I told my CS prof that they should have used mnemonics, and he mumbled
something like "OH, I'll be sure to tell John McCarthy that".

Whatever....

I always thought these were mnemonic...

Actually, car is "first" and cdr "rest" these days, and Lisp is a beautifully
designed language. It just looks strange and takes some time to learn if you
are used to so-called imperative languages.

glauber
--
Glauber Ribeiro
theglau...@my-deja.com    http://www.myvehiclehistoryreport.com
"Opinions stated are my own and not representative of Experian"

Claire>  It's a poorly designed language. I have to use it to write a
Claire>  program for a Programming LAnguages class. What a joke:
Claire>  instead of using mnemonics commands like "append", "prepend",
Claire>  "head", "tail", etc, whatever bozo (apparently some MIT CS
Claire>  legend named John McCarthy) designed this thing used "cons",
Claire>  "cdr", "car", and other system call commands that apparently
Claire>  had meaning to him, and him only. I think cdr is a freaking

Oh yes! strcpy(), strcspn(), vsprintf() are a whole lot fucking more
readable!
Just for your interest, APPEND, FIRST, SECOND, ... LAST, REST are all
there for decades. Consult your instructor or RTFM before trolling.

  http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=665615038

I've gotta hand it to you.  That's well-written flamebait.  I was
going to think for a second that you were serious.

--
Glauber Ribeiro
theglau...@my-deja.com    http://www.myvehiclehistoryreport.com
"Opinions stated are my own and not representative of Experian"

In short, you might have learned something useful.

In your defense, though, I will say that your sparkling attitude makes
school much simpler, since you don't have to learn anything.  I'm sure
your future employers will be impressed by your attitude towards your
education.

And yes, I am being condescending.  Your attitude brooks nothing better.

Claire>  I AM serious. That's my opinion of LISP. And I resent even
Claire>  having to learn it.

Ok, it's your opinion. But why do you *post* it here?
Just to let us to know that you dislike Lisp? So alright, now we all
know that; it will make your Karma even worse to your next
resurrection.

    Claire> I AM serious. That's my opinion of LISP. And I resent even having to
    Claire> learn it.

Take a different class?  Switch majors?  Quit school?  Stop learning?

Please consider these.

    (first '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 1
    (rest  '(1 2 3 4)) ==> (2 3 4)
    (third '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 3
    (nth 2 '(1 2 3 4)) ==> 3    ; counts from 0 like in most languages

    (append '(1 2 3 4) '(a b c d)) ==> (1 2 3 4 a b c d)

But yes, Lisp takes some getting used to. It isn't helped
by idiot instructors (I have no idea whether yours is one)
who think they should teach Lisp 1.5 (from the 1960s or
thereabouts) instead of, say, ANSI Common Lisp. The former
is of historical interest only; it's about as current as
FORTRAN IV or the original Dartmouth BASIC. Common Lisp is
an entirely different beast, and once you've got some way
up the learning curve you may be surprised by how pleasant
it is to use. Unless you're really prepared to dismiss it
on the basis of a two-hour introduction given by someone
who doesn't even know that we have more friendly ways to
write CAR and CDR nowadays.

Oh, and if we're playing the intuitive-appeal-to-novices
game, consider

    (loop for n from 1 upto 10 sum n) ==> 55

and try to find another language in which that could be
expressed as neatly. :-)

One other thing. CAR and CDR, odd though they look at
first, have some unexpected advantages. Notably, there
are obvious names for their compositions. (CDDDR x)
is the same as (CDR (CDR (CDR x))), but much shorter.
This is actually useful sometimes.

Given all this, I hardly need point out how ridiculous you make yourself
seem when the only vaguely technical comment you can make on Lisp is that
you dislike the names CONS, CAR and CDR.

;-)

It's really a shame that ignorants as you may think they know
everything better than anyone else. And it's shocking to imaging that
you will get a programmer one day.

  Well, what did you expect?  It was designed back in the early
  1640's, when computers were driven by slaves and falling water.
  Of _course_ it must have some historical elements that are hard to
  explain to an obstinate youngster of today.  I mean, sheesh.

  But look at our grand history!  Take the fine Constitution of the
  United States, culminating in the best ever display of political
  savvy and eloquence in that grand parade towards a new _President_.
  Look how the initial ideas have been able to survive a culture
  transformation from toiling the land to betting on Internet bubbles
  on the stock market, or from bookish people who knew how little they
  knew about running countries and who argued over essentials to that
  effect to today's wonderful, broadcast presidential debates where
  they have simple answers for everything, yet the best value for the
  money is found in the increasingly glorious commercials, made
  possible by the right ideas from the outset:  Lisp is like that: Its
  glorious beginnings have not been diminished by the passage of time,
  but those who come to the world today can hardly see the heritage
  for the colorful outgrowth it allowed but which is distrzcting them.

  Think of the people who built this world out of individual conses,
  (they didn't have cars back then, much less cdrs), and rejoice in
  the wonder that is the world of today, for the ancient idea has
  grown and spread to every living thing: That which is or looks like
  dying we call _listless_.

  Students of today!  They do not want to learn, only exploit the past
  so that their future may be short and bright.  Afterwards, nothing,
  garbage collected.  Listen to the parens who embraced and nourished
  you and you will see that history is not to be discarded, it is the
  foundation upon which we walk.

  Why don't you just do what you prefer to do?  It's pretty haughty of
  you to think that we're interested in hearing you tell us about it
  if you don't even do it.

  Well, that's what the world hs come to.  Arrogant ignorants with an
  attitude and an attention span only sufficient to be influenced by
  TV commercials.  All you can do is help shoot them down.

| And it's shocking to imagine that you will get a programmer one day.

  I, too, fear that he might wind up a manager.
  (But that's maybe not what you meant? :)

The thing which really get's on my nerves. He obviously hardly has
scratched the surface, and than he comes up with such a opinion based
on nearly nothing. Imagine how he would react I would come to a
language group he might know (I hardly believe he really knows of even
mastered another language) and say; This language xxxx is the last
.... .

Regards
Friedrich

Oddly enough, it was not so long ago that people weren't considered
educated unless they knew Latin and Ancient Greek, both of which
decidedly represent "antique, academic languages."

Usenet is a big place; there is lots of room for you to have bigoted
feelings. There are places for people to dispute over their opinions on
the distribution of guns, the availability of surgical abortions, and
whether or not there should be a new ascendancy of the Third Reich.

Amongst all that, there's certainly room for you to hold a dispute
over whether or not antiquity indicates uselessness.

Oddly enough, English is a language that is several hundred years old,
and which, despite being pretty antique, is still used.

Computers were invented in the late 1940s, and, strangely enough, are
still in use.

The notable professions of soldiering, politicking, and prostitution
were all developed thousands of years ago, but their antiquity does
not establish that they are obsolete.

It might be productive to go and find out how old those languages
actually are.