Job Market for Lisp and Haskell programmers, serious question.
Robert
were flippant.
Subject matter expertise obviously matters as much as choice of
programming language. And if you're creating , say , your own web
server , then you get to choose the language. But in most jobs, the
choice is already made for you.
I can see certain areas where Lisp is likely the best choice, with
Python close behind ( both are much better at tree manipulation than C/
C++ ). Haskell is newer and more restrictive.
But my question is about todays job market in large American cities.
Also, many programming jobs are flooded with immigrants, so the effect
of globalisation on salaries is a relevant question, since American
society is much more open than Europe to asian immigrants.
xah...@gmail.com
> Actually it was a serious question. I don't know why all 4 responses
> were flippant.
>
> Subject matter expertise obviously matters as much as choice of
> programming language. And if you're creating , say , your own web
> server , then you get to choose the language. But in most jobs, the
> choice is already made for you.
Serious, eh?
What is it, specifically, you want to know or discuss??
> I can see certain areas where Lisp is likely the best choice, with
> Python close behind ( both are much better at tree manipulation than C/
> C++ ). Haskell is newer and more restrictive.
you wanted to know the job market of lisp in game programing? in web
programing? in sys admin? They are practically nil.
If you have fairly above average IQ like me, then, my general advice
for long-term career choices is that pursue what you like and the
bosses will compete their heads off to employ you. While you are still
in a shoehorning stage, you can meanwhile mop McDonald's toilets.
If you are average IQ and need bread and butter soon, just learn Java,
HTML and Javascript and sql and PHP, VisualBasic, perl.
> But my question is about todays job market in large American cities.
To get a general sense of job market for lisp or haskell in a
geographic area, you can just do a search in job sites. Dice.com and
monster.com are classics.
> Also, many programming jobs are flooded with immigrants, so the effect
> of globalisation on salaries is a relevant question, since American
> society is much more open than Europe to asian immigrants.
Hum? what is the question you have in mind exactly?
You want to know what's lisper's average of salary in comparison to,
say, the average of java programer's salary, in say, Kenny's town? You
want the arithemetic mean or medium?
I'm interested to know too. I don't mean to be off putting, but you'll
have more chances of knowing these answers by asking a librarian in a
library, or join a moderated forum on social science related studies.
For general resources, you can start with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_outsourcing
and follow its articles and references.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Kenny
> Actually it was a serious question. I don't know why all 4 responses
> were flippant.
We have a choice. Laugh or cry.
>
> Subject matter expertise obviously matters as much as choice of
> programming language. And if you're creating , say , your own web
> server , then you get to choose the language. But in most jobs, the
> choice is already made for you.
>
> I can see certain areas where Lisp is likely the best choice, with
> Python close behind ( both are much better at tree manipulation than C/
> C++ ). Haskell is newer and more restrictive.
>
> But my question is about todays job market in large American cities.
I cannot even find a COBOL job, and I looked. And I am so broke I cannot
even afford bartender's school. It's Algebra or bust!
>
> Also, many programming jobs are flooded with immigrants, so the effect
> of globalisation on salaries is a relevant question, since American
> society is much more open than Europe to asian immigrants.
>
True. And it does not matter, if the colored people can't come to your
jobs, the jobs will travel to them.
kt
--
$$$$$: http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
Cells: http://common-lisp.net/project/cells/
BSlog: http://smuglispweeny.blogspot.com/
Don Geddis
> If you have fairly above average IQ like me
Really? What's your IQ, then? I'm curious what number corresponds to
"fairly above average".
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
Tamas K Papp
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
>> If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> Really? What's your IQ, then? I'm curious what number corresponds to
> "fairly above average".
To quote the Hungarian poet Sándor Weöres (my translation):
Pete is stoopid
Kate is stoopid
I am the only smart one
I even have brains up my ass
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
>
> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> Really? What's your IQ, then? I'm curious what number corresponds to
> "fairly above average".
So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Ali
> If you have fairly above average IQ like me
With an above average IQ, you should be able to put an intelligent
guess at Robert's IQ from his writing.
Personally, I thought he seemed to also have an above average IQ and
could safely ignore telling him which trends and technologies to go
learn.
Anyway, this page might help and also gives a good indication as to
the job market, practically nil.
Luckily, there are practically nil fellow lispers to compete with you!
http://lispjobs.wordpress.com/
Anagram
107675...@v57g2000hse.googlegroups.com:
> Actually it was a serious question. I don't know why all 4 responses
> were flippant.
It's because "Lisp Programmer" and "Haskell Programmer" don't really make
sense as job titles. Lisp and Haskell programming is not low level grunt
work. You don't find many professional Lisp managers whose careers are to
manage groups of Lisp programmers. It would be far more common that one
person would do all the work of the whole project. The job title might be
vice president or something like that.
Don Geddis
I've been making no claims about my IQ.
You're the one who seemed to have no problem discussing your own IQ.
So I was curious what the number was. After all, you brought it up.
As for me: I will admit this: my IQ, as measured by clinical professionals,
is within a few standard deviations of normal. At most 4-5 deviations from
average, surely not more than that.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
If you want to sue somebody, just get a little plastic skeleton and lay it in
their yard. Then tell them their ants ate your baby.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Scott Burson
>
> As for me: I will admit this: my IQ, as measured by clinical professionals,
> is within a few standard deviations of normal. At most 4-5 deviations from
> average, surely not more than that.
Boy, that's humble! :)
Even 4 standard deviations out makes you about 1 in 30,000; for 5,
it's about 1 in 3 million. So yes, "surely not more than that" :)
-- Scott
Kenny
You will need an a-list: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,
bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic,
and existential.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
kt
xah...@gmail.com
> > So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
>
> You will need an a-list: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,
> bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic,
> and existential.
> --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
They missed sexual intelligence.
I'm a classist. I'm not interested in this motherfucking post-
modernist fuckface's views. When it comes to intelligence, there is
just one, what these motherfuckers would call logical-mathematical.
When you broaden it to other areas, intelligence as a concept ceases
to be meaningful.
For example, there's SETI (Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). Now, are
we assuming that aliens don't have musical intelligence? intraprsonal
intelligence? Naturalistic intelligence? and these mothefucker's
existential intelligence?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>
> > On Aug 15, 4:55 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> >> Really? What's your IQ, then? I'm curious what number corresponds to
> >> "fairly above average".
>
> > So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
>
> I've been making no claims about my IQ.
>
> You're the one who seemed to have no problem discussing your own IQ.
> So I was curious what the number was. After all, you brought it up.
LOL, Don, how ugly a exit strategy. May i suggest not be
confrontational on stage then?
> As for me: I will admit this: my IQ, as measured by clinical professionals,
> is within a few standard deviations of normal. At most 4-5 deviations from
> average, surely not more than that.
Publish it. Post it here. Post whatever certificates or test you have,
with a scan of the cert or test, date etc. When i see that you
published yours and mean it, i'll post mine.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Kenny
> Kenny wrote:
>
>
>>>So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
>>
>>You will need an a-list: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,
>>bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic,
>>and existential.
>> --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
>
>
> They missed sexual intelligence.
Probably just good manners.
>
> I'm a classist. I'm not interested in this motherfucking post-
> modernist fuckface's views.
> When it comes to intelligence, there is
> just one, what these motherfuckers would call logical-mathematical.
That does not make you a classicist, that makes you a
reactionaryhighscoringonlogicalmathematicalsoletsrestrictintelligencetothatist.
But your interpersonal is soaring, you oughta let that one in, too.
Meanwhile, I have to google some more, have no clue what naturalistic
and existential intelligence would be....
Ah, existential: "Existential intelligence can be defined as the ability
to be sensitive to, or have the capacity for, conceptualizing or
tackling deeper or larger questions about human existence, such as the
meaning of life, why are we born, why do we die, what is consciousness,
or how did we get here."
OK, where can I sign up for Xah's Reactionary IQ Army? That is not
intelligence, that is howbuddhistareyou?ence.
Naturalist IQ: ".. people possessing enhanced levels of [naturalist]
intelligence may also be very interested in other species, or in the
environment and the earth. "
Oh my. It may be too late to stop Them.
kt
Don Geddis
>> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
>> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> a scan of the cert or test, date etc. When i see that you published yours
> and mean it, i'll post mine.
Again, I'm not the one making any claims.
I just note that, as usual, you make strong assertions in your posts, but
when challenged to back up your statements with actual evidence, you
completely crumble.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Scott: You know, if you don't yell you're more likely to get what you want.
Boss: I want to yell.
Scott: I see. That is a flaw in the plan.
-- Basic Instructions, "How to Be Diplomatic", 5/4/2008
Don Geddis
Oh, but I was just putting bounds. Note my wording: I'm "within" those
bounds, "at most", "surely not more", etc. Merely somewhere (anywhere!)
inside that range.
Also, I note that you automatically assumed I was bragging. I was also
careful not to state that my IQ was even above average. The bounds are
symmetric on either side of the peak. Perhaps you should have pity for me!
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
When you want to accomplish something, there are different stages that you go
through. The first is to imagine yourself doing whatever it is. The second is
to light up a big cigar, because mister, she's as good as done.
-- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey [1999]
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>
> >> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
> >> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> > a scan of the cert or test, date etc. When i see that you published yours
> > and mean it, i'll post mine.
>
> Again, I'm not the one making any claims.
>
> I just note that, as usual, you make strong assertions in your posts, but
> when challenged to back up your statements with actual evidence, you
> completely crumble.
LOL.
Crumble my ass. It appears you, who completely crumbled.
My statement that IQ that lead to your challenge was:
«If you have fairly above average IQ like me, then, my general advice
for long-term career choices is that pursue what you like and the
bosses will compete their heads off to employ you. While you are still
in a shoehorning stage, you can meanwhile mop McDonald's toilets.»
The remark was made in the context of making fun about lisp jobs
status inquiry. You want to dig the Xah's IQ part.
LOL. Don, I LOL.
It appears to me, anytime some Lisper want to challenge me head to
head, then i follow up with explict terms, they put their tail between
their ass and run off all politely. This happened to Rainer, Geuner,
Tim, others, and now you.
I LOLz. Comp.lang.lisp makes me happy. As Roger Rabbit said in Who
Framed Roger Rabbit as he makes a silhouette of a window:
H A P P Y
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
Well, given that you seem to be unable to learn much Lisp beyond basic
Emacs scripting,
nobody here is impressed yet. Most of your posts show that you have a
confused understanding of Lisp. comp.lang.lisp seems to be your
favorite
newsgroup now, but you are on a beginner level. If somebody
shows you some basic Lisp code (like I showed you how to easily
implement your Mathematica function with a better interface) you
run away and can't find the post.
I haven't seen any significant amount of Lisp code (remember, this
is comp.lang.lisp) in all the years from you. All I saw is
some basic code how to script Emacs. All I see is long
text with often little information for this newsgroup. It's
not that everybody needs to be a good programmer, but from
you we have seen mostly zero.
Maybe it is about time to actually learn the programming language you
are
writing so much about?
xah...@gmail.com
world.lisp.de> wrote:
> On Aug 17, 1:20 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 16, 3:03 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>
> > > "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>
> > > >> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
> > > >> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> > > > Publish it. Post it here. Post whatever certificates or test you have, with
> > > > a scan of the cert or test, date etc. When i see that you published yours
> > > > and mean it, i'll post mine.
>
> > > Again, I'm not the one making any claims.
>
> > > I just note that, as usual, you make strong assertions in your posts, but
> > > when challenged to back up your statements with actual evidence, you
> > > completely crumble.
>
> > LOL.
>
> > Crumble my ass. It appears you, who completely crumbled.
>
> > My statement that IQ that lead to your challenge was:
> > «If you have fairly above average IQ like me, then, my general advice
> > for long-term career choices is that pursue what you like and the
> > bosses will compete their heads off to employ you. While you are still
> > in a shoehorning stage, you can meanwhile mop McDonald's toilets.»
>
> > The remark was made in the context of making fun about lisp jobs
>
> > LOL. Don, I LOL.
>
> > It appears to me, anytime some Lisper want to challenge me head to
> > head, then i follow up with explict terms, they put their tail between
> > their ass and run off all politely. This happened to Rainer, Geuner,
> > Tim, others, and now you.
>
> > I LOLz. Comp.lang.lisp makes me happy. As Roger Rabbit said in Who
> > Framed Roger Rabbit as he makes a silhouette of a window:
>
> > H A P P Y
>
> > Xah
> > ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> > ☄
>
> Well, given that you seem to be unable to learn much Lisp beyond basic
> Emacs scripting,
Huh? Rainer, suppose you have a argument in a bar, then you reasonably
proved that you are right. But the monkeys simply kept on about how
you are stupid and wrong? What can you do?
That seems to be my situation here in comp.lang.lisp, repeatedly. I
can again, start to write elaborately, cite url to past threads,
describe the situation, etc. But it's no use.
> nobody here is impressed yet.
You think?
> Most of your posts show that you have a
> confused understanding of Lisp.
Yeah, keep saying that doesn't make you right. You know at least that
right?
> comp.lang.lisp seems to be your
> favorite
> newsgroup now, but you are on a beginner level.
Yeah, keep saying that doesn't make you right. You know at least that
right?
> If somebody
> shows you some basic Lisp code (like I showed you how to easily
> implement your Mathematica function with a better interface) you
> run away and can't find the post.
Huh? And i gave you explanation on how you are just incorrect and just
very silly.
The thread is here:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_frm/thread/ee9519b32b4ef5d5/
You know, in science there's a priciple of falsifiable. That is, if a
claim is made, one important aspect of science with regards to claims
is whether it is falsifiable.
So, in our debates or argument, whatever the topic, it is often
possible, to make the claim, argument, or subject, in such as way,
that can clearly show which party is wrong. I have tried to suggest
this here and there. But you morons, simply ignores it. Then, just
kept claiming that how i was wrong.
I don't think i need to tress or repeat again, that i think you guys,
although knows lisp technical details, but as far as the general
argument here, especial on any argument against me, are completely
idiotic.
And again, this can be phrased into into a reasonable way so we can
all see who's all just hot air. Again, i tried to do this many times,
with end result that you morons simply become quite, or start to went
off completely off topic drivel, or whatnot.
As far as newsgroup goes, perhaps it is doomed to be stupid drivels
when it comes to issues or argument that has some element of opinion.
What can i do?
> I haven't seen any significant amount of Lisp code (remember, this
> is comp.lang.lisp) in all the years from you.
LOL. I didn't claim to have write many lisp code. What's your problem?
I have claimed, for example, that i know functional programing more
than you morons, and i have claimed and claim now, the fundamental
problems lisp as shown in my essay here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
We can, itemize the essay, make it into precise statements, and we can
argue in detail. The statements can be made so that each is verifiable
and falsifiable, and most of us would agree that it is a reasonable
rephrasing from my essay. Then, we can argue in detail about which. Do
you want to do that??
And also, perhaps you might consider the whole essay is rather ill
conceived by some wrong perspective, or perhaps there are more
important or practical perpective, etc. But you have to give detail
ok? You can't just say your opponent is wrong and think that you won a
argument, ok?
I mean, before i thought most morons in newsgroup just tried to fuck
around. I made this suggestion particular about you in some thread
maybe 6 months back. I made it explicit, a suggestion that we can each
put money in paypal, as some way to make sure at least we are sincere.
But if i recall, you more or less chicken out with some friendly
words.
Let me be more positive on this... since we don't have nothing to do.
Let me suggest, you pick some particular claim i made that you think
i'm stupid or wrong. Then, we can go on, with above guidelines perhaps
about precision of statement, verifiability, fasifiability, and any
other things about argument that make it a better one. Then, we can
argue in detail. So, in the end, we can see who's more right.
I'm not actually sure i want to do this since i'm quite tired and my
REPEATED tries to be reasonable are often met with fucking morons or
no response, here in this year, as well as the large, hundred+ threads
in gnu.emacs.help this month. (go ahead, you can read it in
group.google.com or nicely summarized and linked here bottom:
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/chat_style_posts.html
)
> All I saw is
> some basic code how to script Emacs.
Don't be a moron. What's scripting emacs has to do with what??
Well, i haven't see you post a single line of Mathematica. LOL.
All i see you do is posting Common Lisp scripts.
Is creditial you are after now?? hum?
I mean, i wrote some 500 or 1000 words on this to you in some thread
about maybe 6 months ago. You forgot it all? huuh?
What is your exact argument? What you trying to say??
Let me help you... are you trying to say, that because since i don't
have Common Lisp experience, and haven't written a lot emacs lisp,
therefore my lisp language criticism is wrong or incorrect?
Is that what you are trying to say? C'mon, no problem. If it is, it's
a valid statement. We can start to argue about that.
> All I see is long
> text with often little information for this newsgroup. It's
> not that everybody needs to be a good programmer, but from
> you we have seen mostly zero.
See above.
> Maybe it is about time to actually learn the programming language you are writing so much about?
I think, perhaps it is time, for you to open your eyes, and see that
the world doesn't revolve around Common Lisp.
I don't think this will ever happen. As i have explicitly said in one
of the criticisms on your posts, that whever other lang is mentioned
in a argument in a relevant way, you always as far as i've seen,
completely ignore it, then bury your head into Common Lisp.
I tried to not waste my time and type as fast as i can in this reply
because from my past experiences repsonding you to in any argument
that is negative on CL is fruitless.
Rainer, suppose you have a argument in a bar, then you reasonably
proved that you are right. But the monkeys simply kept on about how
you are stupid and wrong? What can i do?
What to do with the monkeys, seriously? I say 1+1 is 2, they say no.
