Want CL Popularity? Just hack the CIA with it. (promoting CL in counter-culture)
A.F. Smith
I'm not qualified to comment on technical questions regarding CL. I'm
still a newbie to CL. However, I do know something about the mystery
of how thing get "popular" in this society from my time in radio.
There are two ways to become popular in the US. The first is the
corporate way, i.e. obliterate your competition with massive amounts
of marketing dollars and enter mainstream culture through brute force.
Unless some of you have access to some trust funds you don't mention,
that doesn't seem to be an option. The other way would be for
something to become a counter-culture movement. This is the way
everything from rock and roll to body piecings to open source
programming has come to it's present position.
One obvious counter-cultural influence is hackers. If hackers found
out CL made them better hackers, teenagers in the country would empty
Amazon of texts within 2 weeks. If Napster had been written in CL, all
the university instructors would have full classrooms right now filled
with students begging to know CL.
Computers are no longer just the realm of engineers anymore. Every
facet of society is online now. The old rules of technical proficiency
no longer apply. You have to promote things the way you would in all
other facets of society. Therefore, you need to make it a status
symbol to know CL. You cannot do it by promoting it as "bleeding-edge"
technology for obvious reasons. Therefore, I would suggest making CL
seem to have a "kabbalah-like, secret knowledge of the ancients"
appeal, or in this case, secret knowledge of the corporate elite. It's
not that tough to suggest this. CL is taught at all the top
universities. What are all those top students learning CL for?
Crafting a conspiracy could be great fun.
For the counter-culture promotion concept to work, CLers will have to
go out to the fringes of the net and prove to those in the computer
counter-culture that CL is the best tool they can use. This is a great
audience for CL, because in the computer counter-culture, all anyone
cares about is if something works. They have no concrete allegiences
to certain products.
This is not a case where you have to worry about whether what you are
promoting can survive on the bleeding edge. CL is head and shoulders
above it's competition. Therefore, you only have to get it in the
hands of someone. The counter-culture is where you will find the least
resistance. Therefore, it seems reasonable to focus a lot of energy
there.
Tim Daly, Jr.
Just an aside on the topic of popularity. I don't see why we should
want CL to be so popular. 'Popular' has never been an adjective with
particularly positive connotations, for me. Why don't we all just
work on making CL _better_. There are plenty of crufty corners that
could use some work, and plenty of libraries that could use writing.
Anything that's too popular will tend to regress to what I call the
'Spice Girls mean'. Let them eat Java.
-Tim
Daniel Barlow
> Just an aside on the topic of popularity. I don't see why we should
> want CL to be so popular. 'Popular' has never been an adjective with
In my lifetime, I will use an order of magnitude more computer
systems that have been designed and implemented by other people than I
will ever write myself. Computers are in everything.
If more programmers were exposed to sensible languages like CL,
there's at least a reasonable chance that they might learn something
from the experience and write more reliable, functional and
better-designed systems. This affects me when I have to use those
systems.
If more programmers were actually _using_ CL (or other languages that
have actually concentrated on making it possible to decide things
later rather than earlier) there's also the possibility they might
finish their projects on time instead of going woefully over budget
and getting them cancelled. This affects me too - especially when the
entity in question is something like a government or monopoly with
which I can't really avoid dealing.
So, that's why I want to see CL be more popular.
> particularly positive connotations, for me. Why don't we all just
> work on making CL _better_. There are plenty of crufty corners that
> could use some work, and plenty of libraries that could use writing.
Happily, though, that's exactly the kind of work which I think will
make CL more popular. So go right ahead!
-dan
--
http://ww.telent.net/cliki/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
Jock Cooper
> Just an aside on the topic of popularity. I don't see why we should
> want CL to be so popular. 'Popular' has never been an adjective with
> particularly positive connotations, for me. Why don't we all just
> work on making CL _better_. There are plenty of crufty corners that
> could use some work, and plenty of libraries that could use writing.
