I have been reading about programming languages over the past year or
so (as a hobby), and have read Graham's "Beating the Averages",
downloaded CLISP and started to try and teach myself some Lisp.
In my research, a common complaint I see is about the Lisp
parentheses, and how people can't read the code because of that. After
my limited programming experience in Lisp, I found that a properly
indented program is more important than parenthesis counting.
If the parentheses do make Lisp programs unreadable, how come there is
no "International Obfuscated Lisp Contest"?
My initial answer was that once you could 'read' the Lisp syntax, then
you would have no problem understanding the program, because there was
no obtuse syntax to hide the intent of the program behind.
My second answer was that with macros, it is far to easy to obfuscate
Lisp code, and that there was no point in trying to make a competition
out of it.
Comments?
···········@gmail.com wrote:
> I have been reading about programming languages over the past year or
> so (as a hobby), and have read Graham's "Beating the Averages",
> downloaded CLISP and started to try and teach myself some Lisp.
>
> In my research, a common complaint I see is about the Lisp
> parentheses, and how people can't read the code because of that. After
> my limited programming experience in Lisp, I found that a properly
> indented program is more important than parenthesis counting.
>
> If the parentheses do make Lisp programs unreadable, how come there is
> no "International Obfuscated Lisp Contest"?
>
> My initial answer was that once you could 'read' the Lisp syntax, then
> you would have no problem understanding the program, because there was
> no obtuse syntax to hide the intent of the program behind.
>
> My second answer was that with macros, it is far to easy to obfuscate
> Lisp code, and that there was no point in trying to make a competition
> out of it.
>
> Comments?
>
The ANSI people were smart enough to provide us with the format
function, for all our obfuscation needs.
Sacha
Sacha <····@address.spam> writes:
> The ANSI people were smart enough to provide us with the format
> function, for all our obfuscation needs.
LOL
--
Thomas A. Russ, USC/Information Sciences Institute
On Jul 3, 3:14 pm, Sacha <····@address.spam> wrote:
> ···········@gmail.com wrote:
> > I have been reading about programming languages over the past year or
> > so (as a hobby), and have read Graham's "Beating the Averages",
> > downloaded CLISP and started to try and teach myself some Lisp.
>
> > In my research, a common complaint I see is about the Lisp
> > parentheses, and how people can't read the code because of that. After
> > my limited programming experience in Lisp, I found that a properly
> > indented program is more important than parenthesis counting.
>
> > If the parentheses do make Lisp programs unreadable, how come there is
> > no "International Obfuscated Lisp Contest"?
>
> > My initial answer was that once you could 'read' the Lisp syntax, then
> > you would have no problem understanding the program, because there was
> > no obtuse syntax to hide the intent of the program behind.
>
> > My second answer was that with macros, it is far to easy to obfuscate
> > Lisp code, and that there was no point in trying to make a competition
> > out of it.
>
> > Comments?
>
> The ANSI people were smart enough to provide us with the format
> function, for all our obfuscation needs.
>
> Sacha
And loop is somewhat close.
Slobodan Blazeski
···········@gmail.com writes:
> If the parentheses do make Lisp programs unreadable, how come there is
> no "International Obfuscated Lisp Contest"?
>
> My initial answer was that once you could 'read' the Lisp syntax, then
> you would have no problem understanding the program, because there was
> no obtuse syntax to hide the intent of the program behind.
>
> My second answer was that with macros, it is far too easy to obfuscate
> Lisp code, and that there was no point in trying to make a competition
> out of it.
Indeed, macros and reader macros!
And beside, we're busy implementing more interesting stuff, like
Alan's Message-ID: <··············@cawtech.freeserve.co.uk>.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
NOTE: The most fundamental particles in this product are held
together by a "gluing" force about which little is currently known
and whose adhesive power can therefore not be permanently
guaranteed.
(message (Hello ············@gmail.com)
(you :wrote :on '(Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:11:06 -0700))
(
m> My initial answer was that once you could 'read' the Lisp syntax, then
m> you would have no problem understanding the program, because there was
m> no obtuse syntax to hide the intent of the program behind.
oh, with that lambda calculus it's not hard to hide intent :)
Message-ID: <···················@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net>
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/da11f14467994c78
)
(With-best-regards '(Alex Mizrahi) :aka 'killer_storm)
"scorn")