lisp
Indigo
I had to learn some at college for a project, it seemed antiquated and the
syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
I've got a full version on Linux, and a reference book, but now I've
discovered Java, is it worth bothering.
Like, does anyone use Fortran or Cobol any more either?
Java rocks!
-- kes
Owen Nieuwenhuyse
Indigo <indigose...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9v635g$ojj$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Does anyone still use Lisp?
>
> I had to learn some at college for a project, it seemed antiquated and the
> syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
>
> I've got a full version on Linux, and a reference book, but now I've
ON:
The version in CLIPS is quite interesting.
The advantage is that you can get structures to self-evolve,
as the functional definition is part of the data.
The disadvantage is that a complex structure gets incomprehensible
pretty quickly.
Maybe it needs a basic-like interface layer on top so that you can actually
read the results.
A disadvantage of layering like this is that it is not very machine-optimal
for speed.
How about creating just-in-time compilers for each level?
Gary G Forbis
Always use the right tool for the right job.
Sometimes the tool you know how to use is the right tool.
Sometimes the tool that is handy is the right tool.
I spend most of my work day using COBOL and ABF (an ingres tool).
I do a bit of korn shell scripts but not too much.
Language wars are the pits. There's little to be gained by them
and AI functions above such levels.
It turns out Unisys Cobol74 has an autoinsertion feature they
intend to deimplement with releases after January 2002. To
understand this consider the C printf command, for example
printf("everything but %s is autoinsertion","this");
Cobol uses picture clauses with tightly defined insertion characters.
...
05 an-example pic zz,zzz,zz9.99.
05 an-illegal-but-common-example pic xxx-xx-xxxx.
Unisys decided not to support the extension in Cobol74 so I
was asked to find the illegal insertion characters in all our
programs. I could have compiled all the programs then searched
the compile listings for the warning message but I'm pretty sure
I'd get a lot of irate users on my hands by flooding the system
with compiles so I wrote a quick and dirty program. Did I use
lisp, prolog, basic, java, or C? No. Cobol85 was handy so I
used it. Sometimes the tool that is handy is the right tool.
Indigo
"Gary G Forbis" <forbi...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:ugQSXBwgBHA.1804@cpimsnntpa03...
That's interesting, I hadn't realised Cobol was still used anywhere.
And I think you're right, like artists, programmers should be able to
transcend the medium...
Still, I challenge anyone to be bothered to write good AI in QBASIC! :)
-- kes
Arthur T. Murray
> Does anyone still use Lisp?
>
> I had to learn some at college for a project, it seemed
> antiquated and the syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
http://mind.sourceforge.net/lisp.html -- Open Source AI.)
>
> I've got a full version on Linux, and a reference book,
> but now I've discovered Java, is it worth bothering.
>
> Like, does anyone use Fortran or Cobol any more either?
>
> Java rocks!
>
> -- kes
Arthur T. Murray, http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/
--
The first-ever Mentifex post on Usenet (on 28 January 1985):
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=d9098e459276596f&rnum=1
Martin Cote
people still use LISP. In fact, many companies such as Oracle or AMD have
Scheme licenses to controle a few of their modules where C++ or Java doesn't
give good performances.
And yes, Prolog and LISP are widely used in AI.
Don't despair ;)
M.
rick++
high-level langages written in the 1950s. Its author, John McCarthy of Stanford
was a very creative A.I. research and a usenet personality you can now see
on google's recently restored postings from the 1980s.
MIT still requires all its computer scientists and electrical engineers-
about half of its undergraduates- to use lisp in its introductory computer
course. The current version, called SCHEME, is structured and object-oriented.
MIT assumes many of its undergraduates have extensive experience in one of the
trendy commercial languages. This course is completely on the web under the
number 6.001 .
Jochen Schmidt
> I have been using Scheme (a LISP dialect) for about a year now, so yes,
> many
> people still use LISP. In fact, many companies such as Oracle or AMD have
> Scheme licenses to controle a few of their modules where C++ or Java
> doesn't give good performances.
>
> And yes, Prolog and LISP are widely used in AI.
