Hi All,
I am new to functional programming. I would like to know
which is a better language to learn Lisp or Scheme. What are the tools
avaliable in open source env.
Thanks
Slash dot.
"csledge" <·········@yahoo.com> wrote on 31 Jan 2007 10:0:
> I would like to know which is a better language to learn Lisp or
> Scheme.
Lisp is better.
Unless you prefer Scheme.
> I am new to functional programming.
Oh. For that, Common Lisp permits, but doesn't require, functional
programming. Scheme is more strongly biased in favor of functional
programming. If that's ALL you want to do, perhaps Scheme will meet your
needs best.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ ···@geddis.org
In democracy its your vote that counts. In feudalism its your count that votes.
"csledge" <·········@yahoo.com> writes:
> Hi All,
> I am new to functional programming. I would like to know
> which is a better language to learn Lisp or Scheme.
Depends a bit on what your goals are for learning the language.
For practical use as a programming language, I would recommend Common
Lisp, since it is a larger language with more general tools available.
If you have reasonable programming experience, I would suggest starting
with Peter Norvig's book _Paradigms of AI Programming: Case Studies in
Common Lisp_, otherwise Peter Seibel's _Practical Common Lisp_.
For general expansion of programming philosophy or learning in the
abstract, I would recommend Scheme along with Abelson & Sussman's book
_Structure and Interpretation of Programming Languages_. See
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/ for the book (on-line, even!)
> What are the tools
> avaliable in open source env.
Take a look at http://www.cliki.net/ and http://www.alu.org/ for Common
Lisp. I'm not up on what is available for Scheme.
> Thanks
> Slash dot.
Disclaimer: I happen to know both Professors Abelson and Sussman, but
their book is truly fantastic and I would recommend it anyway.
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
On Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:54:51 +0100, Thomas A. Russ <···@sevak.isi.edu>
wrote:
> For practical use as a programming language, I would recommend Common
> Lisp, since it is a larger language with more general tools available.
I feel this is a bit misleading. True the Scheme standard is minimal, but
there
are easely as many libraies and extensions to Scheme as for Common Lisp.
There libraries are not standardised, but some are portable and there
are commonly accepted standards. (Hygenic macroes etc.)
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Thomas A. Russ skrev:
> For practical use as a programming language, I would recommend Common
> Lisp, since it is a larger language with more general tools available.
Which general tools are you thinking of?
--
Jens Axel S�gaard
Jens Axel S�gaard <······@soegaard.net> wrote:
+---------------
| Thomas A. Russ skrev:
| > For practical use as a programming language, I would recommend Common
| > Lisp, since it is a larger language with more general tools available.
|
| Which general tools are you thinking of?
+---------------
Dunno which ones Thomas meant, but what pulled *me* from Scheme to
CL were things like these, all nicely pre-compiled & optimized in
any conforming implementation:
- DEFMACRO (which for the things I do is IMHO nicer than SYNTAX-RULES)
- The almost-universal provision of :START/:END (and :START1/:END1/
:START2/:END2, when appropriate) keyword args on sequence functions.
- MAKE-HASH-TABLE, GETHASH, (SETF GETHASH), & REMHASH
- Specialized vectors & multi-dimensional arrays.
- POSITION, MISMATCH, SEARCH, & SUBSEQ (*especially* MISMATCH,
which is really a sort of "match-until" operation)
- PARSE-INTEGER (in all its glory)
- CONCATENATE, COERCE, MAP
- READ-FROM-STRING & WITH-INPUT-FROM-STRING
- FORMAT & WITH-OUTPUT-TO-STRING
- LOOP (especially using multiple iteration variables; automatic
destructuring of iteration variables; and COLLECT & COLLECT INTO)
- READ (to load config files & small ad-hoc databases)
- Reader macros (especially the ability to write a "0x"-reading macro)
Not in the ANSI CL standard, but readily-available as add-ons
(just to name a very few):
- HTOUT & CL-WHO &c. HTML-generating macros
- CLX, Ltk, & other GUI tools.
- PG & CL-SQL (connections to SQL databases)
- SPLIT-SEQUENCE & CL-PPCRE (fast regexps)
- CL-PDF & CL-TYPESETTING document generators/formatters.
Other people may have other favorites.
-Rob
p.s. My experience is that MISMATCH is one of the most under-recognized
or under-appreciated functions in CL, at least by newbies such as I was.
It works *very* nicely with POSITION, so well that I very seldom have to
resort to regexps for parsing text files. And using :START{,1,2}/:END{,1,2}
to constrain the searches/matches allows most string parsing to be done
"in-place", lessening the need to cons up transient temps with SUBSEQ.
p.p.s. CL *does* have FILTER, except it's called REMOVE-IF-NOT.
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
"csledge" <·········@yahoo.com> writes:
> I am new to functional programming. I would like to know
> which is a better language to learn Lisp or Scheme. What are the tools
> avaliable in open source env.
Both. ;-) Start with Common Lisp. http://www.cliki.net/Online%20Tutorial
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
This is a signature virus. Add me to your signature and help me to live.
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:09:38 -0800, csledge wrote:
> Hi All,
> I am new to functional programming. I would like to know
> which is a better language to learn Lisp or Scheme. What are the tools
> avaliable in open source env.
> Thanks
> Slash dot.
Is this some voting thing? I'm voting Common Lisp then. See
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/
--
Lars Rune Nøstdal
http://nostdal.org/
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:09:38 -0800, csledge wrote:
> Hi All,
> I am new to functional programming. I would like to know
> which is a better language to learn Lisp or Scheme.
Neither Lisp nor Scheme is purely functional, although Scheme is somewhat
closer to that ideal. The languages in the ML family, such as Haskell and
O'Caml, are closer than any Lisp dialect I've ever seen and make it clear
(by example) that having functions as a first-class type is a relatively
minor part of what makes a language functional. Even closer to the ideal
is Unlambda, which is based on S and K combinators without a function in
sight.
--
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wardsback and translated.
It's in my header if you need a spoiler.
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