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Software Scavenger

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Nov 30, 2001, 3:46:45 AM11/30/01
to
It seems to me that the number of programmers in the world has been
increasing fast for decades, and that it's related to Moore's law. Is
this factor taken into account when people talk about Lisp being more
popular in the past than in the present? Is it less popular only as a
percentage of the total number of programmers, or are there actually
fewer Lisp programmers now?

It also seems to me that as the world requires more and more
programmers, such demand is filled more and more by people who would
not have been considered good candidates for such a niche in past
decades. Could it be that the decline in popularity of Lisp might
actually be caused by an increase in the number of borderline
programmers who are simply not capable of understanding anything so
advanced as Lisp?

Is the real advantage of Java in that it fits with a lower average IQ
and/or programming talent of a larger workforce of modern programmers?

It would be interesting to calculate from Moore's law when the world
might run out of programmer candidates who could even do Java. As
it's exponential, it might be sooner than we think. Even taking into
account the larger numbers of available candidates in places such as
India, the exponential growth in demand could still absorb the entire
worldwide pool of available candidates, and continue growing
exponentially beyond that. What are the implications for Lisp, and
for programming in general?

Friedrich Dominicus

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Nov 30, 2001, 4:00:18 AM11/30/01
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cubic...@mailandnews.com (Software Scavenger) writes:

> It seems to me that the number of programmers in the world has been
> increasing fast for decades, and that it's related to Moore's law.

I can't see what Moores law has to do with the number of programmers.

>
> It also seems to me that as the world requires more and more
> programmers, such demand is filled more and more by people who would
> not have been considered good candidates for such a niche in past
> decades. Could it be that the decline in popularity of Lisp might
> actually be caused by an increase in the number of borderline
> programmers who are simply not capable of understanding anything so
> advanced as Lisp?

Are we a bit arrogant today?

>
> Is the real advantage of Java in that it fits with a lower average IQ
> and/or programming talent of a larger workforce of modern
> programmers?

you will say Java programmers are dumber than Lisp Programmers?


>
> It would be interesting to calculate from Moore's law when the world
> might run out of programmer candidates who could even do Java.

Again I can't see the relationship. And it's definitly a bad idea to
extrapolate into the future without any thinking. There were often
questions on when one will run out of x. Usuyally something come along
which prevents anything from running out.

> Even taking into
> account the larger numbers of available candidates in places such as
> India, the exponential growth in demand could still absorb the entire
> worldwide pool of available candidates, and continue growing
> exponentially beyond that.

Well if that would be the case what will now happen to all those
fired programmers? Will they still find a job fast or won't they?

>What are the implications for Lisp, and
> for programming in general?

Just the best for Lisp if it really helps to get programs build faster
or more reliable or ... ;-)

Regards
Friedrich

pj

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Nov 30, 2001, 10:35:22 AM11/30/01
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> Is the real advantage of Java in that it fits with a lower average IQ
> and/or programming talent of a larger workforce of modern programmers?
>

Ever stop to think that attitude like this probably contributed to
decline of the popularity of lisp a bit ?

When did the choice of programming lauguage made a programmer dumb or
clever ?

You chant in latin. So you should be clever.
Dumbos chant in english.

Tim Bradshaw

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Nov 30, 2001, 11:14:38 AM11/30/01
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cubic...@mailandnews.com (Software Scavenger) wrote in message news:<a6789134.01113...@posting.google.com>...

> It seems to me that the number of programmers in the world has been
> increasing fast for decades, and that it's related to Moore's law. Is
> this factor taken into account when people talk about Lisp being more
> popular in the past than in the present? Is it less popular only as a
> percentage of the total number of programmers, or are there actually
> fewer Lisp programmers now?
>

It is one of the more interesting results of theoretical Lispics that
there is, in fact only one Lisp programmer. This programmer (his name
is not known, nor in fact whether he is in fact a he) travels
endlessly forwards and backwards in time from the start of the
universe to the end. When travelling forwards in time he is seen as a
Lisp programmer, when backwards, a Perl programmer. This is why Lisp
and Perl are so curiously related: Perl is in fact Lisp, written
backwards and upside down in time.

--tim

(with apologies to Dirac)

Kent M Pitman

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Nov 30, 2001, 12:20:47 PM11/30/01
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pjd...@hotmail.com (pj) writes:

The attitude doesn't change the truth. Nor are C++ programmers nor Java
programmers nor C programmers free of attitude. So I sort of don't think
this is a major issue.

I used to think when I was younger and used Lisp Machines daily that
it was exciting to see more Lisp Machines being used because all the
Lisp Machine users I knew were smart and I figured as there became
more users, there would be more smart people to talk to. Well, I
didn't say all Lisp Machine users were smart. Just the ones I knew.
I said nothing about myself. It was, in retrospect, kind of stupid of
me to think that as you reached out from a very insular world to the
general populace, that the average user would be anything but "less
smart". The whole net noticed this effect, independent of language,
when AOL went online. A lot of communities shunned AOL users.

Sometimes, it's skill, and not intelligence. But sometimes it's
intelligence. The point of the original comment, as I took it, was
not to slight anyone in either arena, as nearly as I could tell. It
seemed just a comment about reality. It may be nice to assume all
people everywhere are equally intelligent, but is is probably not
intelligent to assume this is so. Whatever may have been true about
Lake Wobegone (from a radio show--if you don't know the reference,
just ignore it), it's not possible for all kids to be above average.