Well a more popular CL might mean that a jobsearch on Monster.com doesn't
return "Zero jobs matching keyword LISP". Right now I am lucky because
my boss trusts me (we have worked together for years) and has let me
use CL to do all my work. If I ever have to change jobs though I'm sure
it will be back to C/Perl or something even worse like ASP.NET. Ugh.
Aleksandr Skobelev
Hmm. How should we call hackers using CL? Probably, 'CLackers'? :)
A.F. Smith
see CL as popular as... say... Python is right now. Some extra hands
working on new libraries, etc., would be good for everyone involved.
-Adam
t...@tenkan.org (Tim Daly, Jr.) wrote in message news:<wk65v84...@tenkan.org>...
Alain Picard
> Hmm. How should we call hackers using CL? Probably, 'CLackers'? :)
Pronounced with a soft C, i.e. Slackers? :-)
c hore
> Just an aside on the topic of popularity. I don't see why we should
> want CL to be so popular. 'Popular' has never been an adjective with
> particularly positive connotations, for me. Why don't we all just
> work on making CL _better_. There are plenty of crufty corners that
> could use some work, and plenty of libraries that could use writing.
In the case of Lisp, more popularity would mean more bodies/brains
who could make CL better, do the work that needs to be done, write
the libraries/books that need to be written, be available for hiring,
potentially increase the pool of not just Lisp programmers but
good Lisp programmers, lessen the obstacle to using Lisp due to
few Lisp programmers or few good Lisp programmers, etc.
Naggum said before something like Lisp programmers are on average
10 years older than Java/whatever programmers. Looking at the
pictures from the Lisp conference, you see a lot of gray/white hairs.
I suppose this is a sign of maturity/wisdom. On the other hand
you have to wonder, who is going to replace these people.
Will there be a generational vacuum in the wake of the
AI/baby boomers. (This question was discussed in the previous thread
on next generation of Lisp programmers. Naggum's answer IIRC
was that with things so much more complicated now than in the 80s,
what fewer people there will be filling in for the boomers will
just be so busy learning/mastering/fiddling with the existing
tools/libraries and doing applications to have much time to spend
on more fundamental evolution of the language. Or maybe that's OK
because the core of Lisp is pretty much at an end state, and the
next major improvement is going to be discontinuous ---
Feyerabend project? Will biology place new demands on the
core of the language like AI did?)
> Anything that's too popular will tend to regress to what I call the
> 'Spice Girls mean'. Let them eat Java.
In the case of Lisp though, it's not clear to me how the popularity
of the language would or could lead to a regression of the language
or its libraries.
Wade Humeniuk
"Aleksandr Skobelev" <publi...@list.ru> wrote in message news:m33cqbh...@list.ru...
>
> Hmm. How should we call hackers using CL? Probably, 'CLackers'? :)
Clackers leave wicked bruises on the wrists and forearms of the
unskilled. It was a toy in the early 70's. Two hard
plastic balls on the end of strings. By moving you hand up and down
the "clackers" hit each other and rebound at the top and bottom of their
arcs. For the unskilled they would miss and cause contusions on the
forearms (or unconsciousness). Picture bolas.
http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/clackersindex.shtml
http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/shows/toys/ty1427.php
I had a pair, the toy for those of high pain thresholds.
Come to think of it the arcs the balls take makes the same shape as
parens. Hmmm... a connection.
Wade
Vlad S.
> seem to have a "kabbalah-like, secret knowledge of the ancients"
> appeal, or in this case, secret knowledge of the corporate elite.
Pssst, http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/su/su.html , but don't tell
anyone maaan, or THE /MAN/ will come down on us, dig?
I don't know about you, but I consider CL pretty counter-cultural (if
you consider the C/Unix crowd "culture"). You can't get more
"kabbalah-like" than digging through your local Miskatonic university
library looking for wormy old Lisp machine manuscripts.