Then i show them logic, then say logic is not all. Then i show
history, social context, but then they say it's all made up. I mention
science, they say science can be wrong. I mention philosophy about
epismitology, they say argument is not philosophy. I mention about 2
stones placed together makes it 2. They say that's obvious but 1+1 is
still not 2. I mention how abstraction is used, but they say stones
are not abstraction. Rainer, what to do with the monkeys? This happens
repeatedly here. Should i now take 10 min to find the exact url in
groups.google.com about these threads? hum? should i should i should
i? Is it worth that effort? worth it worth it worth it?
I mentioned, explicitly, in one of my post to you, that we could hire
arbitors for our argument. For example, we can hire renowned computer
scientists to judge their valuation of my criticism of lisp. The
hiring we can share, or prhaps someone knows someone can we can get
him in here. We can make sure, that the arbitor is fair, and his
result will be published say in some reputable publication. The
arbitor will be ones we both agree as qualified. Right? I suggested
this line of thought in the past, remember? But Rainer, what to do
with the monkeys?
Monkeys! Really fucking stupid monkeys. Stupid, fucking stupid,
moronic, sloppy, idiotic, dumb, lackluster, brainless. Very ignorant
about almost all subject except some technical details of CL.
Extremely stupid....
ok, this is what you get for fast typing. Try to respond, and i'll
respond appropriately. I don't fear of typing fast now. For the moment
i take a break of elaborate construction and composition. Folks,
respond! show me the degree of your moronicity, and i'll show you in
detail how it is so. (gratis!)
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
namekuseijin
> Kenny wrote:
> > > So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
>
> > You will need an a-list: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,
> > bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic,
> > and existential.
> > --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences
>
> They missed sexual intelligence.
Hey, I keep making the wrong choice for girlfriends. Am I a complete
sexual moron?
OTOH, the Dick always wins the Brains out in some tough dilemma. This
gotta mean something...
> I'm a classist. I'm not interested in this motherfucking post-
> modernist fuckface's views. When it comes to intelligence, there is
> just one, what these motherfuckers would call logical-mathematical.
I'd have to agree with that. BTW, the best music is always inherently
produced by logical-math minds...
namekuseijin
> On Aug 16, 4:40 pm, "jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de" <jos...@corporate-
> world.lisp.de> wrote:
> > On Aug 17, 1:20 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 16, 3:03 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>
> > > > "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>
> > > > >> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
> > > > >> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>
> > > > > Publish it. Post it here. Post whatever certificates or test you have, with
> > > > > a scan of the cert or test, date etc. When i see that you published yours
> > > > > and mean it, i'll post mine.
>
> > > > Again, I'm not the one making any claims.
>
> > > > I just note that, as usual, you make strong assertions in your posts, but
> > > > when challenged to back up your statements with actual evidence, you
> > > > completely crumble.
>
> > > LOL.
>
> > > Crumble my ass. It appears you, who completely crumbled.
Why do Lispers feed this troll so much? Arrogant, senseless,
downright ass sometimes. I like to LOL at some of his inconsequential
fun posts, but not when he acts like a nuisance.
> > > It appears to me, anytime some Lisper want to challenge me head to
> > > head, then i follow up with explict terms, they put their tail between
> > > their ass and run off all politely. This happened to Rainer, Geuner,
> > > Tim, others, and now you.
Well, it seems to me you're doing exactly what you claim they did.
I'd guess they preferred to just ignore a crazy man.
> That seems to be my situation here in comp.lang.lisp, repeatedly. I
> can again, start to write elaborately, cite url to past threads,
> describe the situation, etc. But it's no use.
Poor Xah. I'd recommend less drugs and hookers. They are driving you
insane, I tell you.
Kenny
The trick is an energy-saving one-liner high on wit and low on anger.
That manifests by example your superiority. And saves a lot of energy.
And scores better with the judges (the lurkers).
You see clearly you have no more hope with the average Usenet denizen
did Alice with her brunchmates, yet you persist. Doh!*
Your countryman said it best, "Win without fighting." Toss off a mot and
get on with yoru coding. Even if I slip and write something long and
angry I delete it all and replace with a one-liner.
Unless I am looped. :)
hth, kenny
* Wouldn't it be cool to have not a moderated forum but a /judged/
forum? Lurkers could score without unlurking? Talk about an addictive NG. k
---
http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/
Ali
solve new problems,
you would need that same intelligence to be musically intelligent
(solving problems in music).
Clearly proven by the fact that solving musical problems is a type of
solving new problems.
As far as I can skim-read, google doesn't want us to knol about
multiple intelligence either:
http://knol.google.com/k/boris-kazachenko/intelligence/27zxw65mxxlt7/2#
Although they also have articles on business intelligence [cries].
Don Geddis
> * Wouldn't it be cool to have not a moderated forum but a /judged/ forum?
> Lurkers could score without unlurking? Talk about an addictive NG. k
I greatly prefer threaded newsreaders for Usenet.
But in some sense, web forums like Digg or Reddit or Slashdot are much like
you suggest, aren't they? A place to post messages, with the audience voting
on how interesting those posts are. And the most interesting ones bubble up
to the top.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
It's true that every time you hear a bell, an angel gets his wings. But what
they don't tell you is, every time you hear a mousetrap snap, an angel gets set
on fire. -- Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey
Don Geddis
> But you morons [...]
> you guys [...] are completely idiotic.
> [...] just hot air. [...] off topic drivel [...]
> [...] newsgroup [...] doomed to be stupid drivels [...]
> [...] you morons [...]
> [...] morons in newsgroup just tried to fuck around. [...]
> my REPEATED tries to be reasonable are often met with fucking morons [...]
> Don't be a moron. [...]
> [...] show me the degree of your moronicity [...]
Hey, quick suggestion for you Xah: if you're actually trying to convince
your audience of your point of view, you might have more success if you
aren't so rude to them at the same time.
Perhaps -- just perhaps -- you're generally ignored ... because you deserve
to be.
> the fundamental problems lisp as shown in my essay here:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
> We can, itemize the essay, make it into precise statements, and we can
> argue in detail. The statements can be made so that each is verifiable
> and falsifiable, and most of us would agree that it is a reasonable
> rephrasing from my essay. Then, we can argue in detail about which. Do
> you want to do that??
Ok. At least it will get the thread finally on-topic again.
> Let me be more positive on this... since we don't have nothing to do.
> Let me suggest, you pick some particular claim i made that you think
> i'm stupid or wrong. Then, we can go on, with above guidelines perhaps
> about precision of statement, verifiability, fasifiability, and any
> other things about argument that make it a better one. Then, we can
> argue in detail. So, in the end, we can see who's more right.
Sure. Let's do it.
Your first claimed "fundamental problem" of Lisp is:
Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. However, the lisp syntax has
several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's power and confuses
the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,» chars.)
I'm aware that Lisp's reader, with the standard readtable, offers a
syntax that includes the characters your mentioned. I happen to think
they're convenient to the programmer, offer additional benefit, and cause
no problems.
Let me grant that the majority of Lisp has a "regular nested syntax".
Let me grant that there are a few (deliberate!) "irregularities".
The topics in dispute are:
1. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
"reduce the syntax's power".
2. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
"confuses the language semantics".
3. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters,
even if (hypothetically) agreed to be non-optimal, are they a "fundamental
problem of Lisp"?
You make all three claims. I disagree (strongly!) with all three.
How can we resolve this? What process do you recommend, for eventually
discovering whether you or I are in fact correct about this topic?
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Boss: Hey, I liked how you got me the RJ-17 form.
Scott: You mean, "slowly, and with a bad attitude"?
Boss: No, I mean "without making me threaten to fire you."
Scott: Well, I aim to please, to a very small extent.
-- "Basic Instructions", Scott Meyer, 7/9/2008
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
> > Maybe it is about time to actually learn the programming language you are writing so much about?
>
> I think, perhaps it is time, for you to open your eyes, and see that
> the world doesn't revolve around Common Lisp.
Note that I said Lisp, not Common Lisp. Pick one.
Learn Scheme. Use it. Write code with it. Stuff that's longer
than five lines. Currently you are on a beginner level
in any Lisp.
The 'technical talk' here is to help people to write Lisp software.
That's why it is comp.lang.lisp.
Btw., I don't do Mathematica programming - I also don't post
to Mathematica-related newsgroups or mailing lists and try
to 'educate' people there. I would only expose my lack of
knowledge about Mathematica - like you expose your
lack of knowledge of Lisp here. Even if I learn enough
Mathematica to argue with people, why and who would care?
It would be a waste of time, unless I really have some
interest in the topic. But I don't have it.
xah...@gmail.com
«As far as newsgroup goes, perhaps it is doomed to be stupid drivels
when it comes to issues or argument that has some element of opinion.
Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The trick is an energy-saving one-liner high on wit and low on anger.
> That manifests by example your superiority. And saves a lot of energy.
> And scores better with the judges (the lurkers).
i can see that's the style you are inclined. LOL.
the problem with that is, there are already too many tech geekers who
like to do one-liner smart-ass comments. Forum are filled with so many
smart-ass one-liner slipslops. Other than amusement, there's not much
in depth opinion to be seen.
> You see clearly you have no more hope with the average Usenet denizen
> did Alice with her brunchmates, yet you persist. Doh!*
well, it's not like i dived into drivels to realize its the wrong
pool.
Writing, is kinda therapeutic to me, and is so to perhaps most
professional writers. In the past 10+ years, most of my newsgroup
posts are carefully crafted to sting the tech geeking morons and
illustrate their moronicity. I had a plan, that these writings not
only serve temporal purpose of venting and as etudes of creative
writing, but also contained content. These careful compositions, are
later archived and edited, so that i can eventually form a coherent
thesis. See for example, i've expressed this line of thougth in a post
in 2002 to Kent Pitman in comp.lang.lisp:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tailrecursion.html
Excerpt:
«
The second important reason for me reading comp.lang.lisp, is that i
use it as on outlet of my meticulous crafted rants when opportune. I
could pick other newsgroups, but in general it is not fun if the
community does not welcome it. Trolling per se is not something that
interest me. As it so happens, that i started to read lisp newsgroups
around 1998 because i was learning Scheme, and i find the lispers in
general much more educated than, say, comp.lang.perl.* in which i use
to discuss on-topic perl related stuff now and then. So have i used
comp.emacs or xemacs often, and some ohter mailing lists as well. In
any case, my lavish rants tends to go to comp.lang.lisp.
The harmony of authorship and readership takes a matching. Imagine
Einstein ranting his physics theories to 17th century physicists, he'd
probably be kill-filed to death. Likewise, Larry Wall's drivel fits
the unix moron's minds to a tee; and that i find comp.lang.lisp has
the best readership for my rants among the few online discussions
groups i use.
My vague motivation, is for me in the future to collect my rants and
form a book. May it be a coherent account of unix & perl's damage to
society, with technical criticisms, or similar attacks to the slew of
fantastic fucking stupid imperative languages or the SQL language and
other software “technologies”, or cogent commentaries on the idiocies
of software industry such as the Design Patterns... i don't know. In
the last few years as i write more and more, i find myself enjoy
writing. I consider my act of writing soothing to my anger caused by
unthinkers in society. When my rants are offensive to unhtinkers, i
consider it a form of sweet revenge.
The other motivation is to educate people, but let's not talk about
that. Once you tell people that, all sorts of things come flying
against you, from hats of hypocrisy to spontaneous resistance. I find
that the best way to educate, is by means of covert brain washing. I
try to go in unassuming and rant my rants and get myself attacked and
kill-file announced, but behind the scene i stab people's brain with
sharp thoughts, jam their wires and screw their programs, totally
shattering the world of their minds. And when they try to recuperate,
to think ways of counter-attack, bang! I have succeeded in my goal.
»
* * *
You see, so i had some kinda master plan, that my posting in
newsgroups serves partly as a writing exercise, a soothing activity,
as well as basis for formulating a thesis. Most of my writings are
today edited and collected on my web site. For example, some entry
points are:
Computing And Its People
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/skami_prosa.html
Emacs and Lisp Related Essays
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_essays_index.html
The Unix Pestilence (A gander into unix info tech industry & a logo
tour)
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/freebooks.html
Pathetically Elational Regex Language
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/perlr.html
Python Documentation Problems
http://xahlee.org/perl-python/python_doc_index.html
Netiquette Anthropology
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/troll.html
Essays on logos (needs a index page)
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/logo_design.html
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/lambda_logo.html
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/logo_lisp.html
Almost all the essays in the above index pages are originally online
forum posts accumulated in the past 10+ years.
These essays on my site, are partly responsible for my site's high
popularity, as well the periodic “great thinker” email praises from
professors and all sort of unexpected walks of life i receive.
It is true that sometimes that these tech geeking moron's behavior
caused me some grief. Such happens more often, for example, in places
like Wikipedia or in places where these morons can ban you, censor you
etc, such as in irc, some online sites.
Once, in newsgroup, the spatting with morons escalated to legally
definable harassment. As you know, this happened during 2006 with a
guy who lives in comp.lang.perl.misc, which resulted in my web hosting
service provider kicking me off. I have a written record of it on my
site:
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
So yeah, spatting with these morons are not always a pleasurable
activity, but you can't enjoy gardening without getting pricked
sometimes.
> Your countryman said it best, "Win without fighting." Toss off a mot and
> get on with yoru coding. Even if I slip and write something long and
> angry I delete it all and replace with a one-liner.
>
> Unless I am looped. :)
>
> hth, kenny
>
> * Wouldn't it be cool to have not a moderated forum but a /judged/
> forum? Lurkers could score without unlurking? Talk about an addictive NG. k
that won't work. That is effectively done in slashdot and lots other
tech geeking forums, including for example, reddit.com . What happens
in such a system is that the tech geeking morons trash articles just
because they feels like it, then starting some mod wars among
themselves. The score of articles by popular vote has little
correspondence to the quality of the articles. At best, the articles
that floats to the top are just those that these tech geeking morons
like. For example, how OpenSource should rule the world, how Microsoft
is evil, how lisp is great, but how Perl gets the job done, how emacs
vs vi, how one should format his code, how scheme is most beautiful,
what's the latest fashion in coding (patterns, eXtreme Programing) ...
etc type of stupidities. You read these type of trite stupidities in
newsgroup at all times.
The problem at heart, is something like the cost of giving a opinion.
In conferences or meetings in a day job, people are more responsible,
because it effects their daily bread. Similarly, in more important
conferences or meetings, where people have to pay to join or give
opinion, such as voting in stocks, people are quite considerate about
what opinion or vote they give. I wrote elements of this in this
essay, see:
“Microsoft Hatred, FAQ”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/mshatredfaq.html
excerpt:
Q: US Judges are not morons, and quite a few others are not morons.
They find MS guilty, so it must be true.
so did the German population thought Jews are morons by heritage, to
the point that Jews should be exterminated from earth. Apparently, the
entire German population cannot be morons, they must be right.
Judge for yourself, is a principle i abide by. And when you judge, it
is better to put some effort into it.
How much you invest in this endearvor depends on how important the
issue is to you. If you are like most people, for which the issue of
Microsoft have remote effect on your personal well-being, then you can
go out and buy a case of beer on one hand and pizza on the other, and
rap with your online confabulation buddies about how evil is MS. If
you are a author writing a book on this, then obviously its different
because your reputation and ultimately daily bread depend on what you
put down. If you are a MS competitor such as Apple or Sun, then
obviously you will see to it with as much money as you can cough out
that MS is guilty by all measures and gets put out of business. If you
are a government employee such as a judge, of course it is your
interest to please your boss, with your best accessment of the air.
When i judge things, i like to imagine things being serious, as if my
wife is a wager, my daughter is at stake, that any small factual error
or mis-judgement or misleading perspective will cause unimaginable
things to happen. Then, my opinions become better ones.
----------------------
Dear Kenny, this important letter is to inform you that you are a
winner of a free beer and pizza in bay area!
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
namekuseijin
> In the past 10+ years, most of my newsgroup
> posts are carefully crafted to sting the tech geeking morons and
> illustrate their moronicity.
What is more moronic: a moron or a guy arguing with a moron? They
look the same to me. And indeed here I am looking downright stupid...
> I had a plan, that these writings not
> only serve temporal purpose of venting and as etudes of creative
> writing, but also contained content. These careful compositions, are
> later archived and edited, so that i can eventually form a coherent
> thesis.
Not that anyone will ever read them any more than old Erik Naggum
posts...
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tailrecursion.html
"Dear Kent, like you, i also am curious about lots of things. For
example, i'm curious about why courtesans sell their pussies, and why
pussies have profound attraction to me."
LOL. At least you're a funny guy.
Kenny
> Xah Lee wrote:
> «As far as newsgroup goes, perhaps it is doomed to be stupid drivels
> when it comes to issues or argument that has some element of opinion.
> What can i do?»
>
> Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>The trick is an energy-saving one-liner high on wit and low on anger.
>>That manifests by example your superiority. And saves a lot of energy.
>>And scores better with the judges (the lurkers).
>
>
> i can see that's the style you are inclined. LOL.
>
> the problem with that is, there are already too many tech geekers who
> like to do one-liner smart-ass comments. Forum are filled with so many
> smart-ass one-liner slipslops.
Ah, but not all quips are created equal. It becomes like a shoot-out
instead of a 90-min football match. And the goal is not even to win the
shoot-out rather to disengage. The obtuse interlocutor is a blackhole
for us quixotics.
> Other than amusement, there's not much
> in depth opinion to be seen.
Once we have identified an unsatisfying correspondent we must break off,
using killfiles where their idiocy is irresistible to respond. Speaking
of which, do we have a name for the trick Harrop and before him Garret
mastered of saying things deliberately easy to knock down and then
ignoring the knockdowns and simply tossing out more fat pitches? Does
"Venus fly-trap" work?
>
>
>>You see clearly you have no more hope with the average Usenet denizen
>>did Alice with her brunchmates, yet you persist. Doh!*
>
>
> well, it's not like i dived into drivels to realize its the wrong
> pool.
