Re: Some more debconf queries
I should *really* just shut up now, and I actually will this time
because we're way off topic and we're definitely just somewhat on
opposite sides of a fence here, but a couple of minor points, and then
I'll direct my future responses via private mail.
Eray Ozkural <exa@ttnet.net.tr> writes:
> And with LISP, you get to destroy some of the design objectives
> of a good programming language, like readability and writability.
We obviously just disagree on this one, given decent editors. For
example, I'm much more put off by python's "indentation as syntax"
than I am by parentheses[1], and other than that python sounds like a
pretty strong language.
[1] And practically speaking it's a terrible design if you want to be
able to automatically generate embeddable modular code. Still, if
it and perl manage to displace Tcl, I'll be a happy man.
> How many of your applications are written in Scheme? Heh heh, this
> is my argument against Java, but it applies to LISP and variants as
> well. Hey, there's a whole world of emacs here, but isn't it dying?
> :>
Ummm. We'll I'm one of the primary authors of gnucash, and it's
written in a combination of scheme and C, with scheme regularly
becoming a larger fraction of the code. If it does well, then a whole
lot of people will be using an app written in large part in scheme :>
And AFAIK, emacs isn't dying. If it is, it's sure taking a long time.
Your and my worlds just differ. I'm not claiming that scheme/lisp
*will* take over the world, but it's certainly a large fraction of
mine. I'm sure that's not true for many, but I set out to make it
that way.
> Coming up with another language may feel very evil, but isn't Perl
> so? Why has tons of Perl code amassed on my potato box?
Perl is too useful to ignore, and I know it well, but that doesn't
mean I love it. In fact I have a very healthy
hate-to-grudgingly-admit-that-find-it-very-useful-sometimes
relationship with perl ;>
It certainly soundly trounces shell scripting for many purposes, but
I'd use guile in a second if it had a bit more of the functionality I
need for the jobs in question, and if it was nearly as ubiquitous, but
who knows, maybe someday. If emacs does switch to guile, then guile
will go everywhere...
> Yeah, but I like talking about toy/experimental languages of any
> sort.
I think we mostly agree here, but right now I'm just fundamentally
most interested in how the language works, and what it lets you do,
rather than how it looks.
Using a lisp/scheme syntax means you can just skip a whole layer of
the "appearance issues" and dive right in to the function issues. Now
I know that the two are related, but you can get a lot of good
OO/metaclass/whatever research without ever having to worry about
where the semicolons/colons/curlybraces go.
(I suppose we're now firmly having one of the age-old internet
religious wars. How quaint :>)
--
Rob Browning <rlb@cs.utexas.edu> PGP=E80E0D04F521A094 532B97F5D64E3930
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