It's pretty obvious to anybody who's tried it that Lisp is the right
thing compared to C/C++, no matter how much "they" spread FUD and
generally playa-hate. Besides that there are a great many awesome
applications built in Lisp, most of them largely unknown and ignored,
and others outright forgotten.
I think the catalyst would be to make people realize what RMS thinks
on the subject and his history with Lisp machines (hell, the history
of the MIT hacker - Lisp machine movement in general; most texts of
interest to free software people only mention how much RMS hated
Symbolics, and how cool and trendy the minicomputer + C thing was). Up
until I started doing in-depth Lisp learning I didn't even realize he
used it (the abovementioned playa-haters scared me away from Emacs). I
think far too many people attribute free software's success and
methods to C.
That, or we can plaster RPG's headshot on a t-shirt, with the cool ALU
logo, and the caption "You are an idiot", or maybe "Strong typing is
for weak minds" (this one he actually said -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/feyerabend-project/message/252), and go
to a Java convention. He's pretty old and has a decent-size beard =].
(No offense to Mr. Gabriel intended - I deeply admire and respect him,
and share many of his views on Lisp vs. other languages)
"The first rule of the ALU is you do not talk about the ALU"
Erik Naggum
| I think the catalyst would be to make people realize what RMS thinks on
| the subject and his history with Lisp machines (hell, the history of the
| MIT hacker - Lisp machine movement in general; most texts of interest to
| free software people only mention how much RMS hated Symbolics, and how
| cool and trendy the minicomputer + C thing was). Up until I started doing
| in-depth Lisp learning I didn't even realize he used it (the
| abovementioned playa-haters scared me away from Emacs). I think far too
| many people attribute free software's success and methods to C.
I just bought a book on a hunch the other day while trying to get out of
the magic spell that bookstores seem to cast on me, robbing me of my free
will and causing me to buy books for no good reason. I should have all
my credit cards say "not valid in bookstores unless holder is accompanied
by a responsible person".
DDC 174.90904 (hacker ethics (!)), ISBN 0-375-50566-0, LCCN 00-053354
Pekka Himanen
The Hacker Ethic and the spirit of the Information Age
It is an attempt to re-do what Max Weber did with "The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism", and is both amusing and illuminating. It
has a form of which I cannot in good faith say I approve, but it does a
good job of what it sets out to do. www.hackerethic.org is referenced.
--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
sv0f
car...@yahoo.com (c hore) wrote:
>On the other hand
>you have to wonder, who is going to replace these people.
>Will there be a generational vacuum in the wake of the
>AI/baby boomers.
My first child's first word was "cdr". We kept her.
My second child's first phrase was "weak typing". So we cast her.
Paolo Amoroso
> One obvious counter-cultural influence is hackers. If hackers found
> out CL made them better hackers, teenagers in the country would empty
> Amazon of texts within 2 weeks. If Napster had been written in CL, all
This is apparently what Paul Graham is trying to do with Arc.
> technology for obvious reasons. Therefore, I would suggest making CL
> seem to have a "kabbalah-like, secret knowledge of the ancients"
> appeal, or in this case, secret knowledge of the corporate elite. It's
Something like this has always been around in Lisp circles.
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
Donald Fisk
> I think the catalyst would be to make people realize what RMS thinks
> on the subject and his history with Lisp machines (hell, the history
> of the MIT hacker - Lisp machine movement in general; most texts of
> interest to free software people only mention how much RMS hated
> Symbolics, and how cool and trendy the minicomputer + C thing was).
If you're tinkering with the machine, it makes sense to work at C
level. But if you want to work at a level closer to your thoughts,
Lisping is more appropriate. To quote Alan Perlis, "A programming
language is low level when its programs require attention to the
irrelevant." -- things like memory allocation and pointers.
It's worth pointing out _why_ RMS (Stallman) hated Symbolics. Not
because it was a LispM manufacturer, but because they made their
system software, which was based on MIT software, proprietary. In
other words, it was a free software issue.