>
> Writing, is kinda therapeutic to me, and is so to perhaps most
> professional writers. In the past 10+ years, most of my newsgroup
> posts are carefully crafted to sting the tech geeking morons and
> illustrate their moronicity. I had a plan, that these writings not
> only serve temporal purpose of venting and as etudes of creative
> writing, but also contained content.
Why you old idealist you! Actually, that is fine. Remember, we address
the lurkers, not those with whom we cross swords.
> Once, in newsgroup, the spatting with morons escalated to legally
> definable harassment. As you know, this happened during 2006 with a
> guy who lives in comp.lang.perl.misc, which resulted in my web hosting
> service provider kicking me off. I have a written record of it on my
> site:
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t2/harassment.html
Yes, your stock went up, the provider's went down on that one.
> that won't work. That is effectively done in slashdot and lots other
> tech geeking forums, including for example, reddit.com . What happens
> in such a system is that the tech geeking morons trash articles just
> because they feels like it, then starting some mod wars among
> themselves.
It is funny what happens when one creates rules. We fancy ourselves more
sophisticated than the myna bird and laugh at its gathering trinkets for
no reason (is it the myna?) and then dash off to these groups to pile up
points that mean nothing.
[Pascal, close your eyes, I am going to mention a commercial product.}
I am trying to tap that primitive aggrandizing instinct in my software
(http://www.theoryyalgebra.com/) by awarding points and virtual medals I
am sure Bear Stearns would eventually try to create a market in if they
were still around.
Are you a mathematician? I'll create a Xah Lee medal, confuse the hell
out of the kids. Might only be a bronze, though.
> When i judge things, i like to imagine things being serious, as if my
> wife is a wager, my daughter is at stake, that any small factual error
> or mis-judgement or misleading perspective will cause unimaginable
> things to happen. Then, my opinions become better ones.
Ouch. I like to say things I am only 51% sure of and see if some yobbo
puts a full-metal jacket correction between my eyes. Cheap thrills,
that's me.
>
> ----------------------
>
> Dear Kenny, this important letter is to inform you that you are a
> winner of a free beer and pizza in bay area!
>
woo-hoo! Thx, Xah.
kenny
Kenny
> On Aug 17, 1:23 am, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>In the past 10+ years, most of my newsgroup
>>posts are carefully crafted to sting the tech geeking morons and
>>illustrate their moronicity.
>
>
> What is more moronic: a moron or a guy arguing with a moron? They
> look the same to me. And indeed here I am looking downright stupid...
>
>
>>I had a plan, that these writings not
>>only serve temporal purpose of venting and as etudes of creative
>>writing, but also contained content. These careful compositions, are
>>later archived and edited, so that i can eventually form a coherent
>>thesis.
>
>
> Not that anyone will ever read them any more than old Erik Naggum
> posts...
The good news being that Xah like Erik before him are Usenet Hall of
Fame shoe-ins, no matter what people read or do not read.
>
>
>>http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/tailrecursion.html
>
>
> "Dear Kent, like you, i also am curious about lots of things. For
> example, i'm curious about why courtesans sell their pussies, and why
> pussies have profound attraction to me."
>
> LOL. At least you're a funny guy.
There is some other criterion?
:)
kt
George Neuner
<emaila...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Clearly ridiculous. Since intelligence is more or less the ability
>to solve new problems, you would need that same intelligence to be
>musically intelligent (solving problems in music).
There are no problems in music ... you could string random notes
together and be certain that some tone deaf segment of the population
would pay to listen to it.
"Popular" music today is barely more than that - throw in too much low
bass and some off-key incoherent yelling and there you go.
George
George Neuner
I recommend we follow established scientific protocol - the guy who
makes the claim has to prove it.
George
Raymond Wiker
> Well, given that you seem to be unable to learn much Lisp beyond basic
> Emacs scripting,
> nobody here is impressed yet. Most of your posts show that you have a
> confused understanding of Lisp. comp.lang.lisp seems to be your
> favorite
> newsgroup now, but you are on a beginner level. If somebody
> shows you some basic Lisp code (like I showed you how to easily
> implement your Mathematica function with a better interface) you
> run away and can't find the post.
>
> I haven't seen any significant amount of Lisp code (remember, this
> is comp.lang.lisp) in all the years from you. All I saw is
> some basic code how to script Emacs. All I see is long
> text with often little information for this newsgroup. It's
> not that everybody needs to be a good programmer, but from
> you we have seen mostly zero.
>
> Maybe it is about time to actually learn the programming language you
> are
> writing so much about?
I think I know what lies behind the disconnect between the
outward manifestations pf Xah's intellect (code and "tutorials" posted
to c.l.l.), and his claim that his IQ is "fairly above average".
Xah has assumed that "average IQ" is about 50.
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> I think I know what lies behind the disconnect between the
> outward manifestations pf Xah's intellect (code and "tutorials" posted
> to c.l.l.), and his claim that his IQ is "fairly above average".
>
> Xah has assumed that "average IQ" is about 50.
That would explain a lot, and not only about Xah! :-)
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds,
Your foot just squashed one.
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>
> > [...] stupid and wrong? [...]
> > But you morons [...]
> > you guys [...] are completely idiotic.
> > [...] just hot air. [...] off topic drivel [...]
> > [...] newsgroup [...] doomed to be stupid drivels [...]
> > [...] you morons [...]
> > [...] morons in newsgroup just tried to fuck around. [...]
> > my REPEATED tries to be reasonable are often met with fucking morons [...]
> > Don't be a moron. [...]
> > [...] show me the degree of your moronicity [...]
>
> Hey, quick suggestion for you Xah: if you're actually trying to convince
> your audience of your point of view, you might have more success if you
> aren't so rude to them at the same time.
You see, perhaps you don't know, but several have suggested this to me
in the past 10+ years.
of course, if my pure goal is education, then first of all, newsgroup
is the wrong medium. I LOL to think anyone should think i tried to be
a educator thru newsgroups.
as you know, newsgroup, judging from the posts on it, is rather a
playground.
you see, so for me, not only i want to teach, and have tech geeking
morons thank me, but, you know, i'm ambitious, so meanwhile i also
want to call morons morons, and fuckfaces fuckfaces, as truth and or
when they deserve it (n as u know, they deserve it). And, my writing
is to serve multi-purposes as a writting etude, relaxation, and thesis
drafting. Can you see, all the pieces fit together?
actually, surveying the results of my past decade of online writing, i
think i rather succeeded in my goals above.
> Perhaps -- just perhaps -- you're generally ignored ... because you deserve
> to be.
LOL. If you look at the number who responds to my posts or mentions me
out of the blue, i don't think i'm ignored at all. Many tech geekers,
in newsgroups and as well as in blogs, have explicitly claimed to love
reading my posts for one reason or another. There's delicious.com
website bookmark you can search my name “xah” to see.
hold your breath, let me run to take a piss then answer your lisp
question.
i have given many examples in my essay.
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
In summary:
• it makes parsing the source code more difficult than if the lang
doesn't have such irregular syntax. Note that a outstanding point
about lisp is that it features a regular syntax, and this is a major
point that lispers think lisp is great, as you can see in just about
every publication and advocacy of lisp. In these mostly fanatical
advocacy, you almost never see a mention, that lisp's regular syntax
actually contain quite a few irregularities.
• as i have given detail in my essay, that a pure nested syntax has
several advantegous consequences. Macros, pattern structure matching,
automated code formatting, etc. And as i have detailed, some of these
advantages are not realized or not realized fully. Part of the reason,
or perhaps the major reason, can be attributed to lisp's
irregularities in syntax.
In the article, the above are expounded in few thousand words. Which
part you do not agree?
Let me note here, questions like “why didn't xyz happen in history or
what's its cause” is in general cannot have exact, absolute, indelible
answers. However, reasonable research and progress can be made. In
fact, all important discussions in human subjects, almost none are
actually of the mathematical logic type, fact-checking type, or
verifiable by experiment type, where absolute answer can be given,
however, most subjects can have reasonable conclusions.
It is then my claim, that my criticism is very reasonable, that any
computer scientists who have studied various computer languages, and
with a exertise in lisp, should agree that my criticism is a very
valid one.
> 2. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
> "confuses the language semantics".
One easy way to see that it in fact confuses people is by checking the
frequency of such questions arise in lisp forums.
For example, one of the frequent question is what's the diff between:
(list a b c)
'(a b c)
(quote a b c)
you can see it asked in a recent post in comp.emacs or gun.help.emacs,
where you see experts give various probing type of answers. This is
just one example, and it i think a frequent question.
There are other more esoteric examples involving other such chars,
some used in macro etc.
As a example, let me ask this: among lispers who has at least 2 years
of coding lisp, how many can actually list all the lisp's syntax
irregularities? How many can actually say, that which is syntax sugar,
which is not? How many can entail each's meanings exactly? How many
can say, which is in Common Lisp only, or Scheme lisp, or emacs lisp?
And which's behavior are implementation dependent and what it is? Also
note, Scheme 6 in r6rs introduced few more of these, that
controversial among large number long time scheme experts and
implementators.
So, it is my claim, that these lisp irregular syntax, is a major cause
of confusion with respect to lisp's syntax. Also, in my article i used
5 of them «' # ; ` ,» as a example of lisp's irregular syntax. There
might be more.
> 3. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters,
> even if (hypothetically) agreed to be non-optimal, are they a "fundamental
> problem of Lisp"?
Yes. Fundamental can have 2 senses here: (1) deep seated; rooted. (2)
critical; important.
It is not deniable that the irregular syntax such as «' # ; ` ,» are
deeply rooted in lisp. It has been with lisp since few decades if not
at the very beginning. As to whether it is a critical issue, i think
it is.
Note that whether this is “critical” depends on what one considers
critical... since what's consider critical is dependent on point of
view or there is a degree of it. I consider it is critical in the
context of lisp's often tauted regular syntax advantage. However,
this issue in contrast to the other issue in my essay about lisp's
cons business, i consider that the cons is more critical, or
absolutely critical. The issue of criticality or what's considered
fundamental, we can further refine, so as not to use these words. For
example, instead of saying the convenient phrase of “fundamental
problem” or “critical problem”, i can rephrase them into something
like “is problem such that certain percentage of lispers ask these
questions or get confused by these” or other similar quantifiable
ways.
> You make all three claims. I disagree (strongly!) with all three.
>
> How can we resolve this? What process do you recommend, for eventually
> discovering whether you or I are in fact correct about this topic?
In the above, i give reasonable arguments. We can just argue about it
the usual online forum way by exchange writings. But if you do have
better suggestions, for example such as brining in arbitors, monetary
vouch for sincerity, bet, affidavit, credential, etc, as i have
suggested before, we can further discuss.
this post is posted to comp.lang.lisp and comp.lang.scheme .
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
«
the fundamental problems lisp as shown in my essay here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
George Neuner wrote:
«I recommend we follow established scientific protocol - the guy who
makes the claim has to prove it.»
What exactly are you suggesting? For example, are you claiming i'm
making a scientific discovery? r u claiming that my criticism can be
scientifically proven and should? r u claiming that i made a claim,
and didn't give reasons?
i don't mean to nick pick as most tech geekers like to do, but your
quib, as most tech geekers quibs, does not seems to be sensible. I
don't see the point of you quib. What's your point?
Try to think George.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
shiri
all? If anyone wants to think they are 'most high IQ' don't you folks
think it is better to let it be. In the interest of keeping such
forums noise-free?
-shiri
Scott Burson
This question is definitely too intelligent for this thread.
(Not that we have any hope of keeping this forum noise-free anyway.)
Yes we do discuss Lisp, but there just isn't always anything technical
that's interesting to talk about. If you have a question, feel free
to start a new thread...
-- Scott
Kenny
I notice you did not say or ask or offer anything about Lisp. Had you
done so, this group would then be talking about Lisp.
See how that works?
In the meantime, things are a little slow around here during the
northern hemishere summer, we talk about what we can to keep our
keyboards from rusting.
hth, kenny
mayson
probably justified inferiority complex.
Kenny
> What he's trying to say is that you seem to be an egomaniac with a
> probably justified inferiority complex.
Gotta get a threaded newsreader...I am trying to figure out if you
addressed that to me or Jon. Toss-up, really.
kt
Frank GOENNINGER
> On Aug 16, 8:41 am, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sat, 16 Aug 2008:
>>
>> > On Aug 15, 4:55 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> >> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Fri, 15 Aug 2008:
>> >> > If you have fairly above average IQ like me
>>
>> >> Really? What's your IQ, then? I'm curious what number corresponds to
>> >> "fairly above average".
>>
>> > So, if i disclose my IQ, you disclose yours?
>>
>> I've been making no claims about my IQ.
>>
>> You're the one who seemed to have no problem discussing your own IQ.
>> So I was curious what the number was. After all, you brought it up.
>
> LOL, Don, how ugly a exit strategy. May i suggest not be
> confrontational on stage then?
he-he. Reminds me of that one short conversation I once had with a
possible employer:
Him: "So, what's your IQ then ?"
Me: "Oh, what a question. I don't know really, but high enough as it
seems."
Him: "Aha. What makes you think this?"
Me: "Well, me, if I were you, I hadn't asked a question like this but
did a meaningful test with the candidate."
I never got that position, btw. But the other person was crossed of
the list of valuable discussion partners as soon as the question for
IQ was put.
Hope that helps!
Frank
--
Frank Goenninger
frgo(at)mac(dot)com
"Don't ask me! I haven't been reading comp.lang.lisp long enough to
really know ..."
George Neuner
Nope. Mayson needs to learn to attribute.
George.
George Neuner
>Xah wrote:
>«
>the fundamental problems lisp as shown in my essay here:
>http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
>»
>
>George Neuner wrote:
>«I recommend we follow established scientific protocol - the guy who
>makes the claim has to prove it.»
>
>What exactly are you suggesting? For example, are you claiming i'm
>making a scientific discovery? r u claiming that my criticism can be
>scientifically proven and should? r u claiming that i made a claim,
>and didn't give reasons?
You are the one making claims therefore you are the one that must
offer proof.
>i don't mean to nick pick as most tech geekers like to do, but your
>quib, as most tech geekers quibs, does not seems to be sensible. I
>don't see the point of you quib. What's your point?
>
>Try to think George.
It would help your case if you stopped insulting people. Perhaps YOU
should think hard about why no one takes you seriously.
George
George Neuner
wrote:
We try ... but this group is not currently moderated so anyone is free
to post on irrelevant topics. If you follow the group for a while,
you'll learn whose posts you can ignore.
George
Don Geddis
> On Aug 16, 8:18 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> Your first claimed "fundamental problem" of Lisp is:
>> Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. However, the lisp syntax
>> has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's power and
>> confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,» chars.)
>> 1. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
>> "reduce the syntax's power".
>
> i have given many examples in my essay.
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
You have not defined what it means for a syntax to have "power", nor have
you given any specific examples of how the five characters "reduce" that
so-called power.
Start there. What is the "power" of a syntax? If I had two different
proposed syntaxes, how would I determine which one had more "power"?
Why is "syntax power" even a good thing in a programming language?
> In summary:
> it makes parsing the source code more difficult than if the lang
> doesn't have such irregular syntax.
Well, sure. But, in exchange for that (minor!) cost, you get the benefit
of ease of use by humans.
Besides which, every Lisp implementation has already conveniently implemented
the Lisp parser for you. So you don't have to write it yourself! Just call
the built-in parser.
Certainly, it makes _writing_ a Lisp implementation (esp. the parser)
somewhat more difficult than it otherwise would have been. But why in
world do you think that writing an implementation is the goal to optimize
when designing a programming language? Surely the Common Lisp choice,
to optimize _using_ the language to write _other_ programs, rather than
optimizing the ease of implementation of the language, is a far better
choice than the one you are suggesting.
> Note that a outstanding point about lisp is that it features a regular
> syntax, and this is a major point that lispers think lisp is great, as you
> can see in just about every publication and advocacy of lisp. In these
> mostly fanatical advocacy, you almost never see a mention, that lisp's
> regular syntax actually contain quite a few irregularities.
But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregulatrities actually cause a
problem, in practice, for real programmers?
And keep in mind that these "irregularities" that you mention definitely
do provide known benefits to programmers. (E.g. "#" is useful for commenting
your code inline, etc.)
> as i have given detail in my essay, that a pure nested syntax has several
> advantegous consequences. Macros
You have stated this, but you are simply wrong.
Perhaps you don't understand how Lisp works. I'm not trying to be insulting
here. But your claim that "irregular" textual syntax makes writing macros
hard betrays a critical error in thinking about what Lisp is doing.
Here's what you've missed: Source code is written as sequences of characters
in a text file (or typed into the interpreter). But then -- BEFORE macros
ever get to do any work -- the text characters are processed by the Lisp
reader, resulting in internal data structures in a kind of Abstract Syntax
Tree.
Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
So, you are trying to claim, for example, that the "#" "non-regular" comment
character makes writing Lisp macros "harder". And you are simply wrong.
By the time a macro starts work, all the comments have already be stripped.
In fact, you will be unable to write a macro that can even tell the difference
between whether there was a comment character in the code or not.
So. We come to the first chance for Xah to rise above his apparent
troll-ness. In every post I've read from you, Xah, you treat yourself as
all-knowing and all-intelligent, and any disagreement with anyone else
results in you calling the others "morons", "idiots", etc.
Can you be honest, in this one case? Can you admit that you have claimed
that Lisp's "irregular syntax" makes writing macros "harder", and you were
simply mistaken on that point? It is not true, and you admit your mistake?
This, I think, is the test case for actual productive discussion with you,
Xah. My prediction is that your ego is too inflated to ever admit error.
You are more interested in "winning" and annoying people, then you are in
actually discovering truth or learning anything.
But perhaps I'm wrong. So let's see how you respond to having made a
mistake. Are you man enough to admit it?