One contributing factor to Lisp Machines, at least, not becoming
popular isn't that they had attitude about the intelligence or skill
or cluelessness or what-have-you of ever-larger communities, but
because they didn't recognize and embrace it. AOL and Prodigy and
CompuServe, and the Mac OS in general, did not hit poeple with the
ability to run compilers nor to browse flavor classes. Eventually,
DOS got a clue and copied the Mac in this approach, regaining favor
with many that hadn't appreciated their more stark look. These guys
all focused on basics, both in terms of facilities offered and the
manner in which those facilities were presented. They did not treat
their customers as sophisticated. It took until Mac OS 7 before Apple
just barely began acknowleding that there might be sophisticated users
who don't want to do every action through pull-down menus, and started
to offer visible "hints" about obscure multi-shifted key chords for
things they used to hide, things that were essential tools for
sophisticated users but that they thought would confuse their base of
loyal (and apparently life-long) novices.

One can't wave the wand of PC and insist that politeness override the
need to talk in plain terms about phenomena that are real. And I'm
quite sure that every gain in market share for computers puts a
greater and greater strain on the community to accomodate the "special
needs" or "reluctance" or "unsophistication" or whatever it needs to
be called in order for it to be discussed without people getting all
huffy.

It has often been cited that some programming languages (Ada was a specific
one I heard it for) are designed to not allow programmers too much leeway
since you can't trust them. It is not out of bounds to consider whether
Java takes this approach too. It is a sometimes-criticism of Lisp that
it offers too much flexibility--flexibility that can lose some people.
This is like saying there can be "too much freedom" in a society. Maybe
there can be. But if you're going to use it as a positive, at least
allow the possibility that some would see "too little flexibility" and
"too little freedom" as a negative because they had the intelligence or
discipline or whatever to accomodate it. I think it's an important enough
issue that it must not go unspoken of out of politeness.

I'm reminded of the day my father was killed in a car accident and
friends of the family accumulated around my house talking about this
and that and every now and then talking about his being dead. And
they were all searching for words like "passed on" and stuff like
that. I'd always correct them and say "he's dead. no amount of
putting it some other way is going to change the fact. just talk
about it like it's something that happened and don't make it worse by
pretending it didn't".

Software Scavenger

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Nov 30, 2001, 2:56:54 PM11/30/01
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pjd...@hotmail.com (pj) wrote in message news:<e8f1f186.01113...@posting.google.com>...

> When did the choice of programming lauguage made a programmer dumb or
> clever ?

That wasn't what I said. I was speculating that worse programmers
might be more suited for Java and better ones might be more suited for
Lisp. Assuming that they were already worse or better for reasons
beyond the scope of this discussion.

Lisp is hard for some people to learn. It has ideas in it which can
make a college student fall asleep when he tries to think about them.

Erik Naggum

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Nov 30, 2001, 3:33:02 PM11/30/01
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* pjd...@hotmail.com (pj)

| Ever stop to think that attitude like this probably contributed to
| decline of the popularity of lisp a bit?

It is quite likely that the attitude that non-Lispers have against Lisp
has caused more non-Lispers to assume that everything that comes out of
the mouth of Lispers is arrogant, and find "proof" of this no matter what
is actually being communicated. This is because non-Lispers are very
good at talking about their negative attitude towards Lisp and simply
refuse to get the point when they are criticized.

| When did the choice of programming lauguage made a programmer dumb or
| clever?

At the same time you found support for this "argument" in what anybody
else has said.

| You chant in latin. So you should be clever.
| Dumbos chant in english.

Are you sure you know whose attitude problem is affecting anything?

///
--
The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture
has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are
more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is
changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.

Kent M Pitman

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Nov 30, 2001, 3:43:17 PM11/30/01
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cubic...@mailandnews.com (Software Scavenger) writes:

> Lisp is hard for some people to learn. It has ideas in it which can
> make a college student fall asleep when he tries to think about them.

I don't think this is so. I do think many book are written in a way that
would lead you to believe this. The same is true of Scheme, btw. I don't
think Scheme has to be made hard, but I think books like S&ICP, which
appeal to ivory tower university students, are barriers to entry for common
folk who would prefer their learning of a language not be made harder by
being taught how to think differently about hard problems. There are
three useful skills (learning a programming language, learning to program,
and learning to think), all worth knowing, but one doesn't always want them
all in one book. It's hard for any one book to satisfy all needs, but we
are heavy on the "teaching people to think" side and light on the "teaching
them our language and leaving them alone about the other stuff" side. That's
not a comment about the language, it's a comment about our bookwriters.
Or so I personally think. I'm hoping the books I'm working on will avoid
that and seek the other market.

Software Scavenger

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Nov 30, 2001, 6:24:16 PM11/30/01
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Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> wrote in message news:<87itbss...@frown.here>...

> I can't see what Moores law has to do with the number of programmers.

More programmers are needed. That need can influence more to exist.

What I really want to know is whether anyone has any evidence or even
strong belief that the absolute number of Lisp programmers has ever
declined from one year to the next.

During the "AI summer" there were fewer programmers overall than now,
again because of Moore's law, and accordingly it would make sense for
there to be fewer Lisp programmers then, even though it was a "hot
summer".

I really don't know the answer. That's why I'm asking. Can anyone
name any specific years during which the absolute number of Lisp
programmers declined?