RMS got hold of the new code from Symbolics, reverse engineered it,
and gave the code to Lisp Machines Inc., a rival company founded by
Richard Greenblatt, whose philosophy was closer to RMS's. So RMS
helped one LispM manufacturer (LMI) against another.
There are alternative versions of what happened next, but RMS was
caught doing this and left the AI Lab to found the Free Software
Foundation, and the GNU project. Why he backed a Unix-like system
at this point is a mystery to me, when he clearly preferred ITS, and
probably the non-Genera LispM OS (BTW what was that called?) as well,
but perhaps he thought he could get better performance and portability
out of a Unix. ITS was at the time tied to PDP-10 hardware. There
were ways of porting ITS to other architectures, but they weren't
seriously investigated and it wasn't until recently that ITS became
widely available, on PDP-10 simulators running (sigh) on Unix. (But
it's still much better than using vi to edit programs on a text-only
Unix terminal. At some places, that's all you still have.)
The world still awaits a stable HURD, and in the meantime they have
a Finnish rewrite of a Dutch rewrite of Unix (itself a heavily cut
down version of MULTICS) -- far more effort than porting ITS, so it's
not clear that RMS's decision to back Unix stands up to hindsight.
But he ported Emacs, Dired, and Info from ITS to Unix, and changed
the Emacs scripting language from TECO to Lisp.
> Up
> until I started doing in-depth Lisp learning I didn't even realize he
> used it (the abovementioned playa-haters scared me away from Emacs).
I find it deeply disturbing when I see people with "Learning vi"
on their desks. I can understand old hands, who have used vi for
years and have it hardcoded into their fingertips, not wanting to
switch to Emacs (because vi is better for _them_), but a study has
confirmed that Emacs is better for novices, and it goes without
saying that it's better for experienced Emacs users.
> I
> think far too many people attribute free software's success and
> methods to C.
So they think C is better than Lisp because it is more popular than
Lisp. But that ewould make Visual Basic better than C because it is
more popular than C. You could point that out to them, and see
whether they keep their positive correlation between quality and
popularity.
Le Hibou
--
Dalinian: Lisp. Java. Which one sounds sexier?
RevAaron: Definitely Lisp. Lisp conjures up images of hippy coders,
drugs,
sex, and rock & roll. Late nights at Berkeley, coding in Lisp fueled by
LSD.
Java evokes a vision of a stereotypical nerd, with no life or social
skills.
Lars Brinkhoff
> it's not clear that RMS's decision to back Unix stands up to
> hindsight. But he ported Emacs, Dired, and Info from ITS to Unix,
> and changed the Emacs scripting language from TECO to Lisp.
Also, in the original announcement of the GNU Project, Lisp had a
promient place, for example as a system programming language
(presumably on equal footing with C):
Lieven Marchand
> I find it deeply disturbing when I see people with "Learning vi"
> on their desks. I can understand old hands, who have used vi for
> years and have it hardcoded into their fingertips, not wanting to
> switch to Emacs (because vi is better for _them_), but a study has
> confirmed that Emacs is better for novices, and it goes without
> saying that it's better for experienced Emacs users.
As an old hand, I use both. vi is ideally suited for sysadmin type
stuff. Change a config file. su to different user. Restart services,
ssh to other machine, do stuff there. Emacs is better for long edits,
programming, reading mail and news, etc.
--
When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns,
they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They did this for two
years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of
time. B5 --- In the Beginning
Donald Fisk
>
> Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> writes:
>
> > I find it deeply disturbing when I see people with "Learning vi"
> > on their desks. I can understand old hands, who have used vi for
> > years and have it hardcoded into their fingertips, not wanting to
> > switch to Emacs (because vi is better for _them_), but a study has
> > confirmed that Emacs is better for novices, and it goes without
> > saying that it's better for experienced Emacs users.