> It is then my claim, that my criticism is very reasonable, that any
> computer scientists who have studied various computer languages, and with a
> exertise in lisp, should agree that my criticism is a very valid one.
I'm not a CS professor, but I've programmed in a dozen languages over time,
and in Common Lisp for ~20 years. I don't agree that your criticism is valid.
>> 2. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
>> "confuses the language semantics".
>
> One easy way to see that it in fact confuses people is by checking the
> frequency of such questions arise in lisp forums.
Ah, but that's a different claim. Let's leave aside for the moment whether
Lisp's language semantics confused "people". (I happen to disagree with that
too, but that isn't the topic we're discussing.)
What you wrote is that the syntax "irregularities" confuse the language
_semantics_. Not that they confuse people.
Please justify your claim that Lisp's semantics are confused because of
the syntax.
Or, admit your error and withdraw the claim.
> For example, one of the frequent question is what's the diff between:
> (list a b c)
> '(a b c)
> (quote a b c)
> you can see it asked in a recent post in comp.emacs or gun.help.emacs,
> where you see experts give various probing type of answers. This is just
> one example, and it i think a frequent question.
People (especially those new to Lisp) can be confused by this, yes.
The language itself (i.e. the Lisp semantics) are in no way confused.
I also note in passing that your first and third example:
(list a b c)
(quote a b c)
have exactly the same, completely REGULAR syntax. So whatever confusion
there might be here (to new programmers), has nothing to do with the
irregular syntax of Lisp.
Another chance for you to admit that you made a mistake in blaming this
confusion on the five "irregular" Lisp syntax characters that you mentioned.
> As a example, let me ask this: among lispers who has at least 2 years of
> coding lisp, how many can actually list all the lisp's syntax
> irregularities?
Why is that an important test? If I answer "10%", how does that matter?
> How many can say, which is in Common Lisp only, or Scheme lisp, or emacs
> lisp?
We're generally discussing Common Lisp only on this newsgroup. The others
are different languages. It doesn't even make sense to talk about how
differences between DIFFERENT languages confuse people.
Do you think it's a legitimate complaint against Python, that it confused
Perl programmers because some aspects of the language are different? It's
a different language!
You can be an expert Common Lisp programmer, while knowing nothing at all
about Emacs Lisp. So what?
>> 3. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters,
>> even if (hypothetically) agreed to be non-optimal, are they a
>> "fundamental problem of Lisp"?
>
> Yes. Fundamental can have 2 senses here: (1) deep seated; rooted. (2)
> critical; important.
Agreed.
> It is not deniable that the irregular syntax such as «' # ; ` ,» are
> deeply rooted in lisp. It has been with lisp since few decades if not
> at the very beginning.
I agree again.
> As to whether it is a critical issue, i think it is.
Still disagree on this one...
> I consider it is critical in the context of lisp's often tauted regular
> syntax advantage. However, this issue in contrast to the other issue in my
> essay about lisp's cons business, i consider that the cons is more
> critical, or absolutely critical.
OK, understood. And, if we make productive progress on the syntax issue,
perhaps we can begin to explore the cons issue later.
But I suspect you aren't actually interested in learning anything.
I suspect you just like to lecture (regardless of your state of knowledge)
and rile people up.
If I'm wrong, I apologize. If you do manage to keep your response on a
technical level, then I'll do the same. And if we get past the syntax
topic, then I'll be happy to continue on to explain the cons issue to you.
But I strongly suspect you are not capable of admitting that you made a
mistake on when describing the "problems" of Lisp's syntax.
> For example, instead of saying the convenient phrase of "fundamental
> problem" or "critical problem", i can rephrase them into something like "is
> problem such that certain percentage of lispers ask these questions or get
> confused by these" or other similar quantifiable ways.
I think if you had used this more tactful language originally, you would
have seen far less objection from the Lisp folks. And the discussion would
have proceeded in a very different direction.
(For example, confusion can often be addressed by education or good
tutorials. But "fundamental problem" can only be addressed by changing
the core language.)
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Christian: One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book
admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the
teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Kenny
I think you missed the fact that this clown's first post to a new NG was
to dive headlong into the noise and add to it with a load of holier than
thou crap bound to make more trouble. You are going to have him ignoring
his own posts, which means he will have to be blindfolded while he types
and if he is a touch typist he will have to be unconscious as well.
Hmmm, maybe you have something...
kt
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sun, 17 Aug 2008:
>> For example, one of the frequent question is what's the diff between:
>> (list a b c)
>> '(a b c)
>> (quote a b c)
>> you can see it asked in a recent post in comp.emacs or gun.help.emacs,
>> where you see experts give various probing type of answers. This is just
>> one example, and it i think a frequent question.
>
> People (especially those new to Lisp) can be confused by this, yes.
>
> The language itself (i.e. the Lisp semantics) are in no way confused.
>
> I also note in passing that your first and third example:
> (list a b c)
> (quote a b c)
> have exactly the same, completely REGULAR syntax. So whatever confusion
> there might be here (to new programmers), has nothing to do with the
> irregular syntax of Lisp.
Don, be careful! Xah, despite having bothered use for years, don't
know anything about lisp. It is:
(list a b c)
'(a b c)
(quote (a b c))
and not (quote a b c) which is meaningless in Lisp.
And for the other innocent bystanders, nothing prevents you to always
use (quote (a b c)) or (quote x) instead of '(a b c) or 'x, if you
like better the regularity of quote. For example, I'm known to use
almost always (function f) instead of #'f.
>> It is not deniable that the irregular syntax such as «' # ; ` ,» are
>> deeply rooted in lisp. It has been with lisp since few decades if not
>> at the very beginning.
Nothing can be more wrong.
The character set of the 704/7090 used by LISP 1.5:
\lo 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
hi +----------------------------------------------------------
0 | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 | 8 9 $EOF$ = 8-4MIN $IL15$ $IL16$ $IL17$
2 | + A B C D E F G
3 | H I $IL32$ . ) $IL35$ $IL36$ $IL37$
4 | - J K L M N O P
5 | Q R $IL52$ $ * $IL55$ $IL56$ $IL57$
6 | BLANK / S T U V W X
7 | Y Z $EOR$ , ( $IL75$ $IL76$ $IL77$
The digits are considered as their DIGIT-CHAR.
$IL77$ was used to pad packed strings (six 6-bit chars per words).
There was simply no quote or double-quote character, and neither
semicolon, much less any sharp character in this character set.
So the irregular syntax just cannot be deeply rooted in lisp, in any
historical sense.
And technically, as soon as they are read, these reader macro
characters disappear from what lisp is. They are only used in the
external representation or decora of the text files we use, but just
don't exist inside lisp. That's even why it's a little more difficult
to write a program that processes comments or the textual source form
of literal objects than the rest of lisp. But this textual source
form IS NOT the lisp source. Remember, the lisp source is the
syntactic tree made of lists and atoms, the s-expressions.
' might have been the first reader macro character, to be expanded by QUOTE.
Then probably " and possibly ; were introduced, but for that you have
to wait for at least the first lisp with a string data type.
Of course, backquote and comma wouldn't be needed before macros were
invented, which was quite later. While the _notion_ of quasiquotation
was older, as http://www.cs.unm.edu/~williams/cs491/quasiquote.ps
section 4 reports, it was introduced in Lisp much more recently, in
the 1970's (about halfway in current lisp life, hardly a deep root).
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
"Specifications are for the weak and timid!"
d...@itasoftware.com
wrote:
> Then probably " and possibly ; were introduced, but for that you have
> to wait for at least the first lisp with a string data type.
Maybe ", but ; had to be largely a MacLisp, etc. reader macro before
Common Lisp because the Interlisp crowd used structure editors which
make reader macro comments pretty useless.
verec
> * Wouldn't it be cool to have not a moderated forum but a /judged/
> forum? Lurkers could score without unlurking? Talk about an addictive
> NG. k
... Err ... Reddit?
:-)
--
JFB
xah...@gmail.com
«the fundamental problems lisp as shown in my essay here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html »
George Neuner wrote:
«I recommend we follow established scientific protocol - the guy who
makes the claim has to prove it.»
Xah wrote:
«What exactly are you suggesting? For example, are you claiming i'm
making a scientific discovery? r u claiming that my criticism can be
scientifically proven and should? r u claiming that i made a claim,
and didn't give reasons?»
George wrote:
«You are the one making claims therefore you are the one that must
offer proof.»
Yes you said that before. But i'm thinking, perhaps your use of
phrasing is not apt?
For example, the claims in my lisp criticising essay, isn't like a
scientific discovery. A good, or valid criticism isn't said to be
“proved”, “proven”, or “prove it”. Your suggestion using the tem
“scientific protocol” and “prove it” appears to the untrained eye
asking for me to do the impossible.
Also, the way you wrote it seems to suggest that i made claims and
didn't give any reasons to backup my claims at all. As you know, my
“fundamental problems of lisp” essay is over 2000 words with many
arguments to supply my claims in it.
So, in the end, i don't really know what is your exact meaning or
purpose, to say that «I recommend we follow established scientific
protocol - the guy who makes the claim has to prove it.».
> >i don't mean to nick pick as most tech geekers like to do, but your
> >quib, as most tech geekers quibs, does not seems to be sensible. I
> >don't see the point of you quib. What's your point?
>
> >Try to think George.
>
> It would help your case if you stopped insulting people. Perhaps YOU
> should think hard about why no one takes you seriously.
O George. The Joker once said, why so serious?
As to your suggestion of not “insulting people”, O George! You missed
my recent Opus on the formula i use regarding the issue.
Please see here: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness”
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
O, let me add, that in this thread and ohters i've openly opined that
some of the lisp regulars here are idiotic. That's not to say they are
not appreciated in some areas. For example, in the past 12 months here
or so, i've asked technical questions or lisp history questions, for
example lisp machine's keyboard, lisp's sort's destructive behavior,
the “:weakness” keyword of lisp's hash table feature, and Kent Pitman,
Rainer Joswig, to mention just 2, have helped me to great satisfaction
with my expression of thanks. It is more in subjects that involve
opinion, such as language criticism, netiquette, popularity of
language, what needs to be improved etc discussions, i think many lisp
regulars are idiotic.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
> >>I'm brand new to this group. Do you guys try to discuss lisp here at
> >>all? If anyone wants to think they are 'most high IQ' don't you folks
> >>think it is better to let it be. In the interest of keeping such
> >>forums noise-free?
> >>-shiri
>
> > We try ... but this group is not currently moderated so anyone is free
> > to post on irrelevant topics. If you follow the group for a while,
> > you'll learn whose posts you can ignore.
>
> I think you missed the fact that this clown's first post to a new NG was
> to dive headlong into the noise and add to it with a load of holier than
> thou crap bound to make more trouble. You are going to have him ignoring
> his own posts, which means he will have to be blindfolded while he types
> and if he is a touch typist he will have to be unconscious as well.
Hi Kenny, you referenced to myna birds and trinkets somewhere in this
thread. I must admit, sometimes i don't understand your allusions.
What's myna birds?
I looked at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myna
It is a beautiful bird!
------------
btw, recently i had a curiosity of whether hosting Olympics can be
considered a good economic investment. I posted the qestion to
rec.sport.olympics, alt.fan.cecil-adams, misc.facts.straight-dope .
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/browse_frm/thread/1c447037605cdf97
From your posts, i learned that you are a sports fan. I was never much
into sports watching (but i like for example, skating, jogging,
swimming, juggling ...) Anyway, i gather you know more about sports
stadiums than me (of which people are talking about in my olympics
question). What do you think of the Olympics questions?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Kenny
> On Aug 18, 12:10 pm, Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>George Neuner wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:27:14 -0700 (PDT), shiri <shirish...@gmail.com>
>>>wrote:
>>
>>>>I'm brand new to this group. Do you guys try to discuss lisp here at
>>>>all? If anyone wants to think they are 'most high IQ' don't you folks
>>>>think it is better to let it be. In the interest of keeping such
>>>>forums noise-free?
>>>>-shiri
>>
>>>We try ... but this group is not currently moderated so anyone is free
>>>to post on irrelevant topics. If you follow the group for a while,
>>>you'll learn whose posts you can ignore.
>>
>>I think you missed the fact that this clown's first post to a new NG was
>>to dive headlong into the noise and add to it with a load of holier than
>>thou crap bound to make more trouble. You are going to have him ignoring
>>his own posts, which means he will have to be blindfolded while he types
>>and if he is a touch typist he will have to be unconscious as well.
>
>
> Hi Kenny, you referenced to myna birds and trinkets somewhere in this
> thread. I must admit, sometimes i don't understand your allusions.
That is because this normally inestimably erudite group let me down and
did not correct me with s/myna/magpie/.
The magpie likes to gather shiny things for its nest, including coins
and stray jewelry. Folks laugh at them because such things could have no
value to a bird, I was just asking how superior to the magpie could we
be if we find value in those things.
Let us pray.
>
> What's myna birds?
>
> I looked at Wikipedia.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myna
>
> It is a beautiful bird!
I meant no denigration of the birds!
>
> ------------
>
> btw, recently i had a curiosity of whether hosting Olympics can be
> considered a good economic investment. I posted the qestion to
> rec.sport.olympics, alt.fan.cecil-adams, misc.facts.straight-dope .
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/browse_frm/thread/1c447037605cdf97
>
> From your posts, i learned that you are a sports fan. I was never much
> into sports watching (but i like for example, skating, jogging,
> swimming, juggling ...)
I do prefer playing to watching, but as I have gotten older I have
learned not to take for granted the excellence of the professional
athlete and that makes it much more interesting to watch them,
especially as they approach the decisive moment and they are struggling
mostly to control their minds. Folks say "it's just a game", but that is
wrong: once one enters game, the game is the universe. Sport becomes the
lab bench for human endeavor.
> Anyway, i gather you know more about sports
> stadiums than me (of which people are talking about in my olympics
> question). What do you think of the Olympics questions?
I have not heard any analysis of the cost and benefit, but cities sure
do compete (and bribe) like crazy to get the games. The cost must be
hard to assess because stadia live on after the games so the cost must
be amortized over time. Same I think with housing and rail transport in
and around the games -- those are all planned to serve as permanent new
infrastructure.
Sometimes the Games are the debutante ball for a nation, ironic in this
case because of China's long history, but in the micro view there has
also been a long isolation and 2008 must be to them the coming out
party. In hindsight China might think, wow, look where we are now
economically, we did not need these games to win global mindshare. But
competition to host the games starts ten years earlier so it really is
hindsight and anyway there is more than money at stake here.
Listening to person/street interviews on TV and in the past to friends
from China, my sense is that the Chinese are a proud people and very
protective of their nation and very much concerned with how the world
sees them. They are a great economic power now and long have been a
great civilization but the West still looks at them as a bunch of
peasants ruled by Tianneman Square crushing Commies.
China wants a new passport photo.
If I remember my Cliff Notes correctly, this concern with how others see
them is a first for China, resonating nicely with the Mighty Xah's
affable new profile on Usenet: you both have embraced the world. I
remember reading that the Chinese were the first to build great sailing
ships and explore the world but after they got a good luck at the yobbos
they sailed back home, burned the ships, and built the wall. That is one
way to deal with the yobbos, put perhaps no more: the global economy and
Internet have dragged us all into the same public square.
kt
Fun Footnote: Don King sold the rulers of Zaire on financing the amazing
Foreman-Ali fight as a way of transforming Zaire's world image. Many may
remember it as "The Rumble In the Jungle", but the Zairans quickly
complained that that kinda defeated the image thing, and the tag line
was abandoned by the participants. Just too good a rhyme to really die.
k
Kenny
Yes, I forgot about that. Mebbe cuz I am not a denizen. But I would be
looking for something more prominent, not just message-ranking. There
would have to be a running total on the thread, and a way to flag
someone for ducking an argument, even ... hey, why am I giving the
product away? If Andy would just finish OpenAIR I could expand my Cells
Inside(tm) empire.
:)
kt
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> I have not heard any analysis of the cost and benefit, but cities sure
> do compete (and bribe) like crazy to get the games. The cost must be
> hard to assess because stadia live on after the games so the cost must
> be amortized over time. Same I think with housing and rail transport
> in and around the games -- those are all planned to serve as permanent
> new infrastructure.
What is the cost of bread and circus? Obviously, it's negative for
the politician, and positive for the people, in the long term.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
PLEASE NOTE: Some quantum physics theories suggest that when the
consumer is not directly observing this product, it may cease to
exist or will exist only in a vague and undetermined state.
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sun, 17 Aug 2008:
>
> > On Aug 16, 8:18 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
> >> Your first claimed "fundamental problem" of Lisp is:
> >> Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. However, the lisp syntax
> >> has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's power and
> >> confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,» chars.)
> >> The topics in dispute are:
> >> 1. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
> >> "reduce the syntax's power".
>
> > i have given many examples in my essay.
> > http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
>
> You have not defined what it means for a syntax to have "power", nor have
> you given any specific examples of how the five characters "reduce" that
> so-called power.
You want me to define the power of a computer language?
You think i don't give sufficient explanation and needs to define the
term?
are you aware that defining such a thing is nearly impossible? For
example, let me cite 2 well known examples. In math, there's the
problem of definition of “random”. In science, or computer science,
there's the problem of defining “intelligence”. In biology, there's
the problem of defining “life”. You dont mean that any publication
involving these concepts must define them?
You are not, i hope, throwing out random retort to disrupt the
argument, right? Or, perharps you are not well aquainted of the role
of “definition” in philosophy and criticial thinking? I tend to think
it's the latter, to be bluntly honest.
let me give more specific example... the notion of the “power” of a
computer language, or “expressiveness” of a computer language. You
know, that these are widely used terms and abused. However, there is
really no good general definition. Some computer scientist, tried to
formalize it in some mathematical way, but basically went no where
(such's failure, for example, can be attributed or judged by lack of
effectiveness, practicality, utility).
Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
discussed above?
Ok, i don't mean to derail what might be your honest attemp to argue.
Let me say then, that the “reduced such syntax's power” notion in my
essay, i think is amply examplified in my essay. For example, i gave
examples in comparison to XML, Mathematica, automatic code
formating... (the essay is here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
possibly you might reread it carefully now since you might just have
scanned and dismissed it before. Note that the essay, links some 8 or
so more essays providing support on each part.
)
Let me give it another try. In general, the power of computing
language, is roughly the ratio of ease/possibility. The “ease” there
is ease of use, ease of learning, succinctness of source code, size of
existing functions or libraries, accessibility, etc. The “possibility”
in the denominator is roughly what it does, what it can do. For
example, it can be cover perspectives from areas of fitness, e.g.
mathematical computation, visualization system, web application,
networking, sys admin, “glue lang”, embeded scripting lang, low level
systems lang, proof systems ... etc. and ... and ... and ... but i'm
carried away into generalities. In short, my criticism on lisp in that
essay provide reasonable definition of power in its contex. Please
double check to see if you agree.
> Start there. What is the "power" of a syntax? If I had two different
> proposed syntaxes, how would I determine which one had more "power"?
> Why is "syntax power" even a good thing in a programming language?
Ok. See above.
Note, you used the “Start there” phrase. Is that jab? I believe you
are trying to have a good argument with me, not exchange of hotair,
right? I mean, at least, i believe, that you, thinks you are trying to
have a reasonable argument on my criticism of lisp, and not trying to
be a hotair balloon. I, myself, have not yet fully decided to commit a
full honest discourse with you. (for reasons, see:
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
) But, if you, decides that at least you, want to be fully polite and
earnist in this discussion, i would suggest, that you exercise care in
your intonation in your argument with me. Because, otherwise, you
might just be another target that i use for mainly ridicule purposes.
You still have a chance to redeem yourself.
> If I had two different
> proposed syntaxes, how would I determine which one had more "power"?
lisp uses nested syntax. As you know, many lisp publications and
advocacy say that is one of the source of lisp's power. For example,
lisp's macro relies heavily on lisp's nest syntax. Isn't this obvious
to you??
> > In summary:
> > it makes parsing the source code more difficult than if the lang
> > doesn't have such irregular syntax.
>
> Well, sure. But, in exchange for that (minor!) cost, you get the benefit
> of ease of use by humans.
Are those special chars ALL sugar syntaxes?
Could you, or anyone, summarize them all?
> Besides which, every Lisp implementation has already conveniently implemented
> the Lisp parser for you. So you don't have to write it yourself! Just call
> the built-in parser.
The issue is not about parser or compiler. The issue i mentioned about
syntax, has to do with the language's power that came from a nested
syntax.
For example, let's say perl. Perl's syntax is a syntax soup, quite
opposite of lisp. Suppose, if perl switched to lisp's syntax, then
perhaps it would develope lisp macros. Then, from a specific point of
view of lispers, we could say, that perl's syntax is less powerful,
because its syntax's irregularity in some sense prevent it from
developing into the concept of lisp's macro. Perlers might say, well
parsing is already done by perl compilers. But you see now, that is
really a narrow view.
Similarly, when i say that the irregularities in lisp hampered it from
developing many fruitful use of regular syntax (with many examples
given in my essay), you have to consider it from the the context of
computer language's syntaxes, and not construe it as whether lisp's
irregularity is a problem to lispers.
For example, one of the example i gave about how the irregularities in
lisp's syntax is that it hampered the development of a automated code
formatting facilitiest (see the article for detailed examples and
explanations).
> Certainly, it makes _writing_ a Lisp implementation (esp. the parser)
> somewhat more difficult than it otherwise would have been. But why in
> world do you think that writing an implementation is the goal to optimize
> when designing a programming language? Surely the Common Lisp choice,
> to optimize _using_ the language to write _other_ programs, rather than
> optimizing the ease of implementation of the language, is a far better
> choice than the one you are suggesting.
as i explained above, it is not about writing compilers or parsers.
See above.
> > Note that a outstanding point about lisp is that it features a regular
> > syntax, and this is a major point that lispers think lisp is great, as you
> > can see in just about every publication and advocacy of lisp. In these
> > mostly fanatical advocacy, you almost never see a mention, that lisp's
> > regular syntax actually contain quite a few irregularities.
>
> But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregulatrities actually cause a
> problem, in practice, for real programmers?
again, the criticism is about some particular aspect of lisp's syntax,
namely, the syntax's irregularity in the context of lisp's philosophy
of regular syntax. The proper vantage point of such criticism is to
look at it in the syntax design of computer languages, and apply it to
lisp's philosophy of syntax. It is not about, for example, whether
lispers would consider lisp's syntax a problem. As a analogy, if you
criticise perl's syntax, the perlpers retort that perl programers
don't have a problem with it.
> And keep in mind that these "irregularities" that you mention definitely
> do provide known benefits to programmers. (E.g. "#" is useful for commenting
> your code inline, etc.)
One of the question i have is, whether all lisp's irregular syntax are
all simply syntax sugars. For one thing, the comment system i.e. “;”
is not. For another, some of these irregularities, for example the
“'”, breaks the structure of nested syntax. i.e. compare “'(a b c) vs
(' a b c)”. I do not know much about the others.
You mentioned that some of the syntaxes provide convenience to
programers. for example, those so-called sugar syntaxes. Note here,
that i'm not against sugar syntaxes. But the criticism is that some or
all of these sugar syntaxes breaks many properties that is the
fundamental advantage of lisp's nested syntax. (again, please read my
detailed essay; don't just pick this paragraph and start argument all
over)
Also keep in mind, as i mentioned numerous times, that not all these
are merely variant syntaxes. For example, there's no parenthized form
for “;”. So, in this particular point, it means there cannot be a
uniform transformation on syntax that gets you the pure nested form.
> > as i have given detail in my essay, that a pure nested syntax has several
> > advantegous consequences. Macros
>
> You have stated this, but you are simply wrong.
>
> Perhaps you don't understand how Lisp works. I'm not trying to be insulting
> here. But your claim that "irregular" textual syntax makes writing macros
> hard betrays a critical error in thinking about what Lisp is doing.
>
> Here's what you've missed: Source code is written as sequences of characters
> in a text file (or typed into the interpreter). But then -- BEFORE macros
> ever get to do any work -- the text characters are processed by the Lisp
> reader, resulting in internal data structures in a kind of Abstract Syntax
> Tree.
>
> Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
This is the part you common lispers, fully becomes stupid. When
discussion on this gets deeper, common lisping fans began to criticize
Scheme, or to the degree of saying that Scheme is not lisp or some
deviantiation. When Common Lispers defend my criticism of lisp syntax
and in their defense starts to attack Scheme Lisp, you can begin to
get the feeling of how Common Lispers failed to see the overall
picture.
You need to, as i said, not bury your head inside common lisp. Let me
say again, my criticism of lisp, part of which is about the
irregularities of its often-believed regular syntax. The proper
vantage point is the theory of computer syntaxes, applied to lisp's
philosophy of one particular way, namely, purely nested form. If you
simply view it from a lisp programing, with retorts such as “lisper
programers never found it a problem”, then you are not understanding
the criticism at all.
Let's discuss the idea that CL acts on its object, and the source code
merely a textual representation. Let me tell you, that most computer
languages, all have a syntax (we are excluding things like
spreadsheets and visual lang etc. (i'm trying to type fast, so morons
pls try not to pick on this and drivel about how spread sheets has
syntax too etc)). Regardless how CL has some the Abstract Syntax Tree
or Object idea, in the contex of computer languages, it still has just
one input form what we'd call the the language's syntax. Now, lisp's
lang's philosophy about syntax, emphasize that it should be fully
nested. This is a elementary feature of the lisp family of langs.
(lisps that breaks away from this nested syntax, are often alienated
by lispers and considered as only lisp derivative, such as logo,
dylan.) It is true that CL macros act on AST as you say, but however,
its nested syntax is a fundamental part of it. Theoretically, you
could have a lang with non-nested syntax (such as perl, C) yet still
have a macro system identical or almost identical to lisp.
> So, you are trying to claim, for example, that the "#" "non-regular" comment
> character makes writing Lisp macros "harder". And you are simply wrong.
> By the time a macro starts work, all the comments have already be stripped.
> In fact, you will be unable to write a macro that can even tell the difference
> between whether there was a comment character in the code or not.
See above.
Let me give another example to tackle criticisms of syntax of
languages.
One way, is to think of a lisp language (say, called regLisp), such
that without any irregularities in syntax as i criticised in my essay.
I mean, seriously, spend 20 mintues, to think of a lisp lang that
doesn't have any syntax irregularies described in my criticism.
Note, this does not mean not having any sugar syntaxes. Sugar syntax
is of course very convenient and practical, often even necessary, but
any sugar syntax are done so that the uniformity in syntax property
remains intact.
Now, if you imagine this language. Now, think about how would this
regLisp compared to CL for example? Would it lose any advantage that
CL have? (think in all aspects) Would it actually have any ADVANTAGES?
By my criticism, the answer is that such regLisp would lose nothing of
CL's advantage, but has far more advantages to gain (as detailed in my
essay; and Mathematica is cited as a living example and XML and its
vast number of derivatives are cited as a example of widely accepted
advantage of syntax regularity).
> So. We come to the first chance for Xah to rise above his apparent
> troll-ness. In every post I've read from you,Xah, you treat yourself as
> all-knowing and all-intelligent, and any disagreement with anyone else
> results in you calling the others "morons", "idiots", etc.
As i said above, if you really want earnest discussion with me sans
attitude, you can start with yourself, and drop paragraphs such as
above. As a guide, prevent you are writing to your family, friends,
who are very dear to you. When i see true sincerity, i will act
accordingly.
> Can you be honest, in this one case? Can you admit that you have claimed
> that Lisp's "irregular syntax" makes writing macros "harder", and you were
> simply mistaken on that point? It is not true, and you admit your mistake?
To be honest, i consider myself 50 years beyond this world.
Not 500, or 100. By “beyond”, it means my views in most things are
more advanced, correct, superior, than most experts in respective
areas where i cared to give forceful opinions.
Discussing with most people in newsgroups, to me, is more liking
playing with stupid highschool bullies.
You can quote me on this. I want you to know, that i earnestly meant
the above. You can forthwith now write me off as a cook, pseudo-
science crackpot, ergomaniac, whatever. But i hope you believe at
least what i really think of myself.
> This, I think, is the test case for actual productive discussion
> with you,Xah. My prediction is that your ego is too inflated to
> ever admit error.
I do admit errors. In fact it have happened publically few times over
the past 10+ years in newsgroup. I'm not going to search the exact
thread and show you the groups.google.com url. I have, admitted
errors, including technical errors, or errors in opinion oriented
argument. I have also, mind you, expressed sincere appreciation and
gratitude when being helped, or given opinion that i think are
worthwhile. This happens much more often than being corrected. The
fact that many, if not most, newsgroup tech geeking morons sees me as
a so-called troll, is partly because negative aspects are much more
visible.
> You are more interested in "winning" and annoying people, then you are in
> actually discovering truth or learning anything.
Shut ya yap.
> But perhaps I'm wrong. So let's see how you respond to having made a
> mistake. Are you man enough to admit it?
Shut ya yap.
If i see more such yap in your reply, then you'll fully become another
of my subject of a playhting, much like cat toys with mouses under her
paw.
How i play with my subjects are exhibited in my few hundreds archived
writings now on my website. I'm sure you don't need me to paste
another url.
> > It is then my claim, that my criticism is very reasonable, that any
> > computer scientists who have studied various computer languages, and with a
> > exertise in lisp, should agree that my criticism is a very valid one.
>
> I'm not a CS professor, but I've programmed in a dozen languages over time,
> and in Common Lisp for ~20 years. I don't agree that your criticism is valid.
Good to know.
> >> 2. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
> >> "confuses the language semantics".
>
> > One easy way to see that it in fact confuses people is by checking the
> > frequency of such questions arise in lisp forums.
>
> Ah, but that's a different claim. Let's leave aside for the moment whether
> Lisp's language semantics confused "people". (I happen to disagree with that
> too, but that isn't the topic we're discussing.)
>
> What you wrote is that the syntax "irregularities" confuse the language
> _semantics_. Not that they confuse people.
i'm not sure what does it mean that a language's syntax could actually
confuse its semantics. I used the phrase to convey the idea that the
correspondence of syntax and semantics becomes inconsistant or complex
due to lisp's irregularities in its syntax. In Von Newmann programing
langs, such as C, C++, Java, Perl etc, their syntax is a ad hoc syntax
soup, so there is little correspondence of their syntactical forms and
each's semantics. In lisp, there is, due to lisp's nested syntax. So,
i'm saying, lisp's irregularities in syntax breaks this syntax-
semantics correspondence.
In my previous post, i mentioned that the frequency of chars like «'
# ; ` ,» in lisp confuse people, as a support that irregularities in
lisp syntax increased its syntax-semantics complexity.
> Please justify your claim that Lisp's semantics are confused because of
> the syntax.
>
> Or, admit your error and withdraw the claim.
See above.
My criticism of lisp is about lisp, not specifically just Common Lisp.
More specifically, it is about Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
My criticism, namely the irregularity of syntax and the cons business,
is equally applicable to all these lisp family langs.
> Do you think it's a legitimate complaint against Python, that it confused
> Perl programmers because some aspects of the language are different? It's
> a different language!
If a criticism that does apply equally well to Perl and Python, then
it is still a valid criticism. For example, if i made some criticism
regarding imperative programing, then it applies to perl and python.
In the same way, you can see that my cricisim of lisp, namely, the
irregularity in syntax, and the cons business, are applicable to
Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
> You can be an expert Common Lisp programmer, while knowing nothing at all
> about Emacs Lisp. So what?
>
> >> 3. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters,
> >> even if (hypothetically) agreed to be non-optimal, are they a
> >> "fundamental problem of Lisp"?
>
> > Yes. Fundamental can have 2 senses here: (1) deep seated; rooted. (2)
> > critical; important.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > It is not deniable that the irregular syntax such as «' # ; ` ,» are
> > deeply rooted in lisp. It has been with lisp since few decades if not
> > at the very beginning.
>
> I agree again.
>
> > As to whether it is a critical issue, i think it is.
>
> Still disagree on this one...
>
> > I consider it is critical in the context of lisp's often tauted regular
> > syntax advantage. However, this issue in contrast to the other issue in my
> > essay about lisp's cons business, i consider that the cons is more
> > critical, or absolutely critical.
>
> OK, understood. And, if we make productive progress on the syntax issue,
> perhaps we can begin to explore the cons issue later.
>
> But I suspect you aren't actually interested in learning anything.
> I suspect you just like to lecture (regardless of your state of knowledge)
> and rile people up.
Drop it.
> If I'm wrong, I apologize. If you do manage to keep your response on a
> technical level, then I'll do the same. And if we get past the syntax
> topic, then I'll be happy to continue on to explain the cons issue to you.
You don't explain the cons issue to me. Your position presently, if
you are earnest, is challenging my claims or criticise my criticism or
having a sensible debate with me. You are, not here as a teacher to
discipline or rebuke me. So, when writing, get your intonation
correct.
I suppose your intonation is inadvertent. That's fine. If you are
actually intentionally injecting little sneer here and there, let me
just say that my eyes are senstive, and i bite. The question you
should truely ask yourself is: Do i really wish to see Xah's earnest
opinion and reasons in my challenges to his lisp views?
> But I strongly suspect you are not capable of admitting that you made a
> mistake on when describing the "problems" of Lisp's syntax.
You can suppose what you want. You can now decide what you want to do.
> > For example, instead of saying the convenient phrase of "fundamental
> > problem" or "critical problem", i can rephrase them into something like "is
> > problem such that certain percentage of lispers ask these questions or get
> > confused by these" or other similar quantifiable ways.
>
> I think if you had used this more tactful language originally, you would
> have seen far less objection from the Lisp folks. And the discussion would
> have proceeded in a very different direction.
My language, writing style, in part, is to ridicule the tech geeking
morons, may they be perlers or lisper or javaer, who are typically
buried in their small world. As i have expressed here ambly, in
general it is not my intention, to simply participate in honest
discussion or exchange of views. My reasons or justification about
this are are written in many essays. The index page to these essays is
here:
Netiquette Anthropology
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/troll.html
> (For example, confusion can often be addressed by education or good
> tutorials. But "fundamental problem" can only be addressed by changing
> the core language.)
Although lisp's syntax irregularity and cons business are rooted, and
difficult to change, however, there are many ways to mend them, such
as happens language evolution. Even if we don't consider new langs as
fixes (such as Qi, arc, NewLisp, DyLan), but there are evolutions such
as Pascal to Object Pascal, Fortran to Fortran99, OCaml to F#,
Scheme's r5rs to r6rs, etc. These are all examples of the same
language that goes thru improvement with rather backward incompatible.
Similarly, lisp, has many gradual innovations and fixes. (although i
don't know CL, but for example of CL, there's asdf package system as
heard here, and Qi, which addes pattern matching and other functional
features to CL.)
The point of my criticism, is that i have some hope in raising
awareness. That essay, “fundamental problems of lisp” arose partly due
to many times in the past years i tried to speak my own frustrations
of the cons business, or those confusing irregular syntax chars, or
speak of some ideas from my Mathematica background that relates to
these issues, and i met with absolute denial from the motherfucking
lisp regular morons. (comparable in the same way if lisper were to
give reasonable criticism (as opposed to vicious attack) or bring some
ideas from a lisper's experience to say perl or java groups.)
Ok, am sending out this. Not gonna do any editing work. Took me long
enough to type.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
comp.lang.scheme too. This is a repost.