Dorai Sitaram

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Nov 30, 2001, 6:32:17 PM11/30/01
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In article <a6789134.01113...@posting.google.com>,

Software Scavenger <cubic...@mailandnews.com> wrote:
>
>More programmers are needed. That need can influence more to exist.
>
>What I really want to know is whether anyone has any evidence or even
>strong belief that the absolute number of Lisp programmers has ever
>declined from one year to the next.
>
>During the "AI summer" there were fewer programmers overall than now,
>again because of Moore's law, and accordingly it would make sense for
>there to be fewer Lisp programmers then, even though it was a "hot
>summer".
>
>I really don't know the answer. That's why I'm asking. Can anyone
>name any specific years during which the absolute number of Lisp
>programmers declined?

Unless death is a significant factor (unlikely for the
time span considered since the inventor of Lisp is
still active), how can the absolute number of
Lisp programmers "decline"?

--d

Gareth McCaughan

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Nov 30, 2001, 7:23:33 PM11/30/01
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Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> It is one of the more interesting results of theoretical Lispics that
> there is, in fact only one Lisp programmer. This programmer (his name
> is not known, nor in fact whether he is in fact a he) travels
> endlessly forwards and backwards in time from the start of the
> universe to the end. When travelling forwards in time he is seen as a
> Lisp programmer, when backwards, a Perl programmer. This is why Lisp
> and Perl are so curiously related: Perl is in fact Lisp, written
> backwards and upside down in time.

I think it's Wheeler you should be apologising to more than
Dirac. Nice idea, though, if only because it's rather flattering
to anyone who knows of a Lisp programmer smarter than themself.

--
Gareth McCaughan Gareth.M...@pobox.com
.sig under construc

Roger Corman

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Nov 30, 2001, 8:13:19 PM11/30/01
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On 30 Nov 2001 08:14:38 -0800, tfb+g...@tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw) wrote:

>It is one of the more interesting results of theoretical Lispics that
>there is, in fact only one Lisp programmer. This programmer (his name
>is not known, nor in fact whether he is in fact a he) travels
>endlessly forwards and backwards in time from the start of the
>universe to the end. When travelling forwards in time he is seen as a
>Lisp programmer, when backwards, a Perl programmer. This is why Lisp
>and Perl are so curiously related: Perl is in fact Lisp, written
>backwards and upside down in time.
>

Thanks, Tim, that's very enlightening.
In fact, I think I already knew this, but could never have put it so succinctly.

Roger

Vassil Nikolov

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Dec 1, 2001, 12:33:41 AM12/1/01
to

Tim Bradshaw wrote:
[...]

> When travelling forwards in time he is seen as a
> Lisp programmer, when backwards, a Perl programmer. This is why Lisp
> and Perl are so curiously related: Perl is in fact Lisp, written
> backwards and upside down in time.

Aha! I have just noticed that PERL may stand for Print-Eval-Read
Loop, which on its turn reminds me of _Through the Looking-Glass_
(hand out the cake first, then cut it)...

---Vassil.

Friedrich Dominicus

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Dec 1, 2001, 5:10:46 AM12/1/01
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ds...@goldshoe.gte.com (Dorai Sitaram) writes:

>
> Unless death is a significant factor (unlikely for the
> time span considered since the inventor of Lisp is
> still active), how can the absolute number of
> Lisp programmers "decline"?

The OP probably means programmers activly using Lisp. In that case I
can see a decline very well. Just I doubt that there is any statistic
about how many programmers are still around and what language they are
using...

Regards
Friedrich

cbbr...@acm.org

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Dec 1, 2001, 8:58:00 AM12/1/01
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But it's not obvious that such a "decline" _is_ so obvious.

There has certainly been an increase in the number of Java
programmers, and of Perl programmers; this can be attributed largely
to the total number of programmers having increased.

It is correspondingly likely fair to say that the number of Lisp
programmers may be lower than a "bubble" that took place shortly
before the "AI Winter," but that does not automatically mean that
there have been further _true_ declines.
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca@" "enworbbc"))
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/xwindows.html
A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
nothing. -- Alan Perlis

Software Scavenger

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Dec 1, 2001, 11:08:38 AM12/1/01
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Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> wrote in message news:<87g06vn...@frown.here>...

> The OP probably means programmers activly using Lisp. In that case I
> can see a decline very well. Just I doubt that there is any statistic
> about how many programmers are still around and what language they are
> using...

But how big a factor would "still around" be, even if we did know the
exact number? Corman Lisp and Clisp have gradually become much more
refined, and there might be large numbers of programmers using them
actively, exceeding the number of Lisp programmers of the past. What
would be a good way to get some kind of estimate?

Duane Rettig

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Dec 1, 2001, 12:01:40 PM12/1/01
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Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> writes:

Yes, that is a hard statistic to get. However, I must respond to your
statement that you see a decline in active Lisp programmers. I don't
dispute what you see, nor do I know why that perception is there. From
my perspective and without actual numbers (because I can't and wouldn't
give out my Company's internal information) the number of paying lisp
users has been going up consistently for many years. Not very fast,
but consistent. And I don't know if Xanalys is seeing any decline in
their customer base, but if there's any I don't think it's bad. As for
Corman lisp, it is new, and so his base can only grow. And _my_
perception of free lisp usage is that it has been exploding (though
some of that perception might be seasonal, as midterm assignments
in programming language classes come up).

It is possible that you might see specific Lisp users leave us, and
cite that as the reason for the "decline". And indeed, many times a
Lisp user will go to the other side of the fence, where the grass
looks greener, only to find painted ground. Many of these eventually
come back, if not too embarrassed. Some leave because they can't find
a lisp job (another misperception that we try to address on our
website). But at least as many visible figures leave lisp, more new
lisp users are checking the language out, and usually getting hooked
immediately.

