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Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: LISP format (happy to read)
References: <604dab8.0111230328.602f3907@posting.google.com> <3215523442017539@naggum.net>
From: michael wolf <m...@dodgysoftware.net>
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Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2001 22:30:53 GMT
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Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.net> writes:

>   I cannot _fathom_ what people are thinking when they start to use a new
>   programming language but are so stuck in their old programming language
>   that they have stopped listening to their surroundings and have stopped
>   taking in new information very relevant to their ability to learn the new
>   language.  

I can't answer that in the general case (maybe it's a case of relating
what's new to what you know to an unhappy extreme), but the case of
people using Lisp and leaving )s in places more or less analogous to
}s in C is probably due to poor instruction.  

Some people are introduced to lisp as part of an AI subject, and
getting into too much detail is viewed as tangential to the overall
goal of learning AI.  If a poor lecturer doesn't require students to
buy a book such as Graham and instead gives out some handouts, and if
those handouts sometimes "confuse" )s with }s, well, that'll be the path
of least resistance.  

Actually, it won't be the path of least resistance, but it'll appear
to be on first glance.  (Writing lisp when you're thinking in C is
pretty frustrating.)

Trying to explain from experience, not defend.

mike

-- 
Michael Wolf                        
http://www.netspace.net.au/~mwolf/pgp.txt
F433 5BBB CDA1 AAB3 0EE8  8A25 CBAC B8A3 372A BCDF