>
> As an old hand, I use both. vi is ideally suited for sysadmin type
> stuff. Change a config file. su to different user. Restart services,
> ssh to other machine, do stuff there.
The only advantage it gives is that it is smaller and starts up
faster, advantages shared by TECO, which I occasionally use (the
DEC version, not the one that runs on ITS). But if you're used
to vi, you might as well continue to use it. As long as I don't
have to.
> Emacs is better for long edits,
> programming, reading mail and news, etc.
Agreed. And anyone who uses vi for editing Lisp programs deserves
to lose.
Michael Sullivan
> Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> writes:
> > I find it deeply disturbing when I see people with "Learning vi"
> > on their desks. I can understand old hands, who have used vi for
> > years and have it hardcoded into their fingertips, not wanting to
> > switch to Emacs (because vi is better for _them_), but a study has
> > confirmed that Emacs is better for novices, and it goes without
> > saying that it's better for experienced Emacs users.
> As an old hand, I use both. vi is ideally suited for sysadmin type
> stuff. Change a config file. su to different user. Restart services,
> ssh to other machine, do stuff there. Emacs is better for long edits,
> programming, reading mail and news, etc.
vi is smaller and starts up faster. Other than that it has *zero*
advantage over emacs. On a modern computer that startup is not
significant anyway. If it is, I'd just as soon use pico as vi. Yes, if
I wanted to spend a few months in hell, I would eventually
finger-memorize enough commands to get used to vi's satanic interface,
and I realize that once you learn it, vi is incredibly powerful for such
a teeny little program, but what's the point? How hard is it really to
start up emacs? Once you're in emacs (or jove -- what I used when I was
on unix years ago), the interface for shelling out is pretty convenient.
I never felt like I needed to stop/restart jove all the time even when I
was working on a single vt102. IIRC, emacs is even better in this
respect.
The only advantage to knowing vi is that you become comfortable when
faced with a bare unix install that includes only a torture instrument
where you would expect to find a text editor.
vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
still considered the standard unix text editor.
Michael
Erik Naggum
| The only advantage to knowing vi is that you become comfortable when
| faced with a bare unix install that includes only a torture instrument
| where you would expect to find a text editor.
Do you mean `ed´?
| vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
| displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
| still considered the standard unix text editor.
No, `ed´ is the standard text editor. It says so right here in the 7th
edition Unix manual.
Tim Bradshaw
> vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
> displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
> still considered the standard unix text editor.
When did vi become the standard UNIX text editor? ed is the standard
text editor. When I use an editor, I don't want to waste time with
megabytes of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I
just want an editor!! To quote the great Scott Schwartz: `Why would
you want anything else? Smaller is better, because you don't waste
space. On a real system you will have hundreds or thousands of
independent processes in execution, so it would be bad to have them
burn more memory than necessary. On a real system you want to take
advantage of the system's basic mechanisms.' The mighty prophet has
spoken: hear his words of wisdom. Ed is the only text editor worthy of
the name. Ed I tell you, ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
--tim
Tim Lavoie
Erik> * Michael Sullivan | The only advantage to knowing vi is
Erik> that you become comfortable when
Erik> |faced with a bare unix install that includes only a torture
Erik> |instrument where you would expect to find a text editor.
Erik> Do you mean `ed´?
Erik> | vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has
Erik> ever been my
Erik> |displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze
Erik> me that it |is still considered the standard unix text
Erik> editor.
Erik> No, `ed´ is the standard text editor. It says so right
Erik> here in the 7th edition Unix manual.
The reason that ed is the standard editor is to remind you that things
could be worse, and once were.
--
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
subject."
-- Winston Churchill
Thomas F. Burdick
> * Michael Sullivan wrote:
>
> > vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
> > displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
> > still considered the standard unix text editor.
>
> When did vi become the standard UNIX text editor? ed is the standard
> text editor. When I use an editor, I don't want to waste time with
> megabytes of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I
> just want an editor!!