Minor sidenote: We tend to call it "Lisp" and not "LISP" this days...
ciao,
Jochen
Jochen Schmidt
> I have been using Scheme (a LISP dialect) for about a year now, so yes,
> many
> people still use LISP. In fact, many companies such as Oracle or AMD have
> Scheme licenses to controle a few of their modules where C++ or Java
> doesn't give good performances.
>
> And yes, Prolog and LISP are widely used in AI.
Minor sidenote: We tend to call it "Lisp" and not "LISP" this days...
ciao,
Jochen
LocalFolk
>>> Does anyone still use Lisp?...
>>> syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
Does anyone still use "bloomin' "? :-)
>>> Java rocks!
It totally does. Just not enough. :-(
Gary Forbis:
>> I spend most of my work day using COBOL...
kes:
>That's interesting, I hadn't realised Cobol was still used anywhere.
Took the words...
>And I think you're right, like artists, programmers should be able to
>transcend the medium...
Whatchoo mean, *like* artists? :-)
>Still, I challenge anyone to be bothered to write good AI in QBASIC! :)
Not to wax *too* ironic... I was actually going to follow up
touting the advantages of *any* interpreted language, particularly
flavors of basic, for their simplicity and text-orientation.
I would have actually mentioned QBasic by name.
Here is what I mean. Function overloading. Cool idea, but it has its
limits. One (obvious) limit is that the signature of a function
excludes its return value. Not that that would be a problem, *today*,
but 2 years down the road, when it *becomes* a problem,
how, exactly, do you overcome it? Java 3? I don't know about
you, but when I'm on my trip to Jupiter, I don't want to have to
wait for Sun's SDK 1.3.1 (assuming 50 years from now) to ship
in order to solve my particular problem.
GF:
>> Language wars are the pits.
Try to think of this as a deep--but friendly--discussion! :-)
-beAr
Charlie Gibbs
(Jochen Schmidt) writes:
It's so hard to keep up with which names are all caps and which aren't.
(Ada definitely isn't!) Was LISP once an acronym? (Aside from "Lots
of Irritating Spurious Parentheses, of course.)
--
cgi...@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.
I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply,
appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it.
Gary G Forbis
news:930.746T7...@sky.bus.com...
> Was LISP once an acronym? (Aside from "Lots
> of Irritating Spurious Parentheses, of course.)
LISt Processing. Though that seems a bit contrived.
Indigo
"LocalFolk" <loca...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20011212151909...@mb-cq.aol.com...
> Indigo (kes):
> >>> Does anyone still use Lisp?...
> >>> syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
>
> Does anyone still use "bloomin' "? :-)
bloomin' loads of people do - when they're trying not to swear!
> >>> Java rocks!
>
> It totally does. Just not enough. :-(
>
> Gary Forbis:
> >> I spend most of my work day using COBOL...
>
> kes:
> >That's interesting, I hadn't realised Cobol was still used anywhere.
>
> Took the words...
>
> >And I think you're right, like artists, programmers should be able to
> >transcend the medium...
>
> Whatchoo mean, *like* artists? :-)
Am waiting for the fine art world to wake up to computer games as the
postmodern art form of the future....
> >Still, I challenge anyone to be bothered to write good AI in QBASIC! :)
>
> Not to wax *too* ironic... I was actually going to follow up
> touting the advantages of *any* interpreted language, particularly
> flavors of basic, for their simplicity and text-orientation.
> I would have actually mentioned QBasic by name.
It's fun to muck about with, but wait 'til you have 40 pages of code and
want a proper IDE!
> Here is what I mean. Function overloading. Cool idea, but it has its
> limits. One (obvious) limit is that the signature of a function
> excludes its return value. Not that that would be a problem, *today*,
> but 2 years down the road, when it *becomes* a problem,
> how, exactly, do you overcome it? Java 3? I don't know about
> you, but when I'm on my trip to Jupiter, I don't want to have to
> wait for Sun's SDK 1.3.1 (assuming 50 years from now) to ship
> in order to solve my particular problem.
But you'll have HAL to keep you company. :)
LocalFolk
>> Was LISP once an acronym? (Aside from "Lots
>> of Irritating Spurious Parentheses, of course.)