As an example of how perceptions can lead to downright depressing
thoughts unnecessarily, let me remind you of how people reacted every
time a Lisp vendor failed: the reactions were almost universally to
weep and wail, to write Lisp off as a language, and to declare its
demise. Yet at the end of the day we have more commercial and free
versions of Common Lisp alone than of any other language (besides
scores of scheme, dylan, and other CL cousins that exist). To borrow
a phrase from an auto manufacturer's advertising campaign: perception
is not always reality.

--
Duane Rettig Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/ (www)
1995 University Ave Suite 275 Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone: (510) 548-3600; FAX: (510) 548-8253 du...@Franz.COM (internet)

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 1, 2001, 8:07:29 PM12/1/01
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Vassil Nikolov wrote:

> Aha! I have just noticed that PERL may stand for Print-Eval-Read
> Loop, which on its turn reminds me of _Through the Looking-Glass_
> (hand out the cake first, then cut it)...

Someone at the recent LL1 conference[1] who was giving a
talk about Scheme actually made exactly the same point,
but with (I think) a better explanation. Think functionally,
and it's natural to write

(print (eval (read)))

to print the result of evaluating what you just read,
so what you've got is a print-eval-read loop. Ka-ching!


[1] No, I wasn't there, but I read the slides on the web site.

Daniel Barlow

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Dec 1, 2001, 10:05:32 PM12/1/01
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Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes:

> And _my_
> perception of free lisp usage is that it has been exploding (though

Hmm. Oddly enough, that corresponds quite well with my perception ;-)


-dan

--

http://ww.telent.net/cliki/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources

Friedrich Dominicus

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Dec 2, 2001, 3:39:28 AM12/2/01
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Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes:

> Friedrich Dominicus <fr...@q-software-solutions.com> writes:
>
> > ds...@goldshoe.gte.com (Dorai Sitaram) writes:
> >
> > >
> > > Unless death is a significant factor (unlikely for the
> > > time span considered since the inventor of Lisp is
> > > still active), how can the absolute number of
> > > Lisp programmers "decline"?
> > The OP probably means programmers activly using Lisp. In that case I
> > can see a decline very well. Just I doubt that there is any statistic
> > about how many programmers are still around and what language they are
> > using...
>
> Yes, that is a hard statistic to get. However, I must respond to your
> statement that you see a decline in active Lisp programmers. I don't
> dispute what you see, nor do I know why that perception is there.

Sorry I do not want to say that I see a decline just that I see the
possibility. As pointed out before I do not have any idea on how many
Lisp programmers are out there. I have too no clue nor idea on how
many users of computers are "programmers". Where does programming
start? I don't know.

>From
> my perspective and without actual numbers (because I can't and wouldn't
> give out my Company's internal information) the number of paying lisp
> users has been going up consistently for many years. Not very fast,
> but consistent.

That's encouraging to hear.

Regards
Friedrich

Kent M Pitman

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Dec 2, 2001, 4:37:26 AM12/2/01
to
Gareth.M...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) writes:

> Vassil Nikolov wrote:
>
> > Aha! I have just noticed that PERL may stand for Print-Eval-Read
> > Loop, which on its turn reminds me of _Through the Looking-Glass_
> > (hand out the cake first, then cut it)...
>
> Someone at the recent LL1 conference[1] who was giving a
> talk about Scheme actually made exactly the same point,
> but with (I think) a better explanation. Think functionally,
> and it's natural to write
>
> (print (eval (read)))
>
> to print the result of evaluating what you just read,
> so what you've got is a print-eval-read loop. Ka-ching!

Of course, that would be (print (eval (read (loop)))) in order to really
make sense. Sounds like they've been using Waters' iteration stuff. :)
LPRE would be be more likely.

But anyone who thinks it should be LPER, in the Lispy style, and probably
pronounced "leper", instead of REPL, as we commonly call it, should also
consider whether CADR should be named CDAR. If I had it to do again, we'd
have flipped the order of the middle letters in in C...R. Why? Because
in T (Yale Scheme), we had a big fuss over what to call the operator that
made this. You want an operator called COMPOSE, but it was heavily
constrained to use the arg order such that (COMPOSE CDR CAR) would yield
CDAR and not CADR. Yet, that meant ((COMPOSE CDR CAR) X), which in turn
meant that in order to execute this, you don't get to just to pop the args
to COMPOSE as in
((COMPOSE CDR CAR) X) => (#<some structure containing (CDR CAR)> X)
=> (#<some structure containing (CAR)> (CDR X))
=> (#<some structure containing ()> (CAR (CDR X)))

I mention this only to say that there's no easy answer on this.

Nice though the Lisp notation is, one reason that we invented LET wasn't
just to nicely associate a variable with a value instead of having the variable
at one end of the program and the value at the other, as in
((lambda (y) ((lambda (x) (+ x y)) 2)) 3)
=> (let* ((y 3) (x 2)) (+ x y))
but also to make programs execute forward. In Maclisp, they mostly executed
backward and it was a considerable annoyance to read.
((lambda (y)
((lambda (x)
(baz x y))
(bar 2)))
(foo 1))
Executed first (foo 1) then (bar 2) and then (baz x y). For whatever
mathy elegance it had, it was a serious barrier to the eye of the ordinary
(non-Hebrew-raised) eye, which wants to track in the other order.

Well, I'm probably just rambling. But the message here is that this
matter of visual order in concisely expressing functional wrapping is
heavily overconstrained, so there is no uniquely determined notion of
"obvious" in the translation of (x (y (z))) to either xyz or zyx.

