Is Lisp a Blub Language?

Post by silentbicycle » Mon, Apr 26, 2010, 12:17 PM UTC

programnature wrote: post #36

(@lispm Looks like our symbolic language flame war has exceeded yc metrics) Yes, I understand what ' does. You are manually controlling evaluation. The same way, once upon a time, people manually controlled garbage collection. Having a+a explode by default means that the whole time you have to be juggling what is intended to be used symbolically or not. This seems to not be a 100% perfect realization of the code == d…

Post by noelwelsh » Mon, Apr 26, 2010, 12:24 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #27

jjs wrote: post #14

Blubness of a language comes from its practitioners not knowing about useful features from a higher-level language (or not grasping the utility of such a feature). If your favorite Lisp lacks a certain feature you want, it's easy to add, making Lisp the anti-Blub. (And if your favorite Lisp makes it hard to add it, you've picked the wrong favorite!)

Some things are difficult to add even to Lisp. Static typing being an example.

Post by olavk » Mon, Apr 26, 2010, 12:30 PM UTC

floater wrote: post #38

olavk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some features are not easy to add. For example, one important feature of Python is that the language is designed with consistency and readability in mind, and combined with the "preferably one obvious way to do it"-ideal means that code written by other people is easier to read and understand. This makes code and knowledge sharing easier, and the network effect creates a blooming ecosystem for libraries. How do you e…

Your example is a feature of the Python philosophy (or community) not the Python language.

Post by Sukotto » Mon, Apr 26, 2010, 12:49 PM UTC

floater wrote: post #38

olavk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some features are not easy to add. For example, one important feature of Python is that the language is designed with consistency and readability in mind, and combined with the "preferably one obvious way to do it"-ideal means that code written by other people is easier to read and understand. This makes code and knowledge sharing easier, and the network effect creates a blooming ecosystem for libraries. How do you e…

Your example is a feature of the Python philosophy (or community) not the Python language.

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Apr 26, 2010, 12:59 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #7

programnature wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the Mathematica function Take[], which would save millions of man hours if it existed in other languages. Take[{a,b,c,d},2] --> {a,b} Take[{a,b,c,d},-2] -> {c,d} Take[{a,b,c,d},{1,3}] -> {a,b,c} Take[{a,b,c,d},{1,-1,2}] -> {a,c} Take[{{a,b,c,d},{1,2,3,4},{5,6,7,8}},2,2] -> {{a, b}, {1, 2}} etc. In my book this is clearly useful, and its only scratching the surface. ( {} is actually List[] in Mathematica Full…

It looks like you have never programmed in Lisp. A function like Take is easy to write in Lisp. Lisp has many similar functions like that - but with a better interface. > There is a reason you don't see meaning represented by structure in pretty much any other language besides Mathematica. Could it really be that you missed the AI software that has been written in Lisp in the last five decades?

    SolvePoly[a_*x+b_=0] := { -b/a }
    SolvePoly[a_*x^2+b_*x+c_=0] := \
        { (-b + sqrt(b^2-4*a*c))/2a, (-b - sqrt(b^2-4*a*c))/2a }
    SolvePoly[_] := "I only took high school algebra"