[...]
> Ed is the only text editor worthy of the name.
Of course! Personally, when I'm EDiting, I want an editor, not a
vi-itor, or an emacsitor! Of course, lisping is different from
editing, tho when I'm lithping, I uthe my emacthitor, emacs. (In all
honestly, I find ed easier to use than vi, but I think that's because
of my personal history involving DOS and edlin). Oh, and I'm pretty
sure that /sbin/reboot is the most user-hostile program ever written.
Every time I try to run it, to fix my boots, it crashes the whole
machine!
--
/|_ .-----------------------.
,' .\ / | No to Imperialist war |
,--' _,' | Wage class war! |
/ / `-----------------------'
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
Michael Sullivan
> * Michael Sullivan
> | The only advantage to knowing vi is that you become comfortable when
> | faced with a bare unix install that includes only a torture instrument
> | where you would expect to find a text editor.
>
> Do you mean `ed´?
> | vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
> | displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
> | still considered the standard unix text editor.
> No, `ed´ is the standard text editor. It says so right here in the 7th
> edition Unix manual.
Make that *two* torture instruments in place of a text editor.
Michael
Fred Gilham
?
--
Fred Gilham gil...@csl.sri.com
When trying to reach the lowest common denominator, you have to be
prepared for the occasional division by zero.
Doug McNaught
> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
>
> > The mighty prophet has
> > spoken: hear his words of wisdom. Ed is the only text editor worthy of
> > the name. Ed I tell you, ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
> >
> > --tim
>
> ?
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~smikes/emacs/ed.html
-Doug
Joe Marshall
> Why he [Stallman] backed a Unix-like system
> at this point is a mystery to me, when he clearly preferred ITS, and
> probably the non-Genera LispM OS (BTW what was that called?) ...
Zetalisp or Lisp Machine Lisp.
Michael Sullivan
> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
> > When did vi become the standard UNIX text editor? ed is the standard
> > text editor. When I use an editor, I don't want to waste time with
> > megabytes of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I
> > just want an editor!! To quote the great Scott Schwartz: `Why would
> > you want anything else? Smaller is better, because you don't waste
> > space. On a real system you will have hundreds or thousands of
> > independent processes in execution, so it would be bad to have them
> > burn more memory than necessary. On a real system you want to take
> > advantage of the system's basic mechanisms.' The mighty prophet has
> > spoken: hear his words of wisdom. Ed is the only text editor worthy of
> > the name. Ed I tell you, ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD!!!
> >
> > --tim
> ?
^C
--
Michael Sullivan
Business Card Express of CT Thermographers to the Trade
Cheshire, CT mic...@bcect.com
Donald Fisk
I knew that's what the Lisp was called. I was wondering whether
there was a separate name for the operating system (like there is
on Symbolics hardware -- Symbolics Common Lisp vs. Genera) --
apparently not, then. Thanks.
Fred Gilham
> > ?
>
> ^C
?
(At least that's what it does when I try it.)
--
Fred Gilham gil...@csl.sri.com
The vicissitudes of history, however, have not dissuaded them from
their earnest search for a "third way" between socialism and
capitalism, namely socialism. --- Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Dorai Sitaram
Michael Sullivan <m...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>vi is smaller and starts up faster. Other than that it has *zero*
>advantage over emacs. On a modern computer that startup is not
>significant anyway. If it is, I'd just as soon use pico as vi. Yes, if
>I wanted to spend a few months in hell, I would eventually
>finger-memorize enough commands to get used to vi's satanic interface,
>and I realize that once you learn it, vi is incredibly powerful for such
>a teeny little program, but what's the point? How hard is it really to
>start up emacs? Once you're in emacs (or jove -- what I used when I was
>on unix years ago), the interface for shelling out is pretty convenient.
>I never felt like I needed to stop/restart jove all the time even when I
>was working on a single vt102. IIRC, emacs is even better in this
>respect.