This same truth is why it's a nontrivial concept to teach people that
some recursive algorithms yield their results backwards while others don't,
depending on subtle choices of how to arrange the program that don't appear
at first blush to the naive user as having anything to do with ordering
the result. e.g., the difference between (f (g)) and (g (f)). After the
one learns it, it seems obvious that this exactly reverses a whole list,
but the logic/science of understanding mistakes in logic/science is a funny
thing...

pj

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Dec 2, 2001, 5:33:42 AM12/2/01
to
I am not knocking lisp. [As a matter of fact I am an avid lisp learner trying
hard to 'get it'. Though I write programs in other languages for a living
I am learning lisp and try to use it as much as I can.]

What I was critisizing was what I saw as an unnecessary and summary
[probably undeserved] judegement about the intelligence of another programming
community.

On a different note, I get mixed up signals from lisp community.

Lispers seem to want Lisp to get popular (constant lamenting that lisp doesnt get
what it deserves.. and the potshots and sniping at perl and C++ ..) AND
at the same time want lisp programming to be exclusive.
(the insistance that lisp is only for smart people.. sniping at
unwashed masses ...).

curious.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

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Dec 2, 2001, 7:05:01 AM12/2/01
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+ Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com>:

| For whatever mathy elegance it had, it was a serious barrier to the
| eye of the ordinary (non-Hebrew-raised) eye, which wants to track in
| the other order.

So maybe we should turn the language itself around. I hereby suggest
a new language, Lisp Common. LC is just like CL, except that, like
Germans, we the verbs at the end of the sentence put do.

Thus the definition

(defun fact (n)
(do ((result 1 (* result n))
(n n (1- n)))
((<= n 0) result)))

something like

(fact (n)
(((result 1 (result n *))
(n n (n 1-)))
((n 0 <=) result)
do)
defun)

instead becomes. Finding a good indentation style for LC a challenge
will be, but I sure that this obstacle overcome can be, am.

(The scary thing is, I almost like it. Must have spent too much time
writing PostScript code, or something. 8-)

Believe it or not, I have seen algebra books that put the function
symbols on the right of the expression it applies to, like (x)f. As a
notation for mathematics, it really seems more elegant in some ways,
but it just flies too much in the face of tradition to ever become
widely adopted.

(We should, of course, create a whole new newsgroup named
lisp.common.lang.comp for the discussion of LC. (Anyone remember when
the folks in the UK wrote their email addresses backwards?))

--
* Harald Hanche-Olsen <URL:http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/>
- Yes it works in practice - but does it work in theory?

Erik Naggum

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Dec 2, 2001, 7:45:21 AM12/2/01
to
* pjd...@hotmail.com (pj)

| I am not knocking lisp.

YOu are clearly blaming Lisp users for their "attitude" and posit that
such an attitude has an effect on the number of users. This is quite
extraordinarily unwarranted.

| What I was critisizing was what I saw as an unnecessary and summary
| [probably undeserved] judegement about the intelligence of another
| programming community.

The _only_ aspect of human performance that is ever criticized when it is
pointed out that some people are better than others, is intelligence.
Some people are so hysterical about this aspect that they think high
intelligence societies are tantamount to evil conspiracies.

| On a different note, I get mixed up signals from lisp community.

| Lispers seem to want Lisp to get popular (constant lamenting that lisp
| doesnt get what it deserves.. and the potshots and sniping at perl and
| C++ ..) AND at the same time want lisp programming to be exclusive. (the
| insistance that lisp is only for smart people.. sniping at unwashed
| masses ...).

I doubt that any of those would be satisfied no matter what would happen.
A complaint without a "path to resolution" is just useless whining and
should be brought to a stop. Usually, however, whiners will think they
are _entitled_ to express their general dislike of the universse when it
does not match their expectations. By the way, the "community" does not
speak with one voice, so "at the same time" is pretty meaningless.

The dissatisfaction that some express with the language and everything
else is probably only an excuse not to use Common Lisp -- sour grapes.
The sense of negativity that they spread is insufficiently countered by
those who do use Common Lisp profitably.

Paolo Amoroso

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Dec 2, 2001, 8:10:03 AM12/2/01
to
On 01 Dec 2001 09:01:40 -0800, Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> wrote:

> Yes, that is a hard statistic to get. However, I must respond to your
> statement that you see a decline in active Lisp programmers. I don't

The CLiki page at:

http://ww.telent.net/cliki/Community

lists some evidence of the liveness of the Lisp community. There's
more--left as an exercise for the reader.

The ease with which it's possible to do a Google search, count the number
of Lisp jobs at a major recruitment site, or check how many books are in
Amazon's inventory is deceiving. I have been following Lisp and its
community more or less regularly for about a decade, and I have learnt that
there is more to the liveness of Lisp than easy to collect but possibly
misleading statistics, or marketing literature from the vendor of another
language.

Despite my non-superficial knowledge of Lisp tools and resources, I'm still
pleased to discover new ones from time to time, both online and offline.
The latest example is ThinLisp, which I had missed:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinlisp

Those who are really interested in Lisp should not stop at the surface.


> Corman lisp, it is new, and so his base can only grow. And _my_
> perception of free lisp usage is that it has been exploding (though

This is also my perception. I think there is activity both on new projects
(e.g. LISA, cCLan, etc.), and renewed activity on old ones (e.g.
ECL-Spain--an ECoLisp derivative--Maxima, etc.).


Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://web.mclink.it/amoroso/ency/README
[http://cvs2.cons.org:8000/cmucl/doc/EncyCMUCLopedia/]

Kalle Olavi Niemitalo

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Dec 2, 2001, 8:34:01 AM12/2/01
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Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com> writes:

> But anyone who thinks it should be LPER, in the Lispy style, and probably
> pronounced "leper", instead of REPL, as we commonly call it, should also
> consider whether CADR should be named CDAR.

When I was learning AutoLISP (I was 12 or 13 years old, IIRC),
I had much trouble remembering the order of As and Ds. I think
I eventually just memorized the meaning of CADDR and derived the
rest from that. I don't know if the opposite order would have
been easier.

Kenny Tilton

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Dec 2, 2001, 2:47:34 PM12/2/01
to

First, you are not wrong. Only why be curious? People are complicated,
and have no problem holding two conflicting viewpoints at the same time.
"Dammit, Spock! We're not like you, we're...

Second, when I talk about Lisp being the language of The Priesthood and
being a pearl before the swine of the Great Unwashed, shucks, that's
just playful trash talk at the static language camp to keep them from
feeling too smug about their superior numbers.

Besides, this is Usenet, we're supposed to be throwing language around
irresponsibly.

:)

kenny
clinisys

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 2, 2001, 7:48:29 PM12/2/01
to
Kent M Pitman wrote:

[I wrote, in a context that doesn't matter here:]
> > (print (eval (read)))


>
> Of course, that would be (print (eval (read (loop)))) in order to really
> make sense. Sounds like they've been using Waters' iteration stuff. :)
> LPRE would be be more likely.

...


> Nice though the Lisp notation is, one reason that we invented LET
> wasn't just to nicely associate a variable with a value instead of
> having the variable at one end of the program and the value at the
> other, as in

...


> but also to make programs execute forward. In Maclisp, they mostly executed
> backward and it was a considerable annoyance to read.

You do realise you're arguing for Forth here, don't you? :-)
(Generations of mathematics undergraduates would -- perhaps --
have an easier time of it if function application were
written as "(x)f" or "xf" instead of "f(x)" or "fx"[1].)


[1] There are a number of other forms one sees from time
to time, including the set-theorists' "f'x", which
yields the elegant "f''x" for pointwise application[2]
and presumably -- though I don't recall ever seeing
it -- "f'''x" etc for further-nested applications.
It might be interesting to have some notation like
this for programming languages, but the only language
I've seen that tries (Ken Iverson's "J"; perhaps APL
does the same) is a bit too weird for my taste.

Of course, in a language like CL with a multitude of
kinds of collection, it's tricky to specify what
such a "pushing-down" operation would do anyway.
The issues are similar to those raised in Kent's
article about equality.

[2] That is: f''x = { f'y: y in x }. A bit like MAPCAR.

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 2, 2001, 7:50:18 PM12/2/01
to
Harald Hanche-Olsen wrote:

> (We should, of course, create a whole new newsgroup named
> lisp.common.lang.comp for the discussion of LC. (Anyone remember when
> the folks in the UK wrote their email addresses backwards?))

When the UK switched over to what's now the standard ordering,
the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge
(uk.ac.cam.cl / cl.cam.ac.uk) started getting its mail
sent to Chile. :-)

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 2, 2001, 7:56:49 PM12/2/01
to
Erik Naggum wrote:

> The _only_ aspect of human performance that is ever criticized when it is
> pointed out that some people are better than others, is intelligence.

Almost true, but not quite. What about morality? (The standards
of which are notoriously various; but so are those of intelligence.)
Consider terms like "holier-than-thou", "sanctimonious", "prig"
and so on. They are often richly deserved, but not always.

Nils Goesche

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Dec 2, 2001, 10:30:26 PM12/2/01
to
Harald Hanche-Olsen <han...@math.ntnu.no> writes:

> + Kent M Pitman <pit...@world.std.com>:
>
> | For whatever mathy elegance it had, it was a serious barrier to the
> | eye of the ordinary (non-Hebrew-raised) eye, which wants to track in
> | the other order.
>
> So maybe we should turn the language itself around. I hereby suggest
> a new language, Lisp Common. LC is just like CL, except that, like
> Germans, we the verbs at the end of the sentence put do.
>
> Thus the definition
>
> (defun fact (n)
> (do ((result 1 (* result n))
> (n n (1- n)))
> ((<= n 0) result)))
>
> something like
>
> (fact (n)
> (((result 1 (result n *))
> (n n (n 1-)))
> ((n 0 <=) result)
> do)
> defun)
>
> instead becomes. Finding a good indentation style for LC a challenge
> will be, but I sure that this obstacle overcome can be, am.

The Lisp code sucks, but your English really comfortable to me
sounds. Maybe an English reform in comp.lang.lisp start should.

Regards,
--
Nils Goesche
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.

PGP key ID 0xC66D6E6F

Nils Goesche

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Dec 2, 2001, 10:40:14 PM12/2/01
to
Gareth.M...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) writes:

> Erik Naggum wrote:
>
> > The _only_ aspect of human performance that is ever criticized when it is
> > pointed out that some people are better than others, is intelligence.
>
> Almost true, but not quite. What about morality? (The standards
> of which are notoriously various; but so are those of intelligence.)
> Consider terms like "holier-than-thou", "sanctimonious", "prig"
> and so on. They are often richly deserved, but not always.

That's an entirely different matter. Especially those who
consider themselves morally superior to everyone else (and tell
everyone so) are exactly the ones who consider it somewhat
`immoral' to point out differences in level of intelligence.
They even invent stupid terms like ``emotional intelligence'' or
`mentally challenged' to obfuscate the obvious differences.

