another frustrating learner question, CLOS
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From: Tamas K Papp on 27 Feb 2010 10:02 On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:25:58 +0100, Giovanni Gigante wrote: >> I thank you _so much_ for your "mini HOWTO post"! I have been looking >> for that very thing off-and-on these past 2 weeks. I suppose that I >> didn't look in the right place. > > > I am just a, let's say, "experienced beginner" in Lisp matters, so I > understand the problem. > > I have been thinking for a while if some kind of "Common Lisp Beginner's > FAQ" would be useful (I had even begun to write a draft, some time ago). > Something not on the lines of the CL cookbook, but more basic. Like, > what are the relevant pieces of the toolkit (not of the language) and > what are they for. > > While all the information is certainly available elsewhere, maybe the > "youngs" -as Pascal call them- might benefit from having certain things > collected in an easily digestible format. For me, understanding and using all the capabilities of SLIME and related little tools (paredit, redshank) took a lot of time, so I understand your point. If someone started a wiki-based FAQ somewhere, I would be happy to contribute. Maybe cliki? Tamas
From: Ron Garret on 27 Feb 2010 14:42 In article <hmb2gm$2s2$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote: > On 2010-02-27 03:30:46 +0000, Rob Warnock said: > > > As I've said before [most recently in Aug'09], the one thing that > > made Perl's "line noise" *much* more comprehensible to me was the > > realization[1] that Perl's "typeglobs" are really a lot like CL symbols, > > except with more slots, and using readmacros as accessors instead > > of functions: > > I must have missed your previous posting, but this is a really good > point. To take it to some ridiculous extreme: Perl is, in fact, almost > Common Lisp, it's just got peculiar clothes on so you don't recognise > it. Perl is almost Common Lisp in the same sense that C++ is almost Haskell. rg
From: Ron Garret on 27 Feb 2010 15:08 In article <hmb22u$il$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)tfeb.org> wrote: > As an aside: I think Erik is wrong, in fact, and there are plenty of > good uses of string-munging languages and Perl. And (going back to the > context) Unix is, in fact, not the horrible botch that it was seen to > be by the ITS/LispM people. I do think there are significant *dangers* > to things like Perl and regexps: they can suck you in until they are > all you can see, and then you're in quite serious trouble. It's a bit > like stimulants: we all drink coffee, but if you start relying on it or > other stimulants you are probably in some trouble. > > But these kind of nuanced views have no place in a good flame war of course. I just can't resist the overwhelmingly ironic opportunity to defend one of Erik's positions. (Note to context-free readers: the irony derives from the fact that 1) Erik passed away earlier this year, and 2) while he was alive he and I disagreed with each other with a vehemence that has become legendary on c.l.l.) "String-munging languages" and "Perl" are not the same thing. To be sure there are plenty of good uses for string-munging languages (which is unfortunate because if everyone just used S-expressions for everything then this would not be the case, and that would be a Good Thing, but alas we live in the world we live in). But Perl is just an abomination through-and-through. I do not deny that many people find it a productive tool, and about ten years ago having developed a certain level of respect for some of those people I determined to learn Perl just to see what those people got out of it. So I picked up a Perl book, but I could not get past the first few chapters without recoiling in revulsion. It was just horrible. Having to distinguish between $X, and @X immediately took me back to the dark days of BASIC when you had to distinguish between X, X$ and X%. And then there's $#X which is something else entirely, and #X which is something different yet again. Sometimes you need "my" and sometimes you don't. There is no way to catch exceptions (which I learned the hard way while managing a project that was using Perl in production). And of course the regexp syntax is much, much worse even than CL's format strings. Even Perl's supporters will readily admit that Perl regexps are write-only. God help you if you ever have to debug one. It boggles my mind that the same people who complain about the aesthetics (or lack thereof) of parens in S-expressions will accept something like this: (?:[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+(?:\.[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+)*|"(?:[\ x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x1f\x21\x23-\x5b\x5d-\x7f]|\\[\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0e -\x7f])*")@(?:(?:[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?\.)+[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]* [a-z0-9])?|\[(?:(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.){3}(?:25[0-5]| 2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?|[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9]:(?:[\x01-\x08\x0b\x0c\x0e -\x1f\x21-\x5a\x53-\x7f]|\\[\x01-\x09\x0b\x0c\x0e-\x7f])+)\]) without batting an eye. I could go on, but life is too short. rg
From: Ron Garret on 27 Feb 2010 15:35 In article <rNOSPAMon-3903D3.12082827022010(a)news.albasani.net>, Ron Garret <rNOSPAMon(a)flownet.com> wrote: > Erik passed away earlier this year s/earlier this year/June of last year/ How time flies. rg
From: Tim Bradshaw on 27 Feb 2010 15:56
On 2010-02-27 19:42:39 +0000, Ron Garret said: > Perl is almost Common Lisp in the same sense that C++ is almost Haskell. Amusingly those are both languages I have no time for at all, so I'd tend to agree (except I wouldn't really: C++ is one of the few languages I would argue is actually just really a bad language, rather than something I don't like very much). |