, PASCAL, and FORTRAN *and* Lisp, because it is "quite similar". He
> is refering to all of them.
> The limiting brain stack is only your own one.
Javier, you can't really read, can you?
-alex
J> "BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN are in many way quite similar. Also,
J> programs writen in these languages..." is clearly referring to BASIC,
J> C, PASCAL, and FORTRAN *and* Lisp, because it is "quite similar". He
J> is refering to all of them.
it seems for some people even plain english is not readable under and
circumstances..
On Dec 16, 5:49 pm, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
>
> for those with limited brain stack i'll shorten:
>
> BASIC, C, PASCAL and FORTRAN .. CAN BE MADE QUITE READABLE.
> OTHER LANGUAGES, FOR INSTANCE LISP, ARE NOT READABLE.
And if one were to write a book about Common Lisp he would probabibly
state similar things about C++.
I do not see any reasons to blame the editors. Oh yes the Lisp code
looks strange. I would rather blame the authors of the book.
The one and only language which is indeed not readable ist called
"FORTH".
When I first started to learn Lisp I had really a bad start cos I
found a tutorial on the internet which tried to educate me some weirad
list stuff. It was horrible. I quickly moved away. After some time I
came back but honestly not so much for Lisp but Scheme instead which
is now my pet language.
I am quite sure there exists a lot of frightening Lisp tutorials on
the web. And I am also quite concinced that some people have a bad
start with Lisp or call it Common Lisp.
That reminds on tutorials tailored to Fortran 90 mwhere in fact the
tutorial teches Fortran 77 and everyone in the meantime knows Fortran
90 has not much to do with Fortran 70 anymore.
On Dec 16, 9:15 am, "Alex Mizrahi" <········@users.sourceforge.net>
wrote:
> "Excel" is an excuse for writting bullshit and lies in books? if they do not
> know topic, they'd better write nothing than claiming that LISP is "not to
> be readable under any circumstances".
That's not a lie, but merely an opinion.
What is a lie is that ``everything is a list''. That is contradicted
by the example itself, which tests the input variables for being
atoms, and is itself made up of symbols like LIST2 and DEFINE, which
are not lists!
If everything is a list, then the only data you can have is an empty
list, or a list of one or more lists.
On Dec 16, 7:53 am, Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> wrote:
> Yesterday, more or less by accident, I took a quick glance at the book
> "Writing Excel Macros with VBA, 2nd Edition" sold by O'Reilly. For
> whatever reason it has an appendix called "High-Level and Low-Level
> Languages" and in this appendix the section "F.8. LISP" has to say
> (quoting verbatim, indentation unmodified):
>
> BASIC, C, Pascal, and FORTRAN are in many ways quite similar. Also,
> programs written in these languages can be made quite readable,
> especially if the programmer intends to make it so. There are other
> languages that seem not to be readable under any circumstances. For
> instance, LISP was developed in the late 1950s by John McCarthy and
> Marvin Minsky at MIT, for the purpose of doing list processing (hence
> the name) in connection with artificial intelligence applications.
>
> In LISP, everything is a list. Here is a sample:
>
> ; LISP sample program to define a predicate
> ; that takes two lists and returns the value
> ; T (for true) if the lists are equal and F otherwise
> (DEFINE (
> '(equal (LAMDBA (list1 list2)
> (COND
> ((ATOM list1) (EQ list1 list2))
> ((ATOM list1 NIL)
> ((equal (CAR list1) (CAR list2))
> (equal (CDR list1) (CDR list2)))
> (T NIL)
> )
> ))
> ))
Looks good, except the second ATOM test should obviously be for list2.
Is that in the book, or your typo?
Other than that, this might have been the way to define a function in
some ancient dialect.
This is perfectly readable to me, however it's the author's privilege
to express his own retarded opinion, which he is entitled to push past
the publisher.
To be fair, he should show the BASIC, Fortran, Pascal, C, and of
course VBA code for doing the same thing: namely comparing two lists
for structural equivalence.
I suspect that none of them will be as readable. Of course BASIC will
have to do it iteratively, or simulate recursion using arrays as
stacks. And arrays to simulate the data structure itself, good grief.
The C will be mired with representational cruft: some struct with
unions, etc; ditto for the Pascal.
P� Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:53:31 +0100, skrev Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de>:
>
> In LISP, everything is a list. Here is a sample:
>
> ; LISP sample program to define a predicate
> ; that takes two lists and returns the value
> ; T (for true) if the lists are equal and F otherwise
> (DEFINE (
> '(equal (LAMDBA (list1 list2)
> (COND
> ((ATOM list1) (EQ list1 list2))
> ((ATOM list1 NIL)
> ((equal (CAR list1) (CAR list2))
> (equal (CDR list1) (CDR list2)))
> (T NIL)
> )
> ))
> ))
Seems correct to me. (The first two conditions look suspect.. EQL seems
right in Common Lisp, but this isn't Common Lisp..) Abait it is a
antiquated dialect from the 60's.
It doesn't say Common Lisp anywhere.
>
> I think this paragraph says a lot about the quality of O'Reilly's
> editorial office. If someone here is still concerned about the fact
> that O'Reilly doesn't publish Lisp books - don't worry. They clearly
> don't know what they're talking about anyway...
>
> Edi.
>
Depends what you consider Lisp. A quick google search came up with this
introduction to programming AutoLisp..
http://safari.oreilly.com/0735709475/ch22
--------------
John Thingstad
On Dec 16, 4:53 pm, Edi Weitz <········@agharta.de> wrote:
> I think this paragraph says a lot about the quality of O'Reilly's
> editorial office. If someone here is still concerned about the fact
> that O'Reilly doesn't publish Lisp books - don't worry. They clearly
> don't know what they're talking about anyway...
These things really have a direct effect. One skilled female
programmer was turned off by some German university textbook whose
"Common Lisp" code was full of SETQed CADADRs and nasty indentation.
She was incredulous I'd ever use such a nasty language.
Now she simply doesn't have the time and energy to learn CL. PHP 1,
Lisp 0.
Fortunately, we don't need to burn bad library books, just leave a
strongly-worded pointer to better books...
Tayssir
Den Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:39:28 -0800 skrev Tayssir John Gabbour:
>> I think this paragraph says a lot about the quality of O'Reilly's
>> editorial office. If someone here is still concerned about the fact
>> that O'Reilly doesn't publish Lisp books - don't worry. They clearly
>> don't know what they're talking about anyway...
>
> These things really have a direct effect. One skilled female programmer
> was turned off by some German university textbook whose "Common Lisp"
> code was full of SETQed CADADRs and nasty indentation. She was
> incredulous I'd ever use such a nasty language.
>
> Now she simply doesn't have the time and energy to learn CL. PHP 1, Lisp
> 0.
While I agree that UPPERCASE LISP CODE USING SETQ AND CAADR might be
scary and off-putting, I'd strongly object to the notion that PHP might
offer _anything_ in the syntax department. Or any other department, for
that matter. We're speaking of a language(*) where syntax "shorthand" for
array construction is "array(a, b, c, ...)", *despite* it already taking
[] for arrays. To make things even funnier, this:
compute_foo_array(bar, 10)[1]; throws a syntax error (!)(**). PHP is such
a bad joke that even its author admits it's not a real language(***).
Cheers,
Maciej
(*) Except that PHP is not, and never was, a language. It's a quick
regexp substitution hack, thrown together in one afternoon, that's
unfortunately taken off and got widespread. They might claim to be
all "object oriented" now, but you can still clearly see the regexes
shining through all the time. Crappy regexes at that.
(**) In case it's not entirely clear, this does not error:
$foo = compute_foo_array(bar, 10);
$foo[1];
You can also clearly see how shoddy the parser is, requiring $
always, not just to distinguish between contexts. In comparison to
PHP, bash is a paragon of robust parsing and well-defined semantics.
(***) Or something to that effect, I can't afford searching for the exact
quote now. But he said that he never intended or wanted PHP used for
anything else than it was designed for, ie. quick, fly by night hacks.
Better get use to it Edi, if it was only O'Reilly it would be easy :
here's few examples from Wiley's AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software,
Architectures, and Projects in Crisis
FIGURE 5.14 Poltergeists: ghostly classes.
In the LISP language, as in many others, certain pure-evil programmers
exist who take great
glee in leveraging the "side effects" of certain language functions to
mysteriously perform key
functionality in their systems. Analysis and understanding of such
systems is virtually
impossible, and any attempt at reuse is considered insane.