On Aug 18, 9:39 am, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sun, 17 Aug 2008:
>
> > On Aug 16, 8:18 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
> >> Your first claimed "fundamental problem" of Lisp is:
> >> Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. However, the lisp syntax
> >> has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's power and
> >> confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,» chars.)
> >> The topics in dispute are:
> >> 1. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
> >> "reduce the syntax's power".
>
> > i have given many examples in my essay.
> > http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
>
> You have not defined what it means for a syntax to have "power", nor have
> you given any specific examples of how the five characters "reduce" that
> so-called power.
You want me to define the power of a computer language?
> Start there. What is the "power" of a syntax? If I had two different
> proposed syntaxes, how would I determine which one had more "power"?
> Why is "syntax power" even a good thing in a programming language?
Ok. See above.
Note, you used the “Start there” phrase. Is that jab? I believe you
are trying to have a good argument with me, not exchange of hotair,
right? I mean, at least, i believe, that you, thinks you are trying to
have a reasonable argument on my criticism of lisp, and not trying to
be a hotair balloon. I, myself, have not yet fully decided to commit a
full honest discourse with you. (for reasons, see:
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
) But, if you, decides that at least you, want to be fully polite and
earnist in this discussion, i would suggest, that you exercise care in
your intonation in your argument with me. Because, otherwise, you
might just be another target that i use for mainly ridicule purposes.
You still have a chance to redeem yourself.
> If I had two different
> proposed syntaxes, how would I determine which one had more "power"?
lisp uses nested syntax. As you know, many lisp publications and
advocacy say that is one of the source of lisp's power. For example,
lisp's macro relies heavily on lisp's nest syntax. Isn't this obvious
to you??
> > In summary:
> > it makes parsing the source code more difficult than if the lang
> > doesn't have such irregular syntax.
>
> Well, sure. But, in exchange for that (minor!) cost, you get the benefit
> of ease of use by humans.
Are those special chars ALL sugar syntaxes?
Could you, or anyone, summarize them all?
> Besides which, every Lisp implementation has already conveniently implemented
> the Lisp parser for you. So you don't have to write it yourself! Just call
> the built-in parser.
The issue is not about parser or compiler. The issue i mentioned about
syntax, has to do with the language's power that came from a nested
syntax.
For example, let's say perl. Perl's syntax is a syntax soup, quite
opposite of lisp. Suppose, if perl switched to lisp's syntax, then
perhaps it would develope lisp macros. Then, from a specific point of
view of lispers, we could say, that perl's syntax is less powerful,
because its syntax's irregularity in some sense prevent it from
developing into the concept of lisp's macro. Perlers might say, well
parsing is already done by perl compilers. But you see now, that is
really a narrow view.
Similarly, when i say that the irregularities in lisp hampered it from
developing many fruitful use of regular syntax (with many examples
given in my essay), you have to consider it from the the context of
computer language's syntaxes, and not construe it as whether lisp's
irregularity is a problem to lispers.
For example, one of the example i gave about how the irregularities in
lisp's syntax is that it hampered the development of a automated code
formatting facilitiest (see the article for detailed examples and
explanations).
> Certainly, it makes _writing_ a Lisp implementation (esp. the parser)
> somewhat more difficult than it otherwise would have been. But why in
> world do you think that writing an implementation is the goal to optimize
> when designing a programming language? Surely the Common Lisp choice,
> to optimize _using_ the language to write _other_ programs, rather than
> optimizing the ease of implementation of the language, is a far better
> choice than the one you are suggesting.
as i explained above, it is not about writing compilers or parsers.
See above.
> > Note that a outstanding point about lisp is that it features a regular
> > syntax, and this is a major point that lispers think lisp is great, as you
> > can see in just about every publication and advocacy of lisp. In these
> > mostly fanatical advocacy, you almost never see a mention, that lisp's
> > regular syntax actually contain quite a few irregularities.
>
> But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregulatrities actually cause a
> problem, in practice, for real programmers?
again, the criticism is about some particular aspect of lisp's syntax,
namely, the syntax's irregularity in the context of lisp's philosophy
of regular syntax. The proper vantage point of such criticism is to
look at it in the syntax design of computer languages, and apply it to
lisp's philosophy of syntax. It is not about, for example, whether
lispers would consider lisp's syntax a problem. As a analogy, if you
criticise perl's syntax, the perlpers retort that perl programers
don't have a problem with it.
> And keep in mind that these "irregularities" that you mention definitely
> do provide known benefits to programmers. (E.g. "#" is useful for commenting
> your code inline, etc.)
One of the question i have is, whether all lisp's irregular syntax are
all simply syntax sugars. For one thing, the comment system i.e. “;”
is not. For another, some of these irregularities, for example the
“'”, breaks the structure of nested syntax. i.e. compare “'(a b c) vs
(' a b c)”. I do not know much about the others.
You mentioned that some of the syntaxes provide convenience to
programers. for example, those so-called sugar syntaxes. Note here,
that i'm not against sugar syntaxes. But the criticism is that some or
all of these sugar syntaxes breaks many properties that is the
fundamental advantage of lisp's nested syntax. (again, please read my
detailed essay; don't just pick this paragraph and start argument all
over)
Also keep in mind, as i mentioned numerous times, that not all these
are merely variant syntaxes. For example, there's no parenthized form
for “;”. So, in this particular point, it means there cannot be a
uniform transformation on syntax that gets you the pure nested form.
> > as i have given detail in my essay, that a pure nested syntax has several
> > advantegous consequences. Macros
>
> You have stated this, but you are simply wrong.
>
> Perhaps you don't understand how Lisp works. I'm not trying to be insulting
> here. But your claim that "irregular" textual syntax makes writing macros
> hard betrays a critical error in thinking about what Lisp is doing.
>
> Here's what you've missed: Source code is written as sequences of characters
> in a text file (or typed into the interpreter). But then -- BEFORE macros
> ever get to do any work -- the text characters are processed by the Lisp
> reader, resulting in internal data structures in a kind of Abstract Syntax
> Tree.
>
> Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
This is the part you common lispers, fully becomes stupid. When
> So, you are trying to claim, for example, that the "#" "non-regular" comment
> character makes writing Lisp macros "harder". And you are simply wrong.
> By the time a macro starts work, all the comments have already be stripped.
> In fact, you will be unable to write a macro that can even tell the difference
> between whether there was a comment character in the code or not.
See above.
Let me give another example to tackle criticisms of syntax of
languages.
One way, is to think of a lisp language (say, called regLisp), such
that without any irregularities in syntax as i criticised in my essay.
I mean, seriously, spend 20 mintues, to think of a lisp lang that
doesn't have any syntax irregularies described in my criticism.
Note, this does not mean not having any sugar syntaxes. Sugar syntax
is of course very convenient and practical, often even necessary, but
any sugar syntax are done so that the uniformity in syntax property
remains intact.
Now, if you imagine this language. Now, think about how would this
regLisp compared to CL for example? Would it lose any advantage that
CL have? (think in all aspects) Would it actually have any ADVANTAGES?
By my criticism, the answer is that such regLisp would lose nothing of
CL's advantage, but has far more advantages to gain (as detailed in my
essay; and Mathematica is cited as a living example and XML and its
vast number of derivatives are cited as a example of widely accepted
advantage of syntax regularity).
> So. We come to the first chance for Xah to rise above his apparent
> troll-ness. In every post I've read from you,Xah, you treat yourself as
> all-knowing and all-intelligent, and any disagreement with anyone else
> results in you calling the others "morons", "idiots", etc.
As i said above, if you really want earnest discussion with me sans
attitude, you can start with yourself, and drop paragraphs such as
above. As a guide, prevent you are writing to your family, friends,
who are very dear to you. When i see true sincerity, i will act
accordingly.
> Can you be honest, in this one case? Can you admit that you have claimed
> that Lisp's "irregular syntax" makes writing macros "harder", and you were
> simply mistaken on that point? It is not true, and you admit your mistake?
To be honest, i consider myself 50 years beyond this world.
Not 500, or 100. By “beyond”, it means my views in most things are
more advanced, correct, superior, than most experts in respective
areas where i cared to give forceful opinions.
Discussing with most people in newsgroups, to me, is more liking
playing with stupid highschool bullies.
You can quote me on this. I want you to know, that i earnestly meant
the above. You can forthwith now write me off as a cook, pseudo-
science crackpot, ergomaniac, whatever. But i hope you believe at
least what i really think of myself.
> This, I think, is the test case for actual productive discussion
> with you,Xah. My prediction is that your ego is too inflated to
> ever admit error.
I do admit errors. In fact it have happened publically few times over
the past 10+ years in newsgroup. I'm not going to search the exact
thread and show you the groups.google.com url. I have, admitted
errors, including technical errors, or errors in opinion oriented
argument. I have also, mind you, expressed sincere appreciation and
gratitude when being helped, or given opinion that i think are
worthwhile. This happens much more often than being corrected. The
fact that many, if not most, newsgroup tech geeking morons sees me as
a so-called troll, is partly because negative aspects are much more
visible.
> You are more interested in "winning" and annoying people, then you are in
> actually discovering truth or learning anything.
Shut ya yap.
> But perhaps I'm wrong. So let's see how you respond to having made a
> mistake. Are you man enough to admit it?
Shut ya yap.
If i see more such yap in your reply, then you'll fully become another
of my subject of a playhting, much like cat toys with mouses under her
paw.
How i play with my subjects are exhibited in my few hundreds archived
writings now on my website. I'm sure you don't need me to paste
another url.
> > It is then my claim, that my criticism is very reasonable, that any
> > computer scientists who have studied various computer languages, and with a
> > exertise in lisp, should agree that my criticism is a very valid one.
>
> I'm not a CS professor, but I've programmed in a dozen languages over time,
> and in Common Lisp for ~20 years. I don't agree that your criticism is valid.
Good to know.
> >> 2. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters
> >> "confuses the language semantics".
>
> > One easy way to see that it in fact confuses people is by checking the
> > frequency of such questions arise in lisp forums.
>
> Ah, but that's a different claim. Let's leave aside for the moment whether
> Lisp's language semantics confused "people". (I happen to disagree with that
> too, but that isn't the topic we're discussing.)
>
> What you wrote is that the syntax "irregularities" confuse the language
> _semantics_. Not that they confuse people.
i'm not sure what does it mean that a language's syntax could actually
confuse its semantics. I used the phrase to convey the idea that the
correspondence of syntax and semantics becomes inconsistant or complex
due to lisp's irregularities in its syntax. In Von Newmann programing
langs, such as C, C++, Java, Perl etc, their syntax is a ad hoc syntax
soup, so there is little correspondence of their syntactical forms and
each's semantics. In lisp, there is, due to lisp's nested syntax. So,
i'm saying, lisp's irregularities in syntax breaks this syntax-
semantics correspondence.
In my previous post, i mentioned that the frequency of chars like «'
# ; ` ,» in lisp confuse people, as a support that irregularities in
lisp syntax increased its syntax-semantics complexity.
> Please justify your claim that Lisp's semantics are confused because of
> the syntax.
>
> Or, admit your error and withdraw the claim.
See above.
My criticism of lisp is about lisp, not specifically just Common Lisp.
More specifically, it is about Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
My criticism, namely the irregularity of syntax and the cons business,
is equally applicable to all these lisp family langs.
> Do you think it's a legitimate complaint against Python, that it confused
> Perl programmers because some aspects of the language are different? It's
> a different language!
If a criticism that does apply equally well to Perl and Python, then
it is still a valid criticism. For example, if i made some criticism
regarding imperative programing, then it applies to perl and python.
In the same way, you can see that my cricisim of lisp, namely, the
irregularity in syntax, and the cons business, are applicable to
Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
> You can be an expert Common Lisp programmer, while knowing nothing at all
> about Emacs Lisp. So what?
>
> >> 3. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned characters,
> >> even if (hypothetically) agreed to be non-optimal, are they a
> >> "fundamental problem of Lisp"?
>
> > Yes. Fundamental can have 2 senses here: (1) deep seated; rooted. (2)
> > critical; important.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > It is not deniable that the irregular syntax such as «' # ; ` ,» are
> > deeply rooted in lisp. It has been with lisp since few decades if not
> > at the very beginning.
>
> I agree again.
>
> > As to whether it is a critical issue, i think it is.
>
> Still disagree on this one...
>
> > I consider it is critical in the context of lisp's often tauted regular
> > syntax advantage. However, this issue in contrast to the other issue in my
> > essay about lisp's cons business, i consider that the cons is more
> > critical, or absolutely critical.
>
> OK, understood. And, if we make productive progress on the syntax issue,
> perhaps we can begin to explore the cons issue later.
>
> But I suspect you aren't actually interested in learning anything.
> I suspect you just like to lecture (regardless of your state of knowledge)
> and rile people up.
Drop it.
> If I'm wrong, I apologize. If you do manage to keep your response on a
> technical level, then I'll do the same. And if we get past the syntax
> topic, then I'll be happy to continue on to explain the cons issue to you.
You don't explain the cons issue to me. Your position presently, if
you are earnest, is challenging my claims or criticise my criticism or
having a sensible debate with me. You are, not here as a teacher to
discipline or rebuke me. So, when writing, get your intonation
correct.
I suppose your intonation is inadvertent. That's fine. If you are
actually intentionally injecting little sneer here and there, let me
just say that my eyes are senstive, and i bite. The question you
should truely ask yourself is: Do i really wish to see Xah's earnest
opinion and reasons in my challenges to his lisp views?
> But I strongly suspect you are not capable of admitting that you made a
> mistake on when describing the "problems" of Lisp's syntax.
You can suppose what you want. You can now decide what you want to do.
> > For example, instead of saying the convenient phrase of "fundamental
> > problem" or "critical problem", i can rephrase them into something like "is
> > problem such that certain percentage of lispers ask these questions or get
> > confused by these" or other similar quantifiable ways.
>
> I think if you had used this more tactful language originally, you would
> have seen far less objection from the Lisp folks. And the discussion would
> have proceeded in a very different direction.
My language, writing style, in part, is to ridicule the tech geeking
morons, may they be perlers or lisper or javaer, who are typically
buried in their small world. As i have expressed here ambly, in
general it is not my intention, to simply participate in honest
discussion or exchange of views. My reasons or justification about
this are are written in many essays. The index page to these essays is
here:
Netiquette Anthropology
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/troll.html
> (For example, confusion can often be addressed by education or good
> tutorials. But "fundamental problem" can only be addressed by changing
> the core language.)
Although lisp's syntax irregularity and cons business are rooted, and
Don Geddis
> The following is posted to comp.lang.lisp but i intended to post to
> comp.lang.scheme too. This is a repost.
I understand your goal. You think you're talking about "Lisp" in general.
But I'm not responding to, on behalf of, or in any way connected with
Scheme. My conversation with you is not relevant to Scheme folks. Not
to mention that I generally agree with Kent Pitman's points here:
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/cross-posting.html
So, I will choose not to cross-post my replies. I understand that you
may make a different choice.
> On Aug 18, 9:39 am, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Sun, 17 Aug 2008:
>> > On Aug 16, 8:18 pm, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> >> Your first claimed "fundamental problem" of Lisp is:
>> >> Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. However, the lisp syntax
>> >> has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's power and
>> >> confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,» chars.)
>> >> The topics in dispute are:
>> >> 1. Whether the syntax "irregularities" due to the five mentioned
>> >> characters "reduce the syntax's power".
>
> You want me to define the power of a computer language? You think i don't
> give sufficient explanation and needs to define the term?
Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
"reduce [the] syntax's power".
What does your claim even mean? Or were you merely sloppy in your
writings, and you intended to write something different than the words
you actually put down?
> are you aware that defining such a thing is nearly impossible? For
> example, let me cite 2 well known examples. In math, there's the
> problem of definition of “random”. In science, or computer science,
> there's the problem of defining “intelligence”. In biology, there's
> the problem of defining “life”. You dont mean that any publication
> involving these concepts must define them?
If they are making specific claims about them, then yes they ought to
have a clear definition in mind.
As it turns out, I don't have any problem at all with "random",
"intelligence", or "life". Those aren't confusing words to me
(in any particular context).
> let me give more specific example... the notion of the “power” of a
> computer language, or “expressiveness” of a computer language. You
> know, that these are widely used terms and abused. However, there is
> really no good general definition. Some computer scientist, tried to
> formalize it in some mathematical way, but basically went no where
> (such's failure, for example, can be attributed or judged by lack of
> effectiveness, practicality, utility).
I'm not sure what you're referring to. Perhaps something like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chomsky_hierarchy
There certainly is a lot of CS work on the expressiveness of various
syntaxes.
Leaving aside whether this work was productive or "went no where", I
suspect it isn't the kind of thing you had in mind in any case.
> Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
> discussed above?
You're the one who has made a written claim. I'm just asking you to
explain the claim. A claim has to have some meaning first, before it
makes sense to consider whether it might be "true" or "false".
Right now, many of your claims don't even rise to the level of being "wrong",
because they aren't meaningful enough to even be wrong.
> Let me say then, that the “reduced such syntax's power” notion in my
> essay, i think is amply examplified in my essay.
I read your "essay", and got very little content out of it. Certainly no
explanation of what the particular failure is that you have in mind, where
Lisp's "irregular" syntax "reduces" its "power".
> Let me give it another try. In general, the power of computing language, is
> roughly the ratio of ease/possibility. The “ease” there is ease of use,
> ease of learning, succinctness of source code, size of existing functions
> or libraries, accessibility, etc. The “possibility” in the denominator is
> roughly what it does, what it can do.
Super. So I find that adding the comment character ";" to Lisp source
code, _increases_ the "power" of the (syntax) of the language. Because I
can now sprinkle human-readable comments throughout my code, whereas I
couldn't before.
You seem to think that the comment character reduces the "power" of Lisp's
syntax. But that doesn't match at all your definition. So please explain.
