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Well, I see alot of arguments about how great/horrible Lisp is. However, most of these posts don''t go too far into details. Can anyone post some links about Lisp for beginners (beginners to Lisp that is), or else explain any underlying concepts that makes the language so unique and worthwhile.
Please, don''t flame away saying "Language xx is so much better than Lisp" ... I am just curious.
Lisp lets you meld with the problem you are solving easily and fluidly, rather than forcing you to fit the problem to the limitations of the programming language.
quote:Original post by bishop_pass
Lisp lets you meld with the problem you are solving easily and fluidly, rather than forcing you to fit the problem to the limitations of the programming language.
That sounds like something a Yoga instructor would say...
What is so great about Lisp?
I bought "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham, and so far its really good. The entire thing is about as big as an ANSI C reference book I have, but only about 1/4 of the "ANSI Common Lisp" book is a Language Reference [the rest being an intro to lisp {not just the basic stuff tho]). That alone tells me Lisp is a higher level lanuage.
I really like the infix syntax so far, and "code is data" seems nice. I still have a hard time reading the infix notation for ''long functions'' (say 7+ lines), but I can understand it with a little effort and about 10 seconds a line (about the same time per function it would take to read all the 100 lines it would take to do in C).
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Almost typo-ified using Extrarius'' AUTOMATIC Typo Generator, but I decided to be nice =-)
I bought "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham, and so far its really good. The entire thing is about as big as an ANSI C reference book I have, but only about 1/4 of the "ANSI Common Lisp" book is a Language Reference [the rest being an intro to lisp {not just the basic stuff tho]). That alone tells me Lisp is a higher level lanuage.
I really like the infix syntax so far, and "code is data" seems nice. I still have a hard time reading the infix notation for ''long functions'' (say 7+ lines), but I can understand it with a little effort and about 10 seconds a line (about the same time per function it would take to read all the 100 lines it would take to do in C).
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Almost typo-ified using Extrarius'' AUTOMATIC Typo Generator, but I decided to be nice =-)
I really, really recommend the following link: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
It is the online version of "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". This is one of the great books of computer science. It deals with scheme, a dialect of lisp which has some significant advantages over lisp, like lexical or dynamic scoping.
It is really worth reading it, if you want to get into lisp, scheme or functional programming in general.
It is the online version of "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". This is one of the great books of computer science. It deals with scheme, a dialect of lisp which has some significant advantages over lisp, like lexical or dynamic scoping.
It is really worth reading it, if you want to get into lisp, scheme or functional programming in general.
quote:Original post by Extrarius
The entire thing is about as big as an ANSI C reference book I have, but only about 1/4 of the "ANSI Common Lisp" book is a Language Reference [the rest being an intro to lisp {not just the basic stuff tho]). That alone tells me Lisp is a higher level lanuage.
Why? If I wrote a book on BF most of the book would be an intro into BF and the language reference would only be a small portion of the book itself.
Qui fut tout, et qui ne fut rien
Invader''s Realm
Ok, so maybe not alone =-) but that plus the text I've read so far definitely show it is a higher-level language. It has several example functions(that are practical functions like token parsing, a breadth-first node search, etc) that would take 10+ times as much code to implement in C, and 5+ times as much code to implement in C++ {using the STL}.
From what I've read about other functional language, it seems like Lisp is the most practical and versatile of them all. Some supposedly more 'pure' functional languages (like Haskell) make some thing very difficult, but so far I haven't found much(I don't like the names of some functions) I don't like about Lisp other than the fact that I don't know it yet =-)
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Almost typo-ified using Extrarius' AUTOMATIC Typo Generator, but I decided to be nice =-)
[edited by - Extrarius on March 5, 2003 9:05:42 PM]
From what I've read about other functional language, it seems like Lisp is the most practical and versatile of them all. Some supposedly more 'pure' functional languages (like Haskell) make some thing very difficult, but so far I haven't found much(I don't like the names of some functions) I don't like about Lisp other than the fact that I don't know it yet =-)
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Almost typo-ified using Extrarius' AUTOMATIC Typo Generator, but I decided to be nice =-)
[edited by - Extrarius on March 5, 2003 9:05:42 PM]
Extrarius, how come you don''t participate in the other Lisp thread you created? I added a lot of content there (not exactly what you''re looking for, I realize) but the thread is worth discussion.
The thread in question is the one about easy Lisp stuff that is hard in C/C++.
The thread in question is the one about easy Lisp stuff that is hard in C/C++.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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