Kent M Pitman

unread,
Dec 3, 2001, 1:17:30 AM12/3/01
to
Gareth.M...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) writes:

> You do realise you're arguing for Forth here, don't you? :-)
> (Generations of mathematics undergraduates would -- perhaps --
> have an easier time of it if function application were
> written as "(x)f" or "xf" instead of "f(x)" or "fx"[1].)

To be clear, I'm not arguing for (x)f. I'm fine with f(x). I'm just
observing that unlike f(g(h(x),y),z) which executes x, then y, then z,
lambda expressions are special because they quote/delay of something
on the left side, so code farther rightward (the args) evaluate first.
That means
((lambda (h1) ((lambda (g1) (f g1 z)) (g h1 y))) (h x))
evaluates x, then y, then z, but x is rightmost, not leftmost. And this
is confusing in a language defined to be left-to-right evaluation order,
especially when it happens a lot, which it did in very routine code in
Maclisp before we introduced LET. I had *lots* of programs that
looked like the lambda expression here, and I tired of having it visually
execute backwards of how it was presented on paper. (It's true that a
postfix lambda might have fixed this, but really as long as a lambda wasn't
involved I didn't care. The issue isn't the operator being on the left,
it's the transparency of the operator's form-like contents..)

Tim Bradshaw

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Dec 3, 2001, 5:21:35 AM12/3/01
to
Gareth.M...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) wrote in message news:<slrna0liut.agb....@g.local>...

> [1] There are a number of other forms one sees from time
> to time, including the set-theorists' "f'x", which
> yields the elegant "f''x" for pointwise application[2]
> and presumably -- though I don't recall ever seeing
> it -- "f'''x" etc for further-nested applications.
> It might be interesting to have some notation like
> this for programming languages, but the only language
> I've seen that tries (Ken Iverson's "J"; perhaps APL
> does the same) is a bit too weird for my taste.

This notation is also widely used for differentiation: f'(x) is
d/dx(f(x)) (those ds are curly ds, generally.)

Mathematics or mathematical notation has the great advantage of being
read by a parser which can take a lot of context (like `which seminar
am I in?') into account, and also doesn't require a really formally
known parse except occasionally.

--tim

pj

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Dec 3, 2001, 8:14:55 AM12/3/01
to
>
> Second, when I talk about Lisp being the language of The Priesthood and
> being a pearl before the swine of the Great Unwashed, shucks, that's
> just playful trash talk at the static language camp to keep them from
> feeling too smug about their superior numbers.
>

Ahh.. NOW I know the big secret.

But arent you setting the barrier of entry too high for beginners and
people who are casually interested ?

If I were a beginner (to programming) and if I get the feeling that
I have to be a philosopher and mathematician rolled into one to program
in a computer language, I would probably give it up and move on to
other things.

Bijan Parsia

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Dec 3, 2001, 2:44:30 PM12/3/01
to
On 2 Dec 2001, Daniel Barlow wrote:

> Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com> writes:
>
> > And _my_
> > perception of free lisp usage is that it has been exploding (though
>
> Hmm. Oddly enough, that corresponds quite well with my perception ;-)

I can't say, not being a close Lisp community observer, but all the Commom
Lisp implementations seem to have been improving steadily, and maintaing
user bases and marketshare.

This is also true in the Smalltalk world, where things looked *very*
shakey at the hight of Javahypetalious. I don't think they *were* always
as bad as they sometimes appeared, but it was the case that Javaconfusion
led some implementors to, well, act like asses and ruin themselves :)

People don't seem to do that as much nowadays. Maybe the fools and get
super-rich quickers are all cleared out.

Even with the US and world economies as they are, there seems to be more
tolorance for and interest in alternative and minority languages.

Of course, it might just be that that tolorance and interest is relatively
steady, and it's the presence or absence of massive amounts of hype that
makes the perceptual difference :)

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 3, 2001, 4:14:49 PM12/3/01
to
Tim Bradshaw wrote:

[I said:]


> > [1] There are a number of other forms one sees from time
> > to time, including the set-theorists' "f'x", which
> > yields the elegant "f''x" for pointwise application[2]
> > and presumably -- though I don't recall ever seeing
> > it -- "f'''x" etc for further-nested applications.
> > It might be interesting to have some notation like
> > this for programming languages, but the only language
> > I've seen that tries (Ken Iverson's "J"; perhaps APL
> > does the same) is a bit too weird for my taste.
>
> This notation is also widely used for differentiation: f'(x) is
> d/dx(f(x)) (those ds are curly ds, generally.)

Ah. No. Those are meant to represent opening single quotation
marks, not apostrophes. Perhaps backticks would have answered
better. Sorry for any confusion.

> Mathematics or mathematical notation has the great advantage of being
> read by a parser which can take a lot of context (like `which seminar
> am I in?') into account, and also doesn't require a really formally
> known parse except occasionally.

That's certainly true.

Kenny Tilton

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Dec 3, 2001, 8:09:09 PM12/3/01
to

pj wrote:
> But arent you setting the barrier of entry too high for beginners and
> people who are casually interested ?

Ok, I'll be quiet, then Lisp will go thru the roof. :)

>
> If I were a beginner (to programming) and if I get the feeling that
> I have to be a philosopher and mathematician rolled into one to program
> in a computer language, I would probably give it up and move on to
> other things.

I believe Lisp does better by staking out the high ground and
challenging all comers than by sticking its tail between its legs, which
is what Dylan and Arc do.