(BTW: I suspect your formula doesn't even mean what you intend. "Divide"
by "possibility"? So a change in syntax that enables _more_ possibility,
according to you results in a syntax with _less_ power? But you probably
didn't mean that.)
> For example, let's say perl. Perl's syntax is a syntax soup, quite
> opposite of lisp. Suppose, if perl switched to lisp's syntax, then
> perhaps it would develope lisp macros. Then, from a specific point of
> view of lispers, we could say, that perl's syntax is less powerful,
> because its syntax's irregularity in some sense prevent it from
> developing into the concept of lisp's macro. Perlers might say, well
> parsing is already done by perl compilers. But you see now, that is
> really a narrow view.
There's a huge, huge difference.
Lisp's reader is available to user code at runtime. Perl's syntax parser
is _not_ available to user-level perl programs. Secondly, the result of
a Lisp parse, the abstract syntax tree, has a documented form, and there
are Lisp functions which navigate and process that form. This is the core
of what Lisp's macros do.
If Perl provided its parser to user code, and if the data structures that
resulted from the parse were also available for manipulation by user code
... why, then, I suspect we'd be having different arguments about whether
Perl is "really" a member of the Lisp family! Despite its very irregular
surface syntax.
> Similarly, when i say that the irregularities in lisp hampered it from
> developing many fruitful use of regular syntax (with many examples
> given in my essay)
You say it many times, but you give no concrete examples in your essay.
> For example, one of the example i gave about how the irregularities in
> lisp's syntax is that it hampered the development of a automated code
> formatting facilitiest (see the article for detailed examples and
> explanations).
Again, you claim that, but that doesn't make it true.
In fact, you can (and people have) made structure-editors for Lisp, where
it is not even possible to type an ill-formed expression. I, and many others,
don't think this is a great advance in programming environment. There is
also the Lisp pretty-printer, which does "automated code formatting".
So it appears that your claim, that Lisp's syntax "irregularities" cause
trouble for "automated code formatting", is simply false.
>> But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregularities actually cause a
>> problem, in practice, for real programmers?
>
> again, the criticism is about some particular aspect of lisp's syntax,
> namely, the syntax's irregularity in the context of lisp's philosophy
> of regular syntax.
I note that you're the main one promoting the idea that Lisp's primary
philosophy is "regular syntax". There is a kernel of truth in there, but
it isn't the main goal like you seem to think.
> As a analogy, if you criticise perl's syntax, the perlpers retort that perl
> programers don't have a problem with it.
But I don't criticize Perl's syntax, at least not in the way you do. I would
never say that the syntax causes Perl to "lose power" or "confuse semantics".
A _good_ criticism of Perl's syntax might note:
1. There's a lot to remember, and it can be confusing to read other people's
code (or re-read your own, much later);
2. Extremely irregular syntaxes make (Lisp-like) macros hard; and indeed,
Perl doesn't provide them.
So, you could discuss whether Common Lisp code is "confusing" to newbies.
Or to maintaining other people's code. Or whether it prevents some language
feature that would be really useful.
But you haven't made any (valid) criticisms like that.
> One of the question i have is, whether all lisp's irregular syntax are
> all simply syntax sugars. For one thing, the comment system i.e. “;”
> is not. For another, some of these irregularities, for example the
> “'”, breaks the structure of nested syntax. i.e. compare “'(a b c) vs
> (' a b c)”. I do not know much about the others.
> You mentioned that some of the syntaxes provide convenience to
> programers. for example, those so-called sugar syntaxes. Note here,
> that i'm not against sugar syntaxes. But the criticism is that some or
> all of these sugar syntaxes breaks many properties that is the
> fundamental advantage of lisp's nested syntax.
I'm trying to get you to be specific. Let's focus on the comment character,
";". As you say, it doesn't match the "regular" syntax of open-paren/function/
arguments/close-paren. So it _isn't_ merely syntactic sugar.
How EXACTLY does the comment character "break many properties that is the
fundamental advantage of Lisp"? Name a specific property, explain how it
is a fundamental advantage, and show how the comment character breaks that
property and that advantage.
I'm giving you this challenge, because I think you're just wrong about this.
The comment character, DESPITE not being "regular syntax", still doesn't
"break" any fundamental "property".
>> Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
>
> This is the part you common lispers, fully becomes stupid. When discussion
> on this gets deeper, common lisping fans began to criticize Scheme, or to
> the degree of saying that Scheme is not lisp or some deviantiation. When
> Common Lispers defend my criticism of lisp syntax and in their defense
> starts to attack Scheme Lisp, you can begin to get the feeling of how
> Common Lispers failed to see the overall picture.
I'm trying not to bring up Scheme at all. (That's another reason why I'm
not crossposting.) You have made criticisms of "Lisp". I'll let others
defend themselves. My only response is that Common Lisp, in particular,
does not suffer from the criticisms you are suggesting.
> Let's discuss the idea that CL acts on its object, and the source code
> merely a textual representation. Let me tell you, that most computer
> languages, all have a syntax [...] Regardless how CL has some the Abstract
> Syntax Tree or Object idea, in the contex of computer languages, it still
> has just one input form what we'd call the the language's syntax.
That's actually already false. There can be multiple textual representations,
which all result in the _same_ AST. It does not have "just one input form".
For that matter, you can construct code at runtime, which _never_ has an
external, textual representation. (This is, in fact, what macros generally
do.)
> Now, lisp's lang's philosophy about syntax, emphasize that it should be
> fully nested. This is a elementary feature of the lisp family of langs.
Well, you say that. I don't happen to agree.
> (lisps that breaks away from this nested syntax, are often alienated by
> lispers and considered as only lisp derivative, such as logo, dylan.)
Again, that's an opinion you have, which is not shared by many lispers.
> It is true that CL macros act on AST as you say, but however, its nested
> syntax is a fundamental part of it. Theoretically, you could have a lang
> with non-nested syntax (such as perl, C) yet still have a macro system
> identical or almost identical to lisp.
Very, very difficult. But possible, in theory. And then they'd probably be
considered Lisps as well!
> One way, is to think of a lisp language (say, called regLisp), such that
> without any irregularities in syntax as i criticised in my essay. I mean,
> seriously, spend 20 mintues, to think of a lisp lang that doesn't have any
> syntax irregularies described in my criticism. Note, this does not mean
> not having any sugar syntaxes. Sugar syntax is of course very convenient
> and practical, often even necessary, but any sugar syntax are done so that
> the uniformity in syntax property remains intact.
So, get rid of the ";" comment character, for example. OK, I can think of
that.
> Now, if you imagine this language. Now, think about how would this regLisp
> compared to CL for example? Would it lose any advantage that CL have?
> (think in all aspects) Would it actually have any ADVANTAGES?
I can think of no advantages. I can think of a HUGE disadvantage: that I
could no longer sprinkle human-readable comments throughout my code.
So what has this exercise taught us? That your regLisp idea is a bad one?
Again, let's try to be concrete. You often spout large numbers of generic
(negative) opinions, but don't really explore any of them.
You've said that syntactic sugar is ok with you. You're mainly concerned
with Lisp syntax that doesn't map to "regular" syntax, like the semicolon
comment character. You've said that this makes macros more difficult.
I want you to prove that to me. Concretely.
Let me help. Before a macro would have to be more difficult, it would
actually need to notice the difference, would it not? So, let's work on
a code fragment of Common Lisp:
s. Then, from a specific point of
> view of lispers, we could say, that perl's syntax is less powerful,
> because its syntax's irregularity in some sense prevent it from
> developing into the concept of lisp's macro. Perlers might say, well
> parsing is already done by perl compilers. But you see now, that is
> really a narrow view.
There's a huge, huge difference.
Lisp's reader is available to user code at runtime. Perl's syntax parser
is _not_ available to user-level perl programs. Secondly, the result of
a Lisp parse, the abstract syntax tree, has a documented form, and there
are Lisp functions which navigate and process that form. This is the core
of what Lisp's macros do.
If Perl provided its parser to user code, and if the data structures that
resulted from the parse were also available for manipulation by user code
... why, then, I suspect we'd be having different arguments about whether
Perl is "really" a member of the Lisp family! Despite its very irregular
surface syntax.
> Similarly, when i say that the irregularities in lisp hampered it from
> developing many fruitful use of regular syntax (with many examples
> given in my essay)
You say it many times, but you give no concrete examples in your essay.
> For example, one of the example i gave about how the irregularities in
> lisp's syntax is that it hampered the development of a automated code
> formatting facilitiest (see the article for detailed examples and
> explanations).
Again, you claim that, but that doesn't make it true.
In fact, you can (and people have) made structure-editors for Lisp, where
it is not even possible to type an ill-formed expression. I, and many others,
don't think this is a great advance in programming environment. There is
also the Lisp pretty-printer, which does "automated code formatting".
So it appears that your claim, that Lisp's syntax "irregularities" cause
trouble for "automated code formatting", is simply false.
>> But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregularities actually cause a
>> problem, in practice, for real programmers?
>
> again, the criticism is about some particular aspect of lisp's syntax,
> namely, the syntax's irregularity in the context of lisp's philosophy
> of regular syntax.
I note that you're the main one promoting the idea that Lisp's primary
philosophy is "regular syntax". There is a kernel of truth in there, but
it isn't the main goal like you seem to think.
> As a analogy, if you criticise perl's syntax, the perlpers retort that perl
> programers don't have a problem with it.
But I don't criticize Perl's syntax, at least not in the way you do. I would
never say that the syntax causes Perl to "lose power" or "confuse semantics".
A _good_ criticism of Perl's syntax might note:
1. There's a lot to remember, and it can be confusing to read other people's
code (or re-read your own, much later);
2. Extremely irregular syntaxes make (Lisp-like) macros hard; and indeed,
Perl doesn't provide them.
So, you could discuss whether Common Lisp code is "confusing" to newbies.
Or to maintaining other people's code. Or whether it prevents some language
feature that would be really useful.
But you haven't made any (valid) criticisms like that.
> One of the question i have is, whether all lisp's irregular syntax are
> all simply syntax sugars. For one thing, the comment system i.e. “;”
> is not. For another, some of these irregularities, for example the
> “'”, breaks the structure of nested syntax. i.e. compare “'(a b c) vs
> (' a b c)”. I do not know much about the others.
> You mentioned that some of the syntaxes provide convenience to
> programers. for example, those so-called sugar syntaxes. Note here,
> that i'm not against sugar syntaxes. But the criticism is that some or
> all of these sugar syntaxes breaks many properties that is the
> fundamental advantage of lisp's nested syntax.
I'm trying to get you to be specific. Let's focus on the comment character,
";". As you say, it doesn't match the "regular" syntax of open-paren/function/
arguments/close-paren. So it _isn't_ merely syntactic sugar.
How EXACTLY does the comment character "break many properties that is the
fundamental advantage of Lisp"? Name a specific property, explain how it
is a fundamental advantage, and show how the comment character breaks that
property and that advantage.
I'm giving you this challenge, because I think you're just wrong about this.
The comment character, DESPITE not being "regular syntax", still doesn't
"break" any fundamental "property".
>> Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
>
> This is the part you common lispers, fully becomes stupid. When discussion
> on this gets deeper, common lisping fans began to criticize Scheme, or to
> the degree of saying that Scheme is not lisp or some deviantiation. When
> Common Lispers defend my criticism of lisp syntax and in their defense
> starts to attack Scheme Lisp, you can begin to get the feeling of how
> Common Lispers failed to see the overall picture.
I'm trying not to bring up Scheme at all. (That's another reason why I'm
not crossposting.) You have made criticisms of "Lisp". I'll let others
defend themselves. My only response is that Common Lisp, in particular,
does not suffer from the criticisms you are suggesting.
> Let's discuss the idea that CL acts on its object, and the source code
> merely a textual representation. Let me tell you, that most computer
> languages, all have a syntax [...] Regardless how CL has some the Abstract
> Syntax Tree or Object idea, in the contex of computer languages, it still
> has just one input form what we'd call the the language's syntax.
That's actually already false. There can be multiple textual representations,
which all result in the _same_ AST. It does not have "just one input form".
For that matter, you can construct code at runtime, which _never_ has an
external, textual representation. (This is, in fact, what macros generally
do.)
> Now, lisp's lang's philosophy about syntax, emphasize that it should be
> fully nested. This is a elementary feature of the lisp family of langs.
Well, you say that. I don't happen to agree.
> (lisps that breaks away from this nested syntax, are often alienated by
> lispers and considered as only lisp derivative, such as logo, dylan.)
Again, that's an opinion you have, which is not shared by many lispers.
> It is true that CL macros act on AST as you say, but however, its nested
> syntax is a fundamental part of it. Theoretically, you could have a lang
> with non-nested syntax (such as perl, C) yet still have a macro system
> identical or almost identical to lisp.
Very, very difficult. But possible, in theory. And then they'd probably be
considered Lisps as well!
> One way, is to think of a lisp language (say, called regLisp), such that
> without any irregularities in syntax as i criticised in my essay. I mean,
> seriously, spend 20 mintues, to think of a lisp lang that doesn't have any
> syntax irregularies described in my criticism. Note, this does not mean
> not having any sugar syntaxes. Sugar syntax is of course very convenient
> and practical, often even necessary, but any sugar syntax are done so that
> the uniformity in syntax property remains intact.
So, get rid of the ";" comment character, for example. OK, I can think of
that.
> Now, if you imagine this language. Now, think about how would this regLisp
> compared to CL for example? Would it lose any advantage that CL have?
> (think in all aspects) Would it actually have any ADVANTAGES?
I can think of no advantages. I can think of a HUGE disadvantage: that I
could no longer sprinkle human-readable comments throughout my code.
So what has this exercise taught us? That your regLisp idea is a bad one?
Again, let's try to be concrete. You often spout large numbers of generic
(negative) opinions, but don't really explore any of them.
You've said that syntactic sugar is ok with you. You're mainly concerned
with Lisp syntax that doesn't map to "regular" syntax, like the semicolon
comment character. You've said that this makes macros more difficult.
I want you to prove that to me. Concretely.
Let me help. Before a macro would have to be more difficult, it would
actually need to notice the difference, would it not? So, let's work on
a code fragment of Common Lisp:
s. Then, from a specific point of
> view of lispers, we could say, that perl's syntax is less powerful,
> because its syntax's irregularity in some sense prevent it from
> developing into the concept of lisp's macro. Perlers might say, well
> parsing is already done by perl compilers. But you see now, that is
> really a narrow view.
There's a huge, huge difference.
Lisp's reader is available to user code at runtime. Perl's syntax parser
is _not_ available to user-level perl programs. Secondly, the result of
a Lisp parse, the abstract syntax tree, has a documented form, and there
are Lisp functions which navigate and process that form. This is the core
of what Lisp's macros do.
If Perl provided its parser to user code, and if the data structures that
resulted from the parse were also available for manipulation by user code
... why, then, I suspect we'd be having different arguments about whether
Perl is "really" a member of the Lisp family! Despite its very irregular
surface syntax.
> Similarly, when i say that the irregularities in lisp hampered it from
> developing many fruitful use of regular syntax (with many examples
> given in my essay)
You say it many times, but you give no concrete examples in your essay.
> For example, one of the example i gave about how the irregularities in
> lisp's syntax is that it hampered the development of a automated code
> formatting facilitiest (see the article for detailed examples and
> explanations).
Again, you claim that, but that doesn't make it true.
In fact, you can (and people have) made structure-editors for Lisp, where
it is not even possible to type an ill-formed expression. I, and many others,
don't think this is a great advance in programming environment. There is
also the Lisp pretty-printer, which does "automated code formatting".
So it appears that your claim, that Lisp's syntax "irregularities" cause
trouble for "automated code formatting", is simply false.
>> But how -- _exactly_ -- do those few irregularities actually cause a
>> problem, in practice, for real programmers?
>
> again, the criticism is about some particular aspect of lisp's syntax,
> namely, the syntax's irregularity in the context of lisp's philosophy
> of regular syntax.
I note that you're the main one promoting the idea that Lisp's primary
philosophy is "regular syntax". There is a kernel of truth in there, but
it isn't the main goal like you seem to think.
> As a analogy, if you criticise perl's syntax, the perlpers retort that perl
> programers don't have a problem with it.
But I don't criticize Perl's syntax, at least not in the way you do. I would
never say that the syntax causes Perl to "lose power" or "confuse semantics".
A _good_ criticism of Perl's syntax might note:
1. There's a lot to remember, and it can be confusing to read other people's
code (or re-read your own, much later);
2. Extremely irregular syntaxes make (Lisp-like) macros hard; and indeed,
Perl doesn't provide them.
So, you could discuss whether Common Lisp code is "confusing" to newbies.
Or to maintaining other people's code. Or whether it prevents some language
feature that would be really useful.
But you haven't made any (valid) criticisms like that.
> One of the question i have is, whether all lisp's irregular syntax are
> all simply syntax sugars. For one thing, the comment system i.e. “;”
> is not. For another, some of these irregularities, for example the
> “'”, breaks the structure of nested syntax. i.e. compare “'(a b c) vs
> (' a b c)”. I do not know much about the others.
> You mentioned that some of the syntaxes provide convenience to
> programers. for example, those so-called sugar syntaxes. Note here,
> that i'm not against sugar syntaxes. But the criticism is that some or
> all of these sugar syntaxes breaks many properties that is the
> fundamental advantage of lisp's nested syntax.
I'm trying to get you to be specific. Let's focus on the comment character,
";". As you say, it doesn't match the "regular" syntax of open-paren/function/
arguments/close-paren. So it _isn't_ merely syntactic sugar.
How EXACTLY does the comment character "break many properties that is the
fundamental advantage of Lisp"? Name a specific property, explain how it
is a fundamental advantage, and show how the comment character breaks that
property and that advantage.
I'm giving you this challenge, because I think you're just wrong about this.
