Good functional programming habbit?
in [Lisp]
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From: Joerthan Panest on 1 May 2010 09:43 His kennyness <kentilton(a)gmail.com> writes: > Pascal Costanza wrote: >> There is no primary programming style in Lisp. > > You need to write more Lisp. Some wise soul said Lisp gives us a > million ways of doing something, and (1- a million) of them are wrong. That's funny. I heard it that (- a-million 1) were wrong.
From: RG on 1 May 2010 10:23 In article <4bdc1796$0$5019$607ed4bc(a)cv.net>, His kennyness <kentilton(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Captain Obvious wrote: > > Hk> In Lisp, every form returns a value. > > > > What does GO return? And, importantly, WHERE does it return? > > > > Hk> God, you are worse than I thought. Could you just go away or shut up > > Hk> for ten years and learn something before speaking here again? > > > > Aha, come back when you learn about non-local control transfers. > > Good lord, can you not even manage human discourse? Well, no, you are an > engineer. > > The context is "is lisp a functional language?". Finding edge cases is > besides the point Not when the claim is being made that Lisp is functional *because* all forms return a value. That is clearly false. At best, one might argue that Lisp is functional because *most* forms return a value. But that is actually true of most languages (for some value of "most"), particularly if you include their standard libraries. That Lisp does not distinguish between expressions and statements is a useful property, but it is not the property that makes Lisp functional. The property that makes Lisp -- or any language -- functional is providing support for first-class functions. rg
From: Pascal Costanza on 1 May 2010 11:10 On 01/05/2010 05:18, His kennyness wrote: > Pascal Costanza wrote: >> There is no primary programming style in Lisp. > > You need to write more Lisp. Some wise soul said Lisp gives us a million > ways of doing something, and (1- a million) of them are wrong. Oh, indeed: (1- a million) => Error: 1- got 2 args, wanted 1 arg. [condition type: PROGRAM-ERROR] (1- a million) is indeed wrong. I should have asked you first... Pascal -- My website: http://p-cos.net Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/
From: MarkHaniford on 1 May 2010 11:38 Kenny is almost 60 years old, so you have to give him a break. The Pascal brain damage is because they're European.
From: His kennyness on 1 May 2010 11:52
RG wrote: > In article <4bdc1796$0$5019$607ed4bc(a)cv.net>, > His kennyness <kentilton(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> Captain Obvious wrote: >>> Hk> In Lisp, every form returns a value. >>> >>> What does GO return? And, importantly, WHERE does it return? >>> >>> Hk> God, you are worse than I thought. Could you just go away or shut up >>> Hk> for ten years and learn something before speaking here again? >>> >>> Aha, come back when you learn about non-local control transfers. >> Good lord, can you not even manage human discourse? Well, no, you are an >> engineer. >> >> The context is "is lisp a functional language?". Finding edge cases is >> besides the point > > Not when the claim is being made that Lisp is functional *because* all > forms return a value. That is clearly false. At best, one might argue > that Lisp is functional because *most* forms return a value. "all" is the word people with balls use where other people say "most". And in this case it was a deliberate trick to quickly identify the usenidiots here now -- I've been away. > But that > is actually true of most languages (for some value of "most"), > particularly if you include their standard libraries. All Python statements return a value? C? Java? Are you barking mad? > > That Lisp does not distinguish between expressions and statements is a > useful property, but it is not the property that makes Lisp functional. > The property that makes Lisp -- or any language -- functional is > providing support for first-class functions. first-class functions are wonderful but take them away and one can still program functionally. kt |