If I am a beginner and I see the devout fanatical loyalty of Lispers, I
am drawn to it, not repelled. I want to find out what the Initiata know,
I want to learn these mysterious incantations, yada yada...

kenny
clinisys

lin8080

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Dec 4, 2001, 11:20:31 AM12/4/01
to
Software Scavenger schrieb:

> It seems to me ...
> What are the implications for Lisp, and
> for programming in general?

Well.
I read this postings and wonder. My first computer book was Winston &
Horn, 'Implementation einer Blockwelt' with a Simens Inter-Lisp dialect.
This was in 1987 when I was a student (have to learn pascal). And since
there I looked at many programming languages, but did not learn one of
them, because I know about lisp and the way things could work.
Sure, I can type some lines in c or assembler or in java and compile it.
The point is, I don't like it and in German there is a sentence: when
you carry your dog for hunting, you better stay at home.

The other aspect is: do you want another command like format ? I say no,
that is not lispy. So why is there a kind of panic ? Remember the
situation, you find out, what lisp is like. And see what you think about
other programming languages. There is not a handful older than 40 years.

Nowadays the power of PCs grows and grows and there are lisp dialects
for low cost. Also there are programmers who search for the best
language and the whole world wants AI or KI and things like that (, easy
doing scripts). And they find good old stuff and make things moving on.
So give them a change, maybe there is a great improvement or a complete
new language ... Java happens, and none believed that it will become to
what it is today. Or look at Smaltalk, Prolog and such languages, there
is restless too. Or how far can one go with perl ?
Should it be possible that time is right for the next step ?

stefan


---*---*---*---*---*---
Play it again, Sam.
....,
no matter what they say, as time goes by.

Tim Bradshaw

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Dec 5, 2001, 9:21:17 AM12/5/01
to
Gareth.M...@pobox.com (Gareth McCaughan) wrote in message news:<slrna0nqq9.i3p....@g.local>...

>
> Ah. No. Those are meant to represent opening single quotation
> marks, not apostrophes. Perhaps backticks would have answered
> better. Sorry for any confusion.

Heh. I suspect that there are mathematicians out there even now who
are getting grants to invent symbols which are not in unicode. Other
mathematicians are busy working out the transfinite arithmetic of
mathematical notation, thus proving that not only is no finite coding
adequate for the needs of your every day working mathematician, but in
fact no *countable* coding is adequate. This is why it's wrong to
regard CS as part of maths.

--tim

(what do you mean, I've had too mcuh coffee?)

Thomas F. Burdick

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Dec 5, 2001, 4:24:54 PM12/5/01
to
tfb+g...@tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw) writes:

I've always admired mathematicians' ability to pile symbol on top of
slightly different notation on top of symbol. Biologists are really
playing catch-up with mathematicians here, though I think they're
doing a better job of preserving the old, arbitrary spirit of it all.

Computer science, on the other hand, is doing terribly in this area!
Is it just me, or has the last 15 years seen a horrible reduction in
the creativeness in notation, and much more agreement on what that
less-creative notation should be? I mean, look at papers from the
early 80s, and compare them to the papers of today, and tell me with a
straight face that CS isn't at risk of losing its collective knowledge
of arbitrary notational science. And ironically, this all is
happening during a period of explosion of fast systems with GUIs.
Shouldn't this make it *easier* to draw new, weird symbols? Different
types of lines, arrows, and boxes hardly count.

> (what do you mean, I've had too mcuh coffee?)

Bah, I feel mcuh better after that lsat cup of coffeee, mabye I'll get
anohter.

--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'

cbbr...@acm.org

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Dec 5, 2001, 4:39:39 PM12/5/01
to
t...@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> Computer science, on the other hand, is doing terribly in this area!
> Is it just me, or has the last 15 years seen a horrible reduction in
> the creativeness in notation, and much more agreement on what that
> less-creative notation should be? I mean, look at papers from the
> early 80s, and compare them to the papers of today, and tell me with
> a straight face that CS isn't at risk of losing its collective
> knowledge of arbitrary notational science. And ironically, this all
> is happening during a period of explosion of fast systems with GUIs.
> Shouldn't this make it *easier* to draw new, weird symbols?
> Different types of lines, arrows, and boxes hardly count.

Why, goodness, the APL world has been tending to head towards using
ASCII notations. (Witness J, K, A+).
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@acm.org")
http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/lisp.html
"... and the REALLY GOOD THING, is that after you have gone to the
trouble of compiling that once, you can run it MANY MANY times!!!"
-- Arthur Norman

Gareth McCaughan

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Dec 5, 2001, 8:38:46 PM12/5/01
to
cbbr...@acm.org wrote:

> t...@apocalypse.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> > Computer science, on the other hand, is doing terribly in this area!
> > Is it just me, or has the last 15 years seen a horrible reduction in
> > the creativeness in notation, and much more agreement on what that
> > less-creative notation should be? I mean, look at papers from the
> > early 80s, and compare them to the papers of today, and tell me with
> > a straight face that CS isn't at risk of losing its collective
> > knowledge of arbitrary notational science. And ironically, this all
> > is happening during a period of explosion of fast systems with GUIs.
> > Shouldn't this make it *easier* to draw new, weird symbols?
> > Different types of lines, arrows, and boxes hardly count.
>
> Why, goodness, the APL world has been tending to head towards using
> ASCII notations. (Witness J, K, A+).

On the other hand, you have to admit that J (I don't know about
K and A+) has successfully preserved the incomprehensibility
that was APL's greatest asset.

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