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Lispers

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Re: Lispers

#51

Post by b278 »

justinhj wrote: post #39
sds2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JavaScript has also successfully escaped perception of "a language for brains". Research background is actually harmful for a modern programming language. Those who consider javascript a good language usually lack the experience to compare languages effectively. Javascript is mostly appealing to front-end developers because they usually don't know anything else. Also, there are a LOT of front-enders so, you can exp…

> Those who consider javascript a good language usually lack the experience to compare languages effectively Javascript IS a powerful language with features that were not in other mainstream language for decades and some still don't have: first class functions, dynamic typing, lambda functions, closures etc. You only have to look at the diverse uses of Javascript to appreciate how far that power goes. As for the wart…

Doesn't it strike you as odd that Javascript was universally ridiculed some 15 years ago and all of a sudden it is "a powerful language"?

Follow the money ...

Re: Lispers

#52

Post by lispm »

randallsquared wrote: post #50
lispm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just that Javasript will need to catch up with core language tools for another decade. Just compare your typical Javascript compiler and the language it provides with something like SBCL. Generally I agree that Javascript is similar, in many ways. But worse. Worse can be better, but we know that already. ;-)

It's only language tools at this point? What faint damning! :)

'only' is your word, not mine.

Re: Lispers

#53

Post by lispm »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #41
kgwgk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp http://norvig.com/paip.html

This book is very very very old. It basically belongs to an era when AI was mostly concerned with symbolic computation. AI nowadays has taken a whole different path with neural networks.

There is very little actual AI in neural networks. Most of the applications I have seen are in signal processing, pattern recognition, ... For example there is very little reasoning capability in neural network applications going on. Show a child two dogs and it will recognize most dogs from now on and you can ask it why it thinks something is a dog. Try that with neural networks after showing it a zillion dogs...

Doing anything more AIish will need an old-fashioned symbolic system and that stuff is still hard. Take for example IBM's Watson. It's a big system with all kinds of different modules. The language frontend is written in old-fashioned Prolog.

Re: Lispers

#54

Post by progman »

sds2 wrote: post #31
Fej wrote: post #5

Lisp is a beautiful language (or, to be more precise, set of languages). It is absolutely essential to a computer science education. It also gets unwieldy when programs get complex.

No, it shouldn't be. Lisp is not practical(try to prove it otherwise, there's no evidence) and it's only a thing now because some ppl likes its esoteric syntax. It's way too overhyped.

You find many practical examples at planet.lisp.org.

Re: Lispers

#55

Post by lispm »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #40
dmytrish wrote: post #24

The home page looks like a tombstone of Common Lisp with a bunch of epitaphs on it. On the other hand, the spirit of Lisp has successfully taken over the world. The modern Lisp is called JavaScript. I am perfectly aware of all the differences between Lisp and JavaScript and of the other languages that have influenced JavaScript (Self, Perl, Lua), but think of this: what made Lisp so great in the past? - automatic mem…

There was a discussion here about how Ruby is an acceptable Lisp: http://www.randomhacks.net/2005/12/03/why-ruby-is-an-accepta... Ruby blocks cover a lot of what Lisp macros do. I don't know much Python and JS, but I'm guessing those don't have something similar to blocks/macros.

> Ruby blocks cover a lot of what Lisp macros do

That's a misconception. Ruby blocks are mostly unrelated to macro usage.

Re: Lispers

#56

Post by gkya »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #40
dmytrish wrote: post #24

The home page looks like a tombstone of Common Lisp with a bunch of epitaphs on it. On the other hand, the spirit of Lisp has successfully taken over the world. The modern Lisp is called JavaScript. I am perfectly aware of all the differences between Lisp and JavaScript and of the other languages that have influenced JavaScript (Self, Perl, Lua), but think of this: what made Lisp so great in the past? - automatic mem…

There was a discussion here about how Ruby is an acceptable Lisp: http://www.randomhacks.net/2005/12/03/why-ruby-is-an-accepta... Ruby blocks cover a lot of what Lisp macros do. I don't know much Python and JS, but I'm guessing those don't have something similar to blocks/macros.

Python's syntax is incredibly rigid. I'll only write in Python if I don't have no choice, or I'm paid decent money. I do like the ecosystem of the language tho, it has everything you'd like to write small utility scripts without reinventing the wheel. But Perl has them too, and I like the programmer-first nature of the language, so I use it for my scripting these days. I miss the pleasant debugging and incremental programme building of Elisp and CL in it, but I guess it's not impossible to have sth. similar in Perl, some sort of inferior-perl mode.

Re: Lispers

#57

Post by Risord »

sds2 wrote: post #31
Fej wrote: post #5

Lisp is a beautiful language (or, to be more precise, set of languages). It is absolutely essential to a computer science education. It also gets unwieldy when programs get complex.

No, it shouldn't be. Lisp is not practical(try to prove it otherwise, there's no evidence) and it's only a thing now because some ppl likes its esoteric syntax. It's way too overhyped.

Real apps has been built with lisp so therefore it's at least some what practical. On the other hand I just cannot see anything fundamental which makes lisp lot less practical from many commonly used business languages. Well ecosystem size may not same but on day one most languages haven't Hugo ecosystem.

There are lot of schools and if you are "be a cool web app developer"-school where you learning direct skills reauired most common web dev jobs today... Yeah lisp is not essential. But if you are "computer SCIENCE"-school and you targeting variety of fundamental cocepts of field I say that lisp is quite essential.

Re: Lispers

#58

Post by lispm »

willtim wrote: post #21
ninesigns wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Haskell doesn't support metaprogramming. Perhaps you mean "Template Haskell"?

Template Haskell is meta-programming. It supports quasi-quotation, just like Lisp.

quasi-quotation is an unrelated feature in Lisp. It's there to build list structures from templates. Using templates in macros is sometimes helpful, sometimes not.

Re: Lispers

#59

Post by ghosthamlet »

lispm wrote: post #53
bhnmmhmd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This book is very very very old. It basically belongs to an era when AI was mostly concerned with symbolic computation. AI nowadays has taken a whole different path with neural networks.

There is very little actual AI in neural networks. Most of the applications I have seen are in signal processing, pattern recognition, ... For example there is very little reasoning capability in neural network applications going on. Show a child two dogs and it will recognize most dogs from now on and you can ask it why it thinks something is a dog. Try that with neural networks after showing it a zillion dogs... Do…

I agree with you partially. But we still don't know how exactly does human brain work and learn. Maybe Computer AI as silicon based life will go on a path different from human.

Re: Lispers

#60

Post by lispm »

sds2 wrote: post #36
dmytrish wrote: post #24

The home page looks like a tombstone of Common Lisp with a bunch of epitaphs on it. On the other hand, the spirit of Lisp has successfully taken over the world. The modern Lisp is called JavaScript. I am perfectly aware of all the differences between Lisp and JavaScript and of the other languages that have influenced JavaScript (Self, Perl, Lua), but think of this: what made Lisp so great in the past? - automatic mem…

> JavaScript has also successfully escaped perception of "a language for brains". Research background is actually harmful for a modern programming language. Those who consider javascript a good language usually lack the experience to compare languages effectively. Javascript is mostly appealing to front-end developers because they usually don't know anything else. Also, there are a LOT of front-enders so, you can exp…

> I thought it only had a simplisitc ARC only...

You are trolling.

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