Who were the opponents of Lisp?
in [Lisp]
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From: Jorge Gajon on 22 Apr 2010 11:32 On 2010-04-21, Peter Moylan <gro.nalyomp(a)retep> wrote: > Here's an interesting example from my teaching computer programming. > Programmers typically expect to have to revise over and over, with > numerous recompilations as errors are revealed. Once, though, I set a > programming assignment with the rule "You only get one chance to have it > compile and run correctly." (This was in the days of punched cards, > where the turnaround was one compilation per day.) Remarkably, about 70% > of the class turned in a working program. Since the students knew they > couldn't use trial and error, they took more care to avoid inserting the > errors in the first place. > > Modern programming languages, especially the object-oriented ones, seem > to encourage a philosophy of "Let's try this and see whether it works". > That's a big mistake, in my opinion. > I started learning Common Lisp relatively recently, with Graham's book ANSI Common Lisp. I would take the book with me, away from the computer, and do the exercises in a piece of paper. Having a complete language reference at the end is a big advantage of this book. I did exercises while waiting for my car to be serviced, at the doctor's office, or in my parent's house during the holidays (didn't have a laptop to travel with). Later I would return to my computer and type down the solutions, with a high rate of success. It is very refreshing and encouraging to be able to do this; very unlike other languages.
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 22 Apr 2010 19:23 Peter Axon <peter(a)canvasbook.com.au> writes: > [...] English [...] (the standard language of the Internet) [...] No, not really. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm English is used by less than 1/3 of the Internet users, and less than 40% of the web pages. And more importantly, its usage is dropping fast (relatively). -- __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Xah Lee on 23 Apr 2010 09:09 On Apr 22, 4:23 pm, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) wrote: > Peter Axon <pe...(a)canvasbook.com.au> writes: > > [...] English [...] (the standard language of the Internet) [...] > > No, not really. > > http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm > > English is used by less than 1/3 of the Internet users, and less than > 40% of the web pages.  And more importantly, its usage is dropping fast > (relatively). been keeping a eye on this for the past years, since about ~2005. a more reliable data source on this would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage though, much data on the page is referenced to internetworldstats.com, which am not sure is very high quality. am sure that Google must have published this on one of their blogs (e.g. web master blog)... but i cant remember any. Alexa.com might have that info too. Here's related data: ⢠Unicode Popularity On Web http://xahlee.org/comp/unicode_on_web.html ⢠Web Tech Stats 2010 http://xahlee.org/js/web_tech_2010.html ⢠Web Browser Market Share 2010-02 http://xahlee.org/js/browser_market_share.html Xah â http://xahlee.org/ â
From: the Omrud on 22 Apr 2010 04:02 On 21/04/2010 12:41, Peter Moylan wrote: > Here's an interesting example from my teaching computer programming. > Programmers typically expect to have to revise over and over, with > numerous recompilations as errors are revealed. Once, though, I set a > programming assignment with the rule "You only get one chance to have it > compile and run correctly." (This was in the days of punched cards, > where the turnaround was one compilation per day.) Remarkably, about 70% > of the class turned in a working program. Since the students knew they > couldn't use trial and error, they took more care to avoid inserting the > errors in the first place. When studying Comupter Science in the 70s, we were allowed (I think) three compilation and testing runs for our marked assignments. Just as you describe, this was with punched cards and slow turnaround. But one could obtain favours from the punch girls by befriending them. I should mention that the "girls" were mostly middle aged women, but they were often ignored by the department members and looked favourably on anybody who would stop and chat. -- David
From: Adam Funk on 22 Apr 2010 08:38
On 2010-04-21, Xah Lee wrote: > On Apr 21, 5:00 am, Adam Funk <a24...(a)ducksburg.com> wrote: >> On 2010-04-20, Xah Lee wrote: >> >> > Actually, just yesterday i wrote: >> >> > • The Writing Style on XahLee.org >> > http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/xah_style.html >> >> The paragraph on dashes goes against every standard for English that >> I've seen. In typeset work, em-dashes should never be spaced >> (although I use " --- " for them in plain-text formats such as >> USENET), and there is a useful distinction between em- and en-dashes >> (the latter are for ranges of numbers, for example). Many British >> publishers follow a custom of using spaced en-dashes instead of >> em-dashes; I don't like this, but at least they are making the >> distinction. > > I think most of your remarks is factually wrong. I was going to be > colorful and say that the logical conclusion is that you haven't seen > much, but, just that most of your remarks is factually wrong. I'm fairly sure the factual claims in what I wrote are correct. The opinion parts are where we disagree, ... > See, for example, here, on the section on Hyphen and Dashes: > > • The Moronicities of Typography > http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/typography.html ....because I see you're developing your own standards, as well as your own version of English ("and", "a"/"an", for example). -- I don't know what they have to say It makes no difference anyway; Whatever it is, I'm against it! [Prof. Wagstaff] |