Programming languages worth checking out
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Programming languages worth checking out
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Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#2"Unlike other Lisps (and Schemes) you may have encountered before, Clojure comes with some interesting additions: [...]
Many pre-built data structures, like Vectors, Maps, Sets, Collections, …"
Here I stopped reading.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#3"Unlike other Lisps (and Schemes) you may have encountered before, Clojure comes with some interesting additions: [...] Many pre-built data structures, like Vectors, Maps, Sets, Collections, …" Here I stopped reading.
Why? It's a nice adition to the language and makes using it a much better experience.
My first big project in LISP was making a Sudoku solver for a school project. Could only use basic instructions and lambdas. It was not pleasant trip :P
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#4I'm curious if anyone has any experience with Io (http://iolanguage.com/). The description sounds like an appealing combination:
Its unusual, minimalist and yet elegant and powerful syntax reminds of Smalltalk, but the language goes far beyond that. Io is an object-oriented, prototype-based, message-based and fully-reflective programming language. This means that you use messages like in Smalltalk, you create objects like in Javascript and every bit of your code can be inspected and passed around as you see fit.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#5"Unlike other Lisps (and Schemes) you may have encountered before, Clojure comes with some interesting additions: [...] Many pre-built data structures, like Vectors, Maps, Sets, Collections, …" Here I stopped reading.
Why? It's a nice adition to the language and makes using it a much better experience. My first big project in LISP was making a Sudoku solver for a school project. Could only use basic instructions and lambdas. It was not pleasant trip :P
But common lisp does come with vectors (make-array), hashtables (make-hash-table), and set-operators (intersection, union, pushnew, etc) that work on lists.
Also, Common Lisp (CLOS, in particular) supports multimethods (defmethod), contrary to what the author claims. And all of the special forms I saw in clojure have a counterpart in common lisp.
In fact, a lot of common lisp implementations (I like SBCL) have support for threading/asynchronous action built in. The one problem is that none of that is part of the ansi spec, so most multithreaded code won't be portable between implementations.
It isn't the language's fault that your teacher wouldn't let you use all these features.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#6I'm curious if anyone has any experience with Io ( http://iolanguage.com/ ). The description sounds like an appealing combination: Its unusual, minimalist and yet elegant and powerful syntax reminds of Smalltalk, but the language goes far beyond that. Io is an object-oriented, prototype-based, message-based and fully-reflective programming language. This means that you use messages like in Smalltalk, you create objec…
I played with Io a long time (like 4 or 5 years) ago, at which time it didn't seem ready for anything serious. I would expect it's gotten much better since then. It would be interesting to know what sort of apps are easy to build in it.
This author doesn't seem to know his subject very well, though. To say that an object-oriented, message-based, fully-reflective programming language goes "far beyond" Smalltalk suggests ignorance of how far Smalltalk goes.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#7"Unlike other Lisps (and Schemes) you may have encountered before, Clojure comes with some interesting additions: [...] Many pre-built data structures, like Vectors, Maps, Sets, Collections, …" Here I stopped reading.
Why? It's a nice adition to the language and makes using it a much better experience. My first big project in LISP was making a Sudoku solver for a school project. Could only use basic instructions and lambdas. It was not pleasant trip :P
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Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#8I'm curious if anyone has any experience with Io ( http://iolanguage.com/ ). The description sounds like an appealing combination: Its unusual, minimalist and yet elegant and powerful syntax reminds of Smalltalk, but the language goes far beyond that. Io is an object-oriented, prototype-based, message-based and fully-reflective programming language. This means that you use messages like in Smalltalk, you create objec…
Tried Io a year back. Gave up after it crashed after a few tries. Add with it that it was one of the slowest in speed comparision tests.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? It's a nice adition to the language and makes using it a much better experience. My first big project in LISP was making a Sudoku solver for a school project. Could only use basic instructions and lambdas. It was not pleasant trip :P
But common lisp does come with vectors (make-array), hashtables (make-hash-table), and set-operators (intersection, union, pushnew, etc) that work on lists. Also, Common Lisp (CLOS, in particular) supports multimethods (defmethod), contrary to what the author claims. And all of the special forms I saw in clojure have a counterpart in common lisp. In fact, a lot of common lisp implementations (I like SBCL) have suppor…
What's distinctive about Clojure is not that it has them, but rather that it makes them first-class citizens in the way that lists are - i.e. provides a universal set of operators for manipulating them (or so I hear anyway). This is certainly a weakness of CL. I think this is the original point underlying the author's garbled statement, and it's an improvement specifically to CL that has nothing to do with the presence of arrays and hashtables in the language.
Edit: I realize this is probably obvious, but let's not confuse what this guy says about Clojure with what Hickey has to say. He's well aware of CL and doesn't make silly claims about it.
Re: Programming languages worth checking out
#10I'm curious if anyone has any experience with Io ( http://iolanguage.com/ ). The description sounds like an appealing combination: Its unusual, minimalist and yet elegant and powerful syntax reminds of Smalltalk, but the language goes far beyond that. Io is an object-oriented, prototype-based, message-based and fully-reflective programming language. This means that you use messages like in Smalltalk, you create objec…
I played with Io a long time (like 4 or 5 years) ago, at which time it didn't seem ready for anything serious. I would expect it's gotten much better since then. It would be interesting to know what sort of apps are easy to build in it. This author doesn't seem to know his subject very well, though. To say that an object-oriented, message-based, fully-reflective programming language goes "far beyond" Smalltalk sugges…
As I hinted in the article, you're right: I didn't really experiment much with Smalltalk. Does Smalltalk allow the same level of reflection? Does it offer the same "freedom" as Io? I'm asking because I _presume_ it does not, but I honestly don't know.