Andrew Criswell <a...@ksc15.th.com> wrote in article <34100a5a.2109...@news.ksc.co.th>...
>[snip]
> So, I hope someone can convince me otherwise. To my casual eye, the > programme is eloquent. Is it something to be studied for its internal > beauty and nothing more?
Lisp is an excellent language for certain application domains. In particular, areas such as machine learning, deductive databases, language design and implementation, etc. I have worked on one Lisp application that has a 3-year track record of making stock picks that outperform the S&P 100, as well as most money managers (yet, it's a balanced fund). See http://www.korns.com for more info on a real-world Lisp application that produces something a great deal more negotiable than beauty.
Bill House -- http://www.housewebs.com Note: My e-mail address has been altered to confuse spambots
a...@ksc15.th.com (Andrew Criswell) writes: >This question is sincerely asked. I am not a professional programmer, >nor a computer scientist, just someone who is casually interesting in >programming, especially in the fields of finance and econometrics. I >have read through most of Winston and Horn's "Lisp", 3rd edition, and >I must admit by the end I see very little use to put to LISP, either >in my field or any other, especially when you take into account the >many other programming languages available on the market that allow >for neat user interaction.
Better mathematical support. Arguably better tools. The ability to prototype systems incredibly quickly and arguably do things easily that are difficult to do well in other languages. Dynamism. The ability to change things at run-time, without bringing the whole system down.
>So, I hope someone can convince me otherwise. To my casual eye, the >programme is eloquent. Is it something to be studied for its internal >beauty and nothing more?
I would be tempted to say that about Scheme. But Scheme makes a fantastic macro language for applications, among other things. -- Mark Certified Waifboy And when they come to ethnically cleanse me Will you speak out? Will you defend me? http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/~mgreenaw - Ich bin ein Auslander, PWEI
Thats a wonderful reply and very similar to what I read in a book somewhere that first got me interested. since I've started, every little step along the learning curve has been exciting. However, I am wondering how you are able to get into graphics when my very first question to the group was along those very lines and I was led to believe that we could not do graphics with lisp. did I misunderstand something?
* manro...@aol.com | I was led to believe that we could not do graphics with lisp. | did I misunderstand something?
you can't do graphics in any language. first, you need library support functions and lots and lots of external system software to handle the graphics for you. now you can do graphics in all languages.
#\Erik -- 404 You're better off without that file. Trust me.
On 5 Sep 1997 16:33:33 GMT, manro...@aol.com (ManRodSr) wrote:
>Thats a wonderful reply and very similar to what I read in a book >somewhere that first got me interested. since I've started, every little >step along the learning curve has been exciting. However, I am wondering >how you are able to get into graphics when my very first question to the >group was along those very lines and I was led to believe that we could not >do graphics with lisp. >did I misunderstand something?
There are no commands intrinsic to LISP for doing graphics, much as there are no commands intrinsic to C, Perl, C++, FORTRAN, Scheme, APL, Java, and any number of other languages that seek to (in some form) represent a sort of "abstract machine."
In contrast, there are a few computer languages such as Postscript and a number of dialects of BASIC that include graphics commands as intrinsic parts of the language.
However, all of the languages in the previous list (and, to the point here, LISP) have nothing preventing implementations from creating interfaces to graphics "libraries" of one variety or another. And people do commonly use all of these language to "do graphics."
LISP Machines (once sold by Symbolics and LMI) were examples of LISP-based systems that had a great deal of graphical support; they had rather sophisticated graphical user interface environments implemented in LISP.
"Better LISP implementations" should, these days, include some form of interface to the graphics infrastructure provided by the underlying operating system.
If you're on a UNIX-like system, common LISP implementations tend to include interfaces of some sort to the X Windows system. Commercial LISPs for Microsoft's windowing systems have similar interfaces. Ditto for Macintosh-based LISPs.
In such cases, LISP can be used to develop systems with graphical interfaces.
If you are running LISP under MS-DOS, it is quite likely that the capabilities will be rather more limited, as MS-DOS provides only the most rudimentary graphic services. Chris Browne - cbbro...@hex.net, <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne> Q: Where would Microsoft take you today? A: Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis...