>
>The only advantage to knowing vi is that you become comfortable when
>faced with a bare unix install that includes only a torture instrument
>where you would expect to find a text editor.
>
>vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
>displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
>still considered the standard unix text editor.
I remember vi was _extremely_ frustrating when I
tried using it in brief encounters while I was an emacs
user, which I was for about a decade or so.
However, exigency dictated that I pick up vi in earnest
without slacking off, and now I can't use emacs
because, to my baffled amusement, inertia is
pointing the other way. Now I use vi for editing
everything, including Lisp.
BTW, I think the true social advantage of vi over emacs
isn't that vi is ubiquitous as that one can
easily sneak it in anywhere one finds it missing. All
it requires is a one-second under-the-radar ftp of one
unobtrusive file into the alien territory. Injecting
emacs so cavalierly is unthinkable.
(This kind of quick installability is really a
property of the vi clones rather than of classic vi,
which, even though it is less usable (single undo, one
buffer, no windows), is ironically much more difficult
to obtain.)
Kaz Kylheku
> * Michael Sullivan wrote:
>
> > vi is absolutely *the* most user-hostile program it has ever been my
> > displeasure to get stuck using. It never ceases to amaze me that it is
> > still considered the standard unix text editor.
>
> When did vi become the standard UNIX text editor?
Circa 1989 or 1990 when its command interface was enshrined in POSIX.2.
:)
Christopher C. Stacy
Donald> Joe Marshall wrote:
>>
>> Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> writes:
>>
>> > Why he [Stallman] backed a Unix-like system
>> > at this point is a mystery to me, when he clearly preferred ITS, and
>> > probably the non-Genera LispM OS (BTW what was that called?) ...
>>
>> Zetalisp or Lisp Machine Lisp.
Donald> I knew that's what the Lisp was called. I was wondering whether
Donald> there was a separate name for the operating system (like there is
Donald> on Symbolics hardware -- Symbolics Common Lisp vs. Genera) --
Donald> apparently not, then. Thanks.
Just "The Lisp Machine".
Hannah Schroeter
Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> wrote:
>[...]
>Agreed. And anyone who uses vi for editing Lisp programs deserves
>to lose.
What's wrong with vim and :set lisp ai?
Kind regards,
Hannah.
Joe Marshall
> Joe Marshall wrote:
> >
> > Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> writes:
> >
> > > Why he [Stallman] backed a Unix-like system
> > > at this point is a mystery to me, when he clearly preferred ITS, and
> > > probably the non-Genera LispM OS (BTW what was that called?) ...
> >
> > Zetalisp or Lisp Machine Lisp.
>
> I knew that's what the Lisp was called. I was wondering whether
> there was a separate name for the operating system (like there is
> on Symbolics hardware -- Symbolics Common Lisp vs. Genera) --
> apparently not, then. Thanks.
Nah, there wasn't a sexy name.
Oleg
> Aleksandr Skobelev <publi...@list.ru> writes:
>
> > Hmm. How should we call hackers using CL? Probably, 'CLackers'? :)
>
> Pronounced with a soft C, i.e. Slackers? :-)
Lisp Hacker == Lacker
Donald Fisk
>
> Hello!
>
> Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> wrote:
> >[...]
>
> >Agreed. And anyone who uses vi for editing Lisp programs deserves
> >to lose.
>
> What's wrong with vim and :set lisp ai?
Repent before it is too late!
Seriously, vim is not the true vi, and if it's now got Lisp syntax
awareness it might actually be adequate. Just don't ask me to use
it though.
> Hannah.
Tagore Smith
The problem with vi, etc. is that it (they) doesn't (don't) actually
include a lisp implementation. :). (even if elisp is confusing to a CL
programmer).
Tagore Smith
Dorai Sitaram
Hannah Schroeter <han...@schlund.de> wrote:
>Hello!