Like the Poltergeist "controller" class, the use of "side effects" to
accomplish any principle
task in an implementation is an incorrect utilization of the language
or architecture tool, and
should be avoided.
Cut-&-paste programming
Example
There is one piece of code that we suspect has been cloned repeatedly
throughout several
organizations and probably is still cloned today. This piece of code
has been observed
76
several hundred times across dozens of organizations. It is a code
file that implements a
linked-list class without the use of templates or macros. Instead, the
data structure stored by
the linked list is defined in a header file, so each linked list is
customized to operate only on
the specified data structure. Unfortunately, the original author of
the code (rumor has it he
was originally a LISP programmer) introduced a flaw in the linked-list
code: It failed to free
the memory of an item when it was deleted; instead, it just rearranged
the pointers. On
occasion, this code has been modified to fix this defect; however,
more often than not, it still
exists. It's clearly the same code set; the variable names, the
instructions, and even the
formatting is exactly the same in each and every case. Even the file
is typically named
<prefix>link.c, where the prefix is one or two letters that
cryptically refer to the data structure
managed by the list.
Mini-AntiPattern: Intellectual Violence
Background
The Lambda Calculus is a relatively straightforward theory about the
mathematics of
functions and variable substitutions. It is one of the important
theories underlying the
Lisp programming language and is taught at selected universities in
undergraduate
computer science courses. People with this training often assume that
everybody
knows about Lambda Calculus. This leads to misunderstandings that may
be instances
of Intellectual Violence. A short chalk-talk (informal tutorial) could
clear up any
misunderstandings.
Slobodan
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:24:41 -0800, Slobodan Blazeski wrote:
> Better get use to it Edi, if it was only O'Reilly it would be easy :
> here's few examples from Wiley's AntiPatterns: Refactoring Software,
> Architectures, and Projects in Crisis
Wow.
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
Edi Weitz wrote:
...
> If someone here is still concerned about the fact
> that O'Reilly doesn't publish Lisp books -
...they are missing the point.
O'Reilly is just the tail the dog wags. The dog is now eagerly sniffing
up Lisp's butt, and likes what it smells*. It is only a matter of time.
kxo
* Has anyone figured out exactly why they do that, or for what exactly
the dogs are, um, looking? k
--
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
"In the morning, hear the Way;
in the evening, die content!"
-- Confucius
From: Edi Weitz
Subject: Re: What O'Reilly knows about Lisp
Date:
Message-ID: <u1w9kr5dj.fsf@agharta.de>
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:15:13 -0500, Ken Tilton <···········@optonline.net> wrote:
> Has anyone figured out exactly why they do that, or for what exactly
> the dogs are, um, looking?
It's all about sex, of course...
Edi.
--
Lisp is not dead, it just smells funny.
Real email: (replace (subseq ·········@agharta.de" 5) "edi")
Den Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:31:04 +0100 skrev Edi Weitz:
>> Has anyone figured out exactly why they do that, or for what exactly
>> the dogs are, um, looking?
>
> It's all about sex, of course...
And socialising. That's a pretty reliable way of confirming identity,
coupled with "how are you?" at once.
Cheers,
Maciej
Ken Tilton schrieb:
> * Has anyone figured out exactly why they do that, or for what exactly
> the dogs are, um, looking? k
I guess they are looking for fresh food to serve their stupid copy
machines. Most likely the found stuff will not fit correctly in their
windy buildings and so they come out with the usual type-mismatch as
seen before, but hey, they declare it as new feature and the selling
machinery goes on, hm?
Meanwhile it is so easy to use the good old stuff. Maybe lisp should
reverse all symbol-names and offer that as complete new magical mystery.
I'm sure the rest of language artists will tumble over and celebrate the
new break through in computer science ...
Keep them busy :)
Ken Tilton escribi�:
>
> * Has anyone figured out exactly why they do that, or for what exactly
> the dogs are, um, looking? k
When I was a kid, I was told that in the beginning of time every dog
spent almost all day sniffing his own butt. God regarded this as a bad
thing, so he exchanged the butts between dogs, so no dog had its butt
again. What they do now is to look (snif) for his own butt, to resume
the interrupted sniffing.
A couple years ago, I realized this story could not be true. Maybe they
do it just because... they like it! There's no disputing for taste...
Leandro