Am I the only one who finds this odd?
As I see it, the only thing that is against the spirit of Lisp is to
limit Lisp like that...
Stig Hemmer,
Jack of a Few Trades.
> In several articles I have seen the statements like "This or that is
> against the spirit of Lisp". (Though usually not quite as bluntly as
> that)
>
> Am I the only one who finds this odd?
>
> As I see it, the only thing that is against the spirit of Lisp is to
> limit Lisp like that...
OK. (+ 1 (coerce (find-class 'standard-class) 'integer))
--
((( DANGER )) LISP BIGOT (( DANGER )) LISP BIGOT (( DANGER )))
Fernando D. Mato Mira
Real-Time SW Eng & Networking
Advanced Systems Engineering Division
CSEM
Jaquet-Droz 1 email: matomira AT acm DOT org
CH-2007 Neuchatel tel: +41 (32) 720-5157
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www.csem.ch www.vrai.com ligwww.epfl.ch/matomira.html
"the spirit of Lisp" doesn't limit anything, Stig, its enables you to
look further than what you would have without it. think of it as
spiritual guidance, which is basically a very powerful psychological
means to help you ignore noise, counterproductive suggestions, and stay
focused on longer-term goals. principled discussion of the spirit of
Lisp would be enormously useful. sadly, they would be interpreted by
those who have neither spirit nor respect for principles as a means to
keep them away, which is why it has become popular to dispense with
spirit and principle alike and instead embrace any random comer with a
language feature request.
the spirit of Lisp can perhaps be stated "it isn't what you do, it's why
it's the best thing you can, that counts". how is this limiting you?
#:Erik
> In several articles I have seen the statements like "This or that is
> against the spirit of Lisp". (Though usually not quite as bluntly as that)
>
> Am I the only one who finds this odd?
>
> As I see it, the only thing that is against the spirit of Lisp is to limit
> Lisp like that...
Whenever I've read articles along those lines[1] I've always found them to
contain instructive and liberating information.
As someone who isn't a "CS type" but who likes to work with as many
languages as possible I find that getting to know the fundamentals of most
languages is pretty easy. Lisp was no different. I could write code I'd been
writing for years in Lisp.
That's the problem.
I didn't want to learn Lisp so I could write prefix-notation C code. So,
from my point of view, articles that say "this is against the spirit of
Lisp" actually remove limits for someone coming from a limited (in a
lisp-sense, "different" would be a better term generally) view.
Footnotes:
[1] I assume you mean those articles that say "it is more lisp-like to do X
like this"?
--
Take a look in Hagbard's World: | boxquote.el - "Boxed" text quoting.
http://www.acemake.com/hagbard/ | binclock.el - emacs binary clock.
http://www.hagbard.demon.co.uk/ | uptimes.el - Record emacs uptimes.
emacs software, including.......| quickurl.el - Recall lists of URLs.
This (and Erik's reply) sounds like ontological arguments for the existence
of Lisp....
Best Regards,
:) will
when i've used it, it's generally been in a question like "how do i do
this the lisp way" and it's just a short way of acknowledging that
although what i want to do can be done many ways, i am looking for a way
that is elegant in lisp.
> As I see it, the only thing that is against the spirit of Lisp is to
> limit Lisp like that...
i think you're tilting at windmills, but that's a nice phrase.
andrew
http://www.andrewcooke.free-online.co.uk
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