>
>Donald Fisk <hibou000...@enterprise.net> wrote:
>>[...]
>
>>Agreed. And anyone who uses vi for editing Lisp programs deserves
>>to lose.
>
>What's wrong with vim and :set lisp ai?
The biggest (only?) outstanding problem with this
is that Vim's lisp indentation is unable to correctly
ignore backslashed parens (as in #\( #\) ). It can
ignore any parens (backslashed or otherwise) in
"strings" and backslashed parens inside single-quotes
(cf C-like languages), which is OK but not good enough
for Lisp.
The paren-matcher % also fails to skip over
backslashed parens.
From what I can tell, it looks like if the
paren-matcher got fixed -- at least when the 'lisp'
option is set -- to ignore backslashed parens, than the
Lisp indentation will be automatically fixed,
since the latter invokes the former internally.
If I had some time and skill to analyze the C code, I'd
submit a fix. Maybe some of you Vimming Lispers are
intrigued by this enough to take this on, so let
me just say that it's all localized in one (huge)
function called findmatchlimit() in search.c.
For the moment, I'm making do with an indent file I
wrote in Vim's extension language, but using Vim's
internal lispindent, provided it's fixed, would be much
better.
Bob Bane
Donald Fisk wrote:
>
> Seriously, vim is not the true vi, and if it's now got Lisp syntax
> awareness it might actually be adequate. Just don't ask me to use
> it though.
>
The true vi has had ":set lisp" since roughly the dawn of time. The Franz Lisp group insisted.
Granted, ":set lisp" is pretty weak - it mainly changes auto-indent to be more Lisp-friendly.
I did my thesis research in 1983-5 on a time-shared VAX where it was
anti-social enough just running Lisp, much less Lisp and emacs together,
so I did my code editing with vi.
Tim Bradshaw
> http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~smikes/emacs/ed.html
I should own up that my article was, of course, ripped off from the
classic you quote above. I should have acknowledged it.
--tim (been using vi all week...)
Hannah Schroeter
Tagore Smith <tag...@tagoresmith.com> wrote:
>[...]
>The problem with vi, etc. is that it (they) doesn't (don't) actually
>include a lisp implementation. :). (even if elisp is confusing to a CL
>programmer).
I.e. if you want to do CL programming, you need to run a separate
CL implementation anyway, regardless whether you use vi(m) or
Emacs.
And vim is less work to setup compared to Emacs + Ilisp + ..., i.e.
the defaults are nearer to what is reasonable for me.
(:set lisp ai showmatch and I'm done).
Kind regards,
Hannah.
Oleg
Do you use Larry Clapp's VILisp with it? If not, how do you send
S-expressions to Lisp from VIM?
Oleg
Dorai Sitaram
Oleg <oleg_i...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>Hannah Schroeter wrote:
>>
>> I.e. if you want to do CL programming, you need to run a separate
>> CL implementation anyway, regardless whether you use vi(m) or
>> Emacs.
>>
>> And vim is less work to setup compared to Emacs + Ilisp + ..., i.e.
>> the defaults are nearer to what is reasonable for me.
>> (:set lisp ai showmatch and I'm done).
>
>Do you use Larry Clapp's VILisp with it? If not, how do you send
>S-expressions to Lisp from VIM?
Cut-n-paste the relevant region from a buffer, or load
(saved) files, of course. The only possible
downside I can see to this is that the Lisp is running
in a window that will not have the "infinite" (8 meg?)
scrollability of an emacs window.
Hannah Schroeter
Dorai Sitaram <ds...@gte.com> wrote:
>[...]
>Cut-n-paste the relevant region from a buffer, or load
>(saved) files, of course. The only possible
>downside I can see to this is that the Lisp is running
>in a window that will not have the "infinite" (8 meg?)
>scrollability of an emacs window.
xterm or screen scrollback is usually enough for me. If not,
I raise the limit.
Kind regards,
Hannah.