>
>LISt Processing. Though that seems a bit contrived.
Actually, both are correct. However, LISP
diguises trees as lists, so it should really
be called TRee Processing
TRiP
-beAr
ex- LISPaholic
LocalFolk
Indigo (kes):
>bloomin' loads of people do - when they're trying not to swear!
Thou art a vanishing breed!
>Am waiting for the fine art world to wake up to computer games as the
>postmodern art form of the future....
Look how long it took for them to come 'round and
recongnize Norman Rockwell, or (fer Pete's sake)
Maxfield Parrish!!! They are allergic to commerce.
Even when commerical art overshadows their
collective prowess.
I feel for the first AI artist. Good Luck!
>>...QBasic...
>It's fun to muck about with, but wait 'til you have 40 pages of code and
>want a proper IDE!
Serious AI shouldn't take more than 10! It then *becomes*
the IDE!
>> ...when I'm on my trip to Jupiter, I don't want to have to
>> wait for Sun's SDK 1.3.1 (assuming 50 years from now) to ship
>But you'll have HAL to keep you company. :)
Bloody 'AL!
-beAr
"Be the IDE, Danny.... Be the IDE."
Carl Gay
> MIT still requires all its computer scientists and electrical engineers-
> about half of its undergraduates- to use lisp in its introductory computer
> course. The current version, called SCHEME, is structured and object-oriented.
Scheme (also not usually uppercased) isn't "the current
version" of Lisp, it is just one dialect. Probably the
one used most in business/research is Common Lisp, though
I have only anecdotal evidence for that.
Scheme is not object oriented, but it is easy enough to
build OO features with it and then use it in an OO style.
Most people would refer to it as a functional language.
Common Lisp has a full object system (CLOS) built into
the language.
[I don't usually read comp.ai.philosophy, so I may not
see replies. I found this article while reading
comp.lang.java.programmer for some reason.]
Raphael Jolly
20011213145307...@mb-dd.aol.com...
> >> Does anyone still use "bloomin' "? :-)
>
> Indigo (kes):
> >bloomin' loads of people do - when they're trying not to swear!
>
> Thou art a vanishing breed!
>
> >Am waiting for the fine art world to wake up to computer games as the
> >postmodern art form of the future....
>
> Look how long it took for them to come 'round and
> recongnize Norman Rockwell, or (fer Pete's sake)
> Maxfield Parrish!!! They are allergic to commerce.
> Even when commerical art overshadows their
> collective prowess.
>
> I feel for the first AI artist. Good Luck!
There are already some:
for instance.
Janosch Zwerensky
>Does anyone still use Lisp?
I like Scheme a lot, which is a Lisp dialect.
Being a mathematics student, most of the lectures I hear require no
programming, but in those lectures where I had to do programming exercises, I
did them in Scheme whenever I was allowed to. So far, this worked fine for me.
>I had to learn some at college for a project, it seemed antiquated and the
>syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
I feel much more convenient with the language structure of Scheme than with the
major imperative languages like C or Java.
>Java rocks!
Comes down to what you want to do, I'd say.
Regards,
Janosch.
Indigo
"Janosch Zwerensky" <zwer...@nahoo.de> wrote in message
news:9vgmhg$ti9$07$1...@news.t-online.com...
My question is answered, it seems a lot of people still use lisp.
Perhaps I'll have a go sometime soon, I've got POPLOG lisp on linux (also
includes POP-11, PROLOG and ML)
Hard to get books on LISP though (got an introduction and a reference
manual, a bit out of date)
Cheers Ears,
-- kes
Mark
>Does anyone still use Lisp?
>
>I had to learn some at college for a project, it seemed antiquated and the
>syntax was bloomin' rubbish.
Syntax is irrelevant. It all goes down the same stomach. So you're
free to put ketchup on your ice cream without any ill effect.
Yeswehavenobananas
I found learning LISP an interesting experience persoanlly, but I can see
how some people would have a little more trouble.
"Mark" <whop...@alpha2.csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message
news:a0aunk$f8d$1...@uwm.edu...