In article <19970905163301.MAA10...@ladder02.news.aol.com>,
ManRodSr <manro...@aol.com> wrote: >Thats a wonderful reply and very similar to what I read in a book >somewhere that first got me interested. since I've started, every little >step along the learning curve has been exciting. However, I am wondering >how you are able to get into graphics when my very first question to the >group was along those very lines and I was led to believe that we could not >do graphics with lisp. >did I misunderstand something?
As others have noted, Graphics support is not usually part of a language.
Most versions of Lisp or Scheme I've tried have some sort of graphics support. Since you said your background was in economics, you might take a look at XlispStat -- a version of Lisp with support for statistics and statistical graphics. It's not a great tool for writing general GUI code, but for numerical graphic applications, it's great: built in support for 2d and 3d scatterplots, linked plots ( so that plots selected in one graph are automatically selected in another ), etc.
If you want a more generalized ( and thus more low level ) graphics toolkit, you might look at Stk -- scheme + Tk.
---| Steven D. Majewski (804-982-0831) <sd...@Virginia.EDU> |--- ---| Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics |--- ---| University of Virginia Health Sciences Center |--- ---| P.O. Box 10011 Charlottesville, VA 22906-0011 |--- All power corrupts and obsolete power corrupts obsoletely." - Ted Nelson
| Thats a wonderful reply and very similar to what I read in a book | somewhere that first got me interested. since I've started, every little | step along the learning curve has been exciting. However, I am wondering | how you are able to get into graphics when my very first question to the | group was along those very lines and I was led to believe that we could not | do graphics with lisp. | did I misunderstand something?
There's something called the Common Lisp Interface Manager, which is supposed to be a set of standard GUI code, so that people can carry Lisp code from one platform to another without re-writing. I don't know what happened to it; is it dead, people?
Most Lisps have their own set of extensions to do graphics. Most of them are really easy to use. For instance, Mac Common Lisp from Digitool is so darn easy that they teach you pretty much everything you need to know in about 10 pages of their "Getting started" pamphlet.
You can get a LOT of graphics code to go with just about any Lisp by saying the magic incantation:
"I have <this kind of> Lisp on <this particular> platform, and I'm a rank beginner looking for some simple graphics code to cut my teeth on. Anybody got any spare?"
Note that the ONE thing that this group gets WAY too much of is people trolling around going, "Lisp can't do this, Lisp can't do that," looking for some kind of flame war. Therefore people sometimes mis-read questions such as yours as the trolling flame-bait that we despise. This is not your fault, of course, but it could affect the replies you get.
| do graphics with lisp. | did I misunderstand something?
There's something called the Common Lisp Interface Manager, which is supposed to be a set of standard GUI code, so that people can carry Lisp code from one platform to another without re-writing. I don't know what happened to it; is it dead, people?
Most Lisps have their own set of extensions to do graphics. Most of them are really easy to use. For instance, Mac Common Lisp from Digitool is so darn easy that they teach you pretty much everything you need to know in about 10 pages of their "Getting started" pamphlet.
However this is part of the problem. All the commercial Lisps out there have CLIM ported to them. However, Harlequin is pushing CAPI, Franz is pushing Common Windows and Digitool (last time I checked), isn't offering CLIM.
This is no good. Especially considering that CLIM was originally a "vendor's standard".
Alas, this is an old gripe, so you mustn't pay too much attention to it.
Cheers -- Marco Antoniotti =========================================================================== === California Path Program - UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station tel. +1 - 510 - 231 9472
In article <bc-0809971211580...@17.127.10.41> b...@wetware.com (Bill Coderre) writes:
> manro...@aol.com (ManRodSr) wrote: > | Thats a wonderful reply and very similar to what I read in a book > | somewhere that first got me interested. since I've started, every little > | step along the learning curve has been exciting. However, I am wondering > | how you are able to get into graphics when my very first question to the > | group was along those very lines and I was led to believe that we could not > | do graphics with lisp. > | did I misunderstand something?
> There's something called the Common Lisp Interface Manager, which is > supposed to be a set of standard GUI code, so that people can carry Lisp > code from one platform to another without re-writing. I don't know what > happened to it; is it dead, people?
I recently completed a Lisp project using CLIM. Worked fine.
