I'd like to learn a new language that'll broad my horizon, that isn't a descedant of C. Right now, I'm really leaning toward Common Lisp, and have started reading a few tutorials on it. I've heard Scheme is another dialect of Lisp, and is often recommended over CL for game development, but I'm not sure why. Other languages that spark my interest are OCaml, Smalltalk (because of its influence over Objective-C), and F#. What would people suggest to help me become a better programmer, and for game development? Thanks, Jedd [Edited by - bronxbomber92 on January 1, 2008 5:24:29 PM]

Quote:Original post by bronxbomber92
I'd like to learn a new language that'll broad my horizon, that isn't a descedant of C. Right now, I'm really leaning toward Common Lisp, and have started reading a few tutorials on it. I've heard Scheme is another dialect of Lisp, and is often recommended over CL for game development, but I'm not sure why.

I'm not sure why either. Scheme's a very elegant language, but standard Scheme alone isn't very practical. I can see why it'd be suggested over Common Lisp if what you wanted was to learn functional programming though(*).

Quote:Other languages that spark my interest are OCaml, Smalltalk (because of its influence over Objective-C), and F#.

Smalltalk has had influence over much more than just Objective-C, Ruby being one the most obvious languages. [smile]

Quote:What would people suggest to help me become and better programmer, and for game development?

Any of these languages will do as far as becoming a better programmer is concerned. For game development, F# strikes me as the most practical, but it has its own set of issues: it requires a .NET environment, it had a problematic licence WRT FOSS when I looked at it months ago, the .NET framework is inherently imperative, and I don't know if it runs on Mono yet (meaning you'd be stuck on Windows, which may or may not be a problem to you).

I'm personally very fond of OCaml and Smalltalk, but they aren't exactly popular, so finding libraries — especially cross-platform ones — or some features (Unicode, i18n, l10n, ...) can be problematic at times. It's also worth noting that, out of all these languages, only Common Lisp and (ANSI) Smalltalk are ANSI standards. Common Lisp also has an extraordinary FFI.


(*) This isn't to imply than functional programming isn't possible in Common Lisp, but rather than it isn't idiomatic Common Lisp.

EDIT: typo


[Edited by - let_bound on January 1, 2008 10:58:08 PM]

I recommend Haskell. It's neat for doing things like this.

Personally, I prefer Scheme over Common Lisp mainly because of the macro system. I really do love define-syntax [grin], although my institution is big into Scheme so I guess I've been biased from the start.

Some Scheme resources if you decide to go that route:
Petite Chez Scheme - the compiler I use for school
Ikarus - another Scheme compiler, and it's FAST [inlove]
The Scheme Programming Language, 3rd Ed. - an awesome book on Scheme.

Those are what I've used here at uni.

Hope that helps,
Aviosity

Thanks guys.

aviosity - Doesn't both CL and Scheme have a macro system? It's about all I hear about Lisp, being a "programmable programming language."

I can't really see the advantages of Scheme because Lisp supposedly has better standard libraries, faster compiler and better OpenGL bindings. Hmm, I'll check out Scheme more though.

Edit - What are the disadvantages and advantages of each language?

[Edited by - bronxbomber92 on January 2, 2008 6:09:20 PM]

Quote:Original post by bronxbomber92
Edit - What are the disadvantages and advantages of each language?

The differences between Scheme and Common Lisp language-wise are essentially that Scheme has first-class continuations and CL does not. The macro systems also differ - Scheme's is hygienic and CL's is unhygienic (the way you use them is different; Scheme's is "safe" and CL's is not, but CL's allows transformations that Scheme's does not). Scheme code also tends to be written in a functional style, CL less so, but this is idiomatic rather than anything to do with the languages themselves (CL has a lengthier syntax for dealing with first-class functions, though).

Scheme is the simpler and more expressive language because it has first-class continuations, so it can express all of the language features (and libraries) of CL - CLOS, conditions, etc. CL's advantages are its larger set of standard libraries and its implementations/tools, which in practice might make it a better choice, depending on the project.

OCaml and Haskell are quite different from CL and Scheme - they are (statically) typed with algebraic types, polymorphism and type inference. Haskell has non-strict evaluation (most languages have strict evaluation) and referential transparency.

[Edited by - Rebooted on January 2, 2008 7:59:09 PM]

It seems like Lisp is the language I should get into. I like it's builtin libraries, and tools - makes it easier to get into.

Thanks for all the info! Oh, which is the best OpenGL binding for Lisp? I found this: http://common-lisp.net/project/cl-opengl/, but I don't know if there are any newer/better bindings available?

With regards to F# let_bound: Ive had F# running on Mono on linux since a pretty early version. So you wont be stuck on Windows if you decide to write in F#. Heck Ive even had it running on my Pocket PC :).

It is true that .NET is still quite Object oriented, dynamic and all that but at the end of the day a language is merely an abstraction. Hiding the unnecessary and unimportant details. A semantic covering. So long as they can give me my first class functions at good performance, I dont care about much else.

Quote:Original post by Rebooted
...

OCaml and Haskell are quite different from CL and Scheme - they are (statically) typed with algebraic types, polymorphism and type inference. Haskell has non-strict evaluation (most languages have strict evaluation) and referential transparency.

Seeing as the thread is dead. Would you happen to know the history of the term? Why are they called algebraic types?