Subject: Re: Why learn Lisp From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 27 Aug 2002 21:41:12 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3239473272458615@naggum.no> * zivca@netvision.net.il (Ziv Caspi) | Yes, that's the point. Commas, semicolons, parens, braces in C provide | a larger diversity than parens and whitespace alone. This makes it | more difficult to parse, much more difficult (if not impossible) to do | the type of things people use LISP macros for, etc. But it also makes | it easier on the human eye to read. This, is, a, (curious), position, to, hold. The, amount, of, [punctuation], in, (normal, writing), is, pretty, low, and, { ensures; }, that, punctuation, has, meaning; [distinct] from the normal { flow; } of the language. In, C, the, [punctuation], is, so, { heavy }, that, the, reader, [must], pay, acute, { attention; }, to, it, even, though, it, is, (largely), meaningless. This, is, not, [easier], to, read, as, this, paragraph, should, be, have, [shown], you. When, an, { assortment; }, of, punctuation, is, made, into, background, { noise; }, the, result: is, that; people, become, [hypersensitized], to(); changes, in, the, punctuation, they, have, to, (read && would), reject, any, languages, with, a, simpler, syntax && other, punctuation, to, ignore. If you have become used to C, the empirical evidence is that you have a very hard time reading languages with other syntaxes. This is prima facie evidence that the C syntax family requires an expensive learning process and constant refreshes. I found myself frustrated when I tried to write a couple hundred lines of C recently to exercise some Linux features and make them available to Common Lisp (particularly the dnotify facility) and all the keyboarding was just /painful/ compared to the swift typing that I usually achieve with Common Lisp and English. | My example was meant to show that the scope introduced when a variable is | declared can be "hidden" in C/C++, which makes it easier to read. Where /did/ you get the notion that "easier to read" is universalizable and one-dimensional to boot? Sheesh, you prove that you have no clue what you talk about when you treat "easier to read" as a metric that is unrelated to experience. | Your examples on the type of syntax transformations one can do in LISP, | however, don't contradict my point, as far as I can see. What /would/ contradict your point? It seems to be remarkably resilient, but mainly in your own view. -- Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder. Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.