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Before you start learning Lisp...

abhishek.geek.nz

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Re: Before you start learning Lisp...

#3

Post by jacquesm »

From the article:

> This is because the Lisp standard tries to specify a portable language, not a library.

> Note that even the C language doesn't include these things.

That's true, but the POSIX standard library functions are packaged with almost any C environment except for embedded systems and is usually available 'out of the box'.

Of course there is a clear distinction between what is part of the language and what is part of the library.

Is there an equivalent to so say 'stdlib' in the LISP world ?

Re: Before you start learning Lisp...

#6

Post by abstractbill »

tocomment wrote: post #4

why does it say LISP isn't a functional programming language but Clojure is? Isn't Clojure a dialect of Lisp?

The article was written by someone who seems to believe "Lisp" is synonymous with "Common Lisp" (We're talking about Common Lisp instead, often shortened to "Lisp").

So it seems Clojure (and Scheme, Arc, etc) are implicitly excluded by the author.

Re: Before you start learning Lisp...

#7

Post by arb »

tocomment wrote: post #4

why does it say LISP isn't a functional programming language but Clojure is? Isn't Clojure a dialect of Lisp?

The nomenclature goes something like this. The common noun "lisp" refers to the family of languages; the proper noun "Lisp" refers to Common Lisp; and "LISP" refers to obsolete lisp dialects from long before Lisp's time.

Generally, lisps are not necessarily functional, though some dialects are, to varying degrees. Common Lisp isn't very functional at all; Scheme is much more functional; and Clojure is quite strongly functional.

Re: Before you start learning Lisp...

#8

Post by jcl »

tocomment wrote: post #4

why does it say LISP isn't a functional programming language but Clojure is? Isn't Clojure a dialect of Lisp?

I believe it's because Clojure constrains itself to immutable data structures, while Lisp allows both mutable and immutable structures. You can do functional programming in Lisp -- like you can many other non-functional languages -- but it isn't required as it is in Clojure.

Re: Before you start learning Lisp...

#9

Post by abstractbill »

mapleoin wrote: post #5
kiba wrote: post #2

Does anybody have a good elsip project idea? I been trying to learn elisp but I didn't have good enough excuses to write anything in elisp.

write a hacker news reader so I won't have to exit emacs for that.

Excellent idea, that's something I would use.
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