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Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

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Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#121

Post by scrupulusalbion »

darkseas wrote: post #112
scrupulusalbion wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, PicoLisp[0] is one of those lisp dialects that went way out of its way to be syntactically simple/pure/consistent. Whether this is a good idea, I don't know, but it is nevertheless an interesting example of a modern-made lisp that actually considers less data types (i.e. numbers, symbols and lists) to be a virtue. [0] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PicoLisp

I have been interested in taking PicoLisp for a spin, but I've found the friction of installing on OSX a bit much. Do you know of an easier way to use PicoLisp, without re-hacking gcc back into the system?

I have no experience compiling anything on OSX, so I am not sure if I will be very helpful.

Looking at the download page, it looks like the OSX version is 32-bit only: "It should compile and run on 32-bit GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X (Darwin) and Cygwin/Win32 distributions, and on 64-bit GNU/Linux systems." Reading through the INSTALL file seems to confirm this. [0]

A while ago (2013), some one seems to have gotten a 64-bit version up and running on OSX through make emu (don't know what the emulation option exactly is, so I can't say if it is relevant). [1]

[0] = https://github.com/evanrmurphy/PicoLisp/blob/master/INSTALL [1] = http://picolisp.software-lab.narkive.com/oCd1TRXz/pre-compil...

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#122

Post by betenoire »

catnaroek wrote: post #116
betenoire wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other kind of syntax is there? But yes, I've seen a lot of procedural code in every paradigm I can think of. Lots of cargo-cult programming results in it.

Not that procedural programming is intrinsically a bad thing. Hierarchically decomposing tasks into simpler ones is a time-honored approach to dealing with complexity because it works . It's not “cargo-cult”.

that's not what procedural programming is, it has nothing to do with decomposing tasks. it has to do with a procedural style of telling the computer what to do.

note that I didn't say procedural programming is cargo cult, I said cargo cult programming often results in procedural style programs

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#123

Post by betenoire »

jonathankoren wrote: post #99
betenoire wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other kind of syntax is there? But yes, I've seen a lot of procedural code in every paradigm I can think of. Lots of cargo-cult programming results in it.

Sit down dear child and hear of languages long ago... Back I. The days of vacuum tube and electromechanical switches, when punch tape rules the world p, there were two languages: The Algorithmic Language, and the List Processor. The List Process, or LISP, to its friends was built around s-expressions. The other, also known as ALGOL, was built around a strange and unholy hybrid of text and formulae that only an insane…

thanks dad. by the way, you are wrong, but you probably knew that already

You've grossly oversimplified everything so nothing has useful meaning anymore.

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#124

Post by betenoire »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #102
betenoire wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other kind of syntax is there? But yes, I've seen a lot of procedural code in every paradigm I can think of. Lots of cargo-cult programming results in it.

Abstract syntax.

...trees? Fair point, but we don't program with abstract syntax trees, unless we are talking about genetic programming.

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#125

Post by catnaroek »

betenoire wrote: post #122
catnaroek wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that procedural programming is intrinsically a bad thing. Hierarchically decomposing tasks into simpler ones is a time-honored approach to dealing with complexity because it works . It's not “cargo-cult”.

that's not what procedural programming is, it has nothing to do with decomposing tasks. it has to do with a procedural style of telling the computer what to do. note that I didn't say procedural programming is cargo cult, I said cargo cult programming often results in procedural style programs

Wikipedia disagrees with you:

> “Procedural programming is a programming paradigm, derived from structured programming, based upon the concept of the procedure call. Procedures, also known as routines, subroutines [emphasis mine], or functions (...)” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming]

Procedural programming is all about decomposing programs (descriptions of tasks) into subroutines (descriptions of subtasks).

Maybe you were thinking about imperative programming instead? Procedural programs are certainly imperative, but not all imperative programs are procedural.

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#127

Post by betenoire »

catnaroek wrote: post #125
betenoire wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not what procedural programming is, it has nothing to do with decomposing tasks. it has to do with a procedural style of telling the computer what to do. note that I didn't say procedural programming is cargo cult, I said cargo cult programming often results in procedural style programs

Wikipedia disagrees with you: > “Procedural programming is a programming paradigm, derived from structured programming, based upon the concept of the procedure call. Procedures, also known as routines, subroutines [emphasis mine], or functions (...)” [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_programming ] Procedural programming is all about decomposing programs (descriptions of tasks) into subroutines (descriptions…

yes you are right, that's what I meant. Sorry

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#128

Post by betenoire »

catnaroek wrote: post #126
betenoire wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...trees? Fair point, but we don't program with abstract syntax trees, unless we are talking about genetic programming.

Tell that to a compiler writer.

compiler writers write compilers in programming languages, not in syntax trees. Lisp is arguably the only language you write your code in "trees", but even then, it's still all lexical. A syntax tree is not syntax, it's a tree.

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#129

Post by stewbrew »

weatherlight wrote: post #61
stewbrew wrote: post #60

Now that scripting languages are almost dead?

http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe_index 4/10 top languages are scripting languages. Not bad for something that's almost dead.

What does that tell us? That there is a lot of legacy perl & php code around that has to be maintained? I personally used to like lisp (scheme actually) and ruby but I would never use them (or another dynamically typed language) again. Never! I'll take another look at common lisp as a (scripting) language when optional static typing is available, standardized, and commonly used. And no, typed clojure and (unfortunately also) typed racket aren't viable alternatives.

Re: Why Lisp is now an acceptable scripting language

#130

Post by TeMPOraL »

betenoire wrote: post #124
groovy2shoes wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abstract syntax.

...trees? Fair point, but we don't program with abstract syntax trees, unless we are talking about genetic programming.

Or unless you're programming in Lisp. Lisp code is mostly its own AST.
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