The comment character, DESPITE not being "regular syntax", still doesn't
"break" any fundamental "property".
>> Lisp macros operate on the AST, _not_ on the text strings.
>
> This is the part you common lispers, fully becomes stupid. When discussion
> on this gets deeper, common lisping fans began to criticize Scheme, or to
> the degree of saying that Scheme is not lisp or some deviantiation. When
> Common Lispers defend my criticism of lisp syntax and in their defense
> starts to attack Scheme Lisp, you can begin to get the feeling of how
> Common Lispers failed to see the overall picture.
I'm trying not to bring up Scheme at all. (That's another reason why I'm
not crossposting.) You have made criticisms of "Lisp". I'll let others
defend themselves. My only response is that Common Lisp, in particular,
does not suffer from the criticisms you are suggesting.
> Let's discuss the idea that CL acts on its object, and the source code
> merely a textual representation. Let me tell you, that most computer
> languages, all have a syntax [...] Regardless how CL has some the Abstract
> Syntax Tree or Object idea, in the contex of computer languages, it still
> has just one input form what we'd call the the language's syntax.
That's actually already false. There can be multiple textual representations,
which all result in the _same_ AST. It does not have "just one input form".
For that matter, you can construct code at runtime, which _never_ has an
external, textual representation. (This is, in fact, what macros generally
do.)
> Now, lisp's lang's philosophy about syntax, emphasize that it should be
> fully nested. This is a elementary feature of the lisp family of langs.
Well, you say that. I don't happen to agree.
> (lisps that breaks away from this nested syntax, are often alienated by
> lispers and considered as only lisp derivative, such as logo, dylan.)
Again, that's an opinion you have, which is not shared by many lispers.
> It is true that CL macros act on AST as you say, but however, its nested
> syntax is a fundamental part of it. Theoretically, you could have a lang
> with non-nested syntax (such as perl, C) yet still have a macro system
> identical or almost identical to lisp.
Very, very difficult. But possible, in theory. And then they'd probably be
considered Lisps as well!
> One way, is to think of a lisp language (say, called regLisp), such that
> without any irregularities in syntax as i criticised in my essay. I mean,
> seriously, spend 20 mintues, to think of a lisp lang that doesn't have any
> syntax irregularies described in my criticism. Note, this does not mean
> not having any sugar syntaxes. Sugar syntax is of course very convenient
> and practical, often even necessary, but any sugar syntax are done so that
> the uniformity in syntax property remains intact.
So, get rid of the ";" comment character, for example. OK, I can think of
that.
> Now, if you imagine this language. Now, think about how would this regLisp
> compared to CL for example? Would it lose any advantage that CL have?
> (think in all aspects) Would it actually have any ADVANTAGES?
I can think of no advantages. I can think of a HUGE disadvantage: that I
could no longer sprinkle human-readable comments throughout my code.
So what has this exercise taught us? That your regLisp idea is a bad one?
Again, let's try to be concrete. You often spout large numbers of generic
(negative) opinions, but don't really explore any of them.
You've said that syntactic sugar is ok with you. You're mainly concerned
with Lisp syntax that doesn't map to "regular" syntax, like the semicolon
comment character. You've said that this makes macros more difficult.
I want you to prove that to me. Concretely.
Let me help. Before a macro would have to be more difficult, it would
actually need to notice the difference, would it not? So, let's work on
a code fragment of Common Lisp:
(defmacro xah (f n m) (list 'funcall f n m))
(defun test1 () (xah #'+ 1 #| Hi Xah! |# 2)) ; Hi again, Xah!
(defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
Now, when I run either (TEST1) or (TEST2), both return the answer 3.
But notice that the line defining TEST1 has lots and lots of those
horrible "irregular" syntax characters that concern you so much.
So here's my challenge to you: rewrite the macro "xah" above, so that the
functions test1 and test2 return _different_ answers. Do anything at all
that you want (in Common Lisp) in the definition of the xah macro. Your
only goal is that, when you are done, calling test1 and test2 don't return
the same thing.
I suspect you can't do it. If you can't even make a macro _notice_ when
source code uses "irregular syntax", then how in the world can you claim
that the syntax is a _problem_ for Common Lisp macros?
Note: this is the most important part of the whole post. If you ignore
everything else, at least address this one. You have made the specific claim
that ("irregular") comment character syntax makes (CL-style) macros harder.
I want you to admit that you made a mistake. (Or else teach me something,
by showing me (Common Lisp) code that solves my puzzle above. And then I'll
admit that I made a mistake.)
>> Can you be honest, in this one case? Can you admit that you have claimed
>> that Lisp's "irregular syntax" makes writing macros "harder", and you were
>> simply mistaken on that point? It is not true, and you admit your mistake?
>
> To be honest, i consider myself 50 years beyond this world. Not 500, or
> 100. By “beyond”, it means my views in most things are more advanced,
> correct, superior, than most experts in respective areas where i cared to
> give forceful opinions. Discussing with most people in newsgroups, to me,
> is more liking playing with stupid highschool bullies. You can quote me on
> this. I want you to know, that i earnestly meant the above. You can
> forthwith now write me off as a cook, pseudo- science crackpot, ergomaniac,
> whatever. But i hope you believe at least what i really think of myself.
I had already figured this out from your earlier postings. Your methodology
is pretty obvious. I'm actually surprised that you have this much
introspection. Because I think pretty much _everybody_ believes this is
what you think of yourself.
But it should now be obvious to you why most other people hate you and think
you are a troll. Because you treat other people like "stupid highschool
bullies", and because you "consider [yourself] 50 years beyond".
It shouldn't be hard for you to realize that, when conversing with someone
else, if that other person believes themselves to be your equal (or even
superior!), that you come across as an ignorant, spoiled, little brat.
But that's ok. I understand what you think of yourself. I'm going to do my
best to show you that you may be mistaken about being "50 years" ahead of
everyone else, and that in fact other people may already know some important
things that you don't yet understand.
>> What you wrote is that the syntax "irregularities" confuse the language
>> _semantics_. Not that they confuse people.
>
> i'm not sure what does it mean that a language's syntax could actually
> confuse its semantics.
I'm not sure either. BUT THAT'S WHAT _YOU_ WROTE! You listed it as a
"fundamental problem with Lisp".
Do you see how such meaningless criticism is frustrating, for those who
use and like Lisp?
>> > For example, one of the frequent question is what's the diff between:
>> > (list a b c)
>> > '(a b c)
>> > (quote a b c)
>>
>> Another chance for you to admit that you made a mistake in blaming this
>> confusion on the five "irregular" Lisp syntax characters that you mentioned.
I see that you didn't respond to this part. Despite you having made another
mistake.
>> > As a example, let me ask this: among lispers who has at least 2 years of
>> > coding lisp, how many can actually list all the lisp's syntax
>> > irregularities? How many can say, which is in Common Lisp only, or
>> > Scheme lisp, or emacs lisp?
>>
>> We're generally discussing Common Lisp only on this newsgroup. The others
>> are different languages. It doesn't even make sense to talk about how
>> differences between DIFFERENT languages confuse people.
>
> My criticism of lisp is about lisp, not specifically just Common Lisp.
> More specifically, it is about Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
> My criticism, namely the irregularity of syntax and the cons business,
> is equally applicable to all these lisp family langs.
>
>> Do you think it's a legitimate complaint against Python, that it confused
>> Perl programmers because some aspects of the language are different? It's
>> a different language!
>
> If a criticism that does apply equally well to Perl and Python, then
> it is still a valid criticism. For example, if i made some criticism
> regarding imperative programing, then it applies to perl and python.
>
> In the same way, you can see that my cricisim of lisp, namely, the
> irregularity in syntax, and the cons business, are applicable to
> Common Lisp, Scheme Lisp, Emacs Lisp.
You are right, that there might be a single criticism, which applies to some
feature in common amongst a large number of languages in the Lisp family.
And certainly, such a criticism would be fair to level against all of them.
But that's not what you did! What you criticized, was not a "syntax
irregularity" in some specific lisp; or even an irregularity common to all
the lisps; what you criticized was that programmers might be confused about
_which_ irregularity corresponded to _which_ Lisp! As though there was a
problem that different languages are different.
This is a stupid criticism. It is NOBODY's goal to make all members of the
Lisp family identical. It's not a valid criticism to notice that different
languages in the Lisp family make different choices.
> As i have expressed here ambly, in general it is not my intention, to
> simply participate in honest discussion or exchange of views.
Yes, we're well aware. This is why people (legitimately) call you a troll.
You would receive more respect, if you treated other people with more
respect.
> Although lisp's syntax irregularity and cons business are rooted, and
> difficult to change, however, there are many ways to mend them
We don't yet agree that Lisp's syntax is a problem that needs fixing.
You haven't yet pointed out even a single concrete example of a problem
with the syntax.
> The point of my criticism, is that i have some hope in raising awareness.
We have awareness of your opinions. But not of any problems with Lisp.
> That essay, “fundamental problems of lisp” arose partly due to many times
> in the past years i tried to speak my own frustrations of the cons
> business, or those confusing irregular syntax chars, or speak of some ideas
> from my Mathematica background that relates to these issues, and i met with
> absolute denial from the motherfucking lisp regular morons.
That's because:
1. you write poorly, using meaningful words that don't express what you
meant (e.g. "confuses the language semantics");
2. you write arrogantly, assuming (incorrectly) that you have vastly more
knowledge about these topics than others;
3. you actually are ignorant (e.g. very little experience programming in
Common Lisp), and are conversing with (others -- not me!) extremely smart,
experienced, and knowledgable people on these subjects.
Is their reaction _really_ that much a surprise to you? It seems like a
natural consequence of your approach, having nothing at all to do with the
content of what you are trying to express. (Which is wrong too, but that's
a different story.)
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Why do programmers get Halloween and Christmas mixed up?
Because OCT(31) = DEC(25)
xah...@gmail.com
there's this Don Geddis now having a debate with me.
The debate is about 2 criticisms on lisp, namely its irregularities in
its nested syntax and its use of cons for list. The criticism is
presented in this essay:
“The Fundamental Problems Of Lisp” at
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
(originally a newsgroup post)
The debate is in this long winding thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/tree/browse_frm/thread/e0ee331cfe13f214
The debate start at the message where the subject is changed to “Xah
on Lisp”.
i ran out of patience in dealing with Don.
Is he just fucking with me? or should i really try a earnest effort at
the debate?
For example, he asked for concrete examples. My essay, are perhaps
over 10 thousands words counting all supporting essays linked from it.
Though, sometimes in complex issues that may not be sufficient. Also,
a open publication for the general public really needs painstaking
efforts and volumes of examples, theorizations, citations.
I can see how i could actually add some more concrete scenarios on how
the lisp irregularity reduces the syntax's power. But that takes much
more effort. I mean, to really present my criticism well is almost
like writing a publishing quality booklet. It could be a full time 2
week's job.
But, i do think my essay really sufficiently showed my ideas to any
computer language expert who are intelligent and open minded. Don
idiot avows that he don't see any point in it. I have no doubt lispers
like Rainer Joswig don't get it at all too. I'm not sure lisper Pascal
J Bourguignon would have anything good to say about it. Sure, these
are Common Lisp fanatics. Their opinions on a piece of negative
criticism on lisp can be safely discarded. What i would like to know,
is that whether the essay is really that unreasonable, insufficient,
in getting its idea across?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Cor Gest
Why do you keep regurgitating stuff that other people wrote.
Cor
--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving armed conflict : Have a gun !
Don Geddis
> there's this Don Geddis now having a debate with me.
Xah, I've tried to be technical with you. You write so much, and I disagree
with almost all of it, that my response got long. (I also seem to have made
a cut&paste error in my last posting; there appears to be duplicate text.
Sorry about that.)
> The debate is about 2 criticisms on lisp, namely its irregularities in
> its nested syntax and its use of cons for list. The criticism is
> presented in this essay:
> http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
> For example, he asked for concrete examples. My essay, are perhaps
> over 10 thousands words counting all supporting essays linked from it.
Again, you write so many unsupported opinions, that I'm trying to focus down
to a specific technical point that we might be able to resolve. Otherwise,
if we stay so abstract, it's just a couple of people yelling at each other,
"I believe X!" "Well, I don't!" And no progress gets made.
> I can see how i could actually add some more concrete scenarios on how
> the lisp irregularity reduces the syntax's power. But that takes much
> more effort.
I'm asking for ONE, specific, example.
On your web page, you wrote:
[L]isp syntax has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's
power and confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,»
chars.) [...]
Lisp's irregular syntax [...] made the lang less powerful. [...]
A regular nested syntax, makes it possible to do systematic source
code transformation in a way that's also trivial to implement. There
are important consequences. Some of the examples are: lisp's macros
[...]
In this writing, and earlier in this thread, you basically say that Lisp's
"irregular" syntax causes problems, specifically with macros. I've asked you
to give me a concrete example of a Common Lisp macro that can even notice
the "irregular syntax" of Lisp. To repeat, the example is:
(defmacro xah (f n m) (list 'funcall f n m))
(defun test1 () (xah #'+ 1 #| Hi Xah! |# 2)) ; Hi again, Xah!
(defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
The challenge is: please rewrite the macro "xah", such that the functions
"test1" and "test2" (which differ only in whether they use "regular" lisp
syntax or "irregular" lisp syntax) return different values. (Right now,
both return 3).
If you are correct, and Lisp's irregular syntax is a problem for macros,
then surely you can generate this one, simple, tiny example.
Or else, if you're honest, you might admit that your assumption that these
syntax irregularities you observed, don't actually cause a problem for macros
after all, and you were wrong.
> But, i do think my essay really sufficiently showed my ideas to any
> computer language expert who are intelligent and open minded. [...] What i
> would like to know, is that whether the essay is really that unreasonable,
> insufficient, in getting its idea across?
Your ideas are clear enough. They are just incorrect. I'm trying to show
you that your claims are wrong, as quickly and clearly as I can.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
Rob Warnock
+---------------
| Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
| > You have not defined what it means for a syntax to have "power", nor have
| > you given any specific examples of how the five characters "reduce" that
| > so-called power.
|
| You want me to define the power of a computer language?
|
| You think i don't give sufficient explanation and needs to define the
| term?
|
| are you aware that defining such a thing is nearly impossible?
You, on the other hand, are apparently not aware that this has been
an active area of computer science research for decades!! E.g., see:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.51.4656
"On the expressive power of programming languages"
Matthias Felleisen
[In "Science of Computer Programming", Springer-Verlag (1991).]
Abstract:
The literature on programming languages contains an abundance of
informal claims on the relative expressive power of programming
languages, but there is no framework for formalizing such statements
nor for deriving interesting consequences. As a first step in
this direction, we develop a formal notion of expressiveness and
investigate its properties. To validate the theory, we analyze
some widely held beliefs about the expressive power of several
extensions of functional languages. Based on these results, we
believe that our system correctly captures many of the informal
ideas on expressiveness, and that it constitutes a foundation
for further research in this direction.
...
Full paper available here:
ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/express.ps.gz
http://www.cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/Publications/scp91-felleisen.ps.gz
+---------------
| Some computer scientist, tried to formalize it in some mathematical
| way, but basically went no where (such's failure, for example, can
| be attributed or judged by lack of effectiveness, practicality, utility).
|
| Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
| discussed above?
+---------------
Yes.
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock <rp...@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
xah...@gmail.com
> You, on the other hand, are apparently not aware that this has been
> an active area of computer science research for decades!! E.g., see:
>
> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.51.4656
See:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/msg/4e10dfd77a7efd70
Btw, i didn't think that was a great paper.
I was temped to call you a moron, but decided against it, because i
think you are still good.
Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
If you didnt start the post with this irreverence “You, on the other
hand, are apparently not aware ...”, then you'd be very good. From my
impression of your past posts, you often are not into heated debates,
defensive stupidity, or Lisp dogma pushing. So, i think you are good.
> | Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
> | discussed above?
> +---------------
>
> Yes.
“What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language” (2005-02) by Xah Lee.
http://xahlee.org/perl-python/what_is_expresiveness.html
“A New Kind of Science” (2002) Stephen Wolfram
http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
“Notes on A New Kind of Science” (2004-2008) by Xah Lee.
http://xahlee.org/cmaci/ca/ca.html
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
(i recommend anyone spend say, 30 min on this encyclopedia everday. As
for Wikipedia, i spend about 4 hours on it per day for maybe 4 years
now. See for example:
Links To Wikipedia from XahLee.org
http://xahlee.org/wikipedia_links.html
Lispers and Wikipedia
http://xahlee.org/emacs/lispers_n_wikipedia.html
)
-----------------------------------------------
Don, i'll respond to your message. Let me take a break.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
> Rob Warnock <r...@rpw3.org>
Ari Johnson
> Dear Rob Warnock,
>
>> You, on the other hand, are apparently not aware that this has been
>> an active area of computer science research for decades!! E.g., see:
He also just discovered the term 'Von Neumann Machine' this week, and
he's been "writing" about computer science for quite a long time. You
shouldn't be surprised.
> Btw, i didn't think that was a great paper.
>
> I was temped to call you a moron, but decided against it, because i
> think you are still good.
>
> Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
> Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
> For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
I can't read your writing. It's not written in a language I
understand. Since you have come up with a mathematical formula to
determine the objective worth of a Usenet post, though, perhaps you
would be so kind as to provide a Lisp function (as you post here so
very often, you should be comfortable with the language) that can
calculate this value from text.
If your formula is objective, then this will be possible. If you have
put any thought into it at all, you will know how to calculate it. If
you have even the slightest skill at the things you write about so
voluminously, you will be able to write this function.
I would suggest you use Emacs Lisp, because then I can add it to my
.emacs and use it to determine the worthiness of my post right from
the editor I wrote it in, before I submit it to my Usenet server.
Thanks for your time.
xah...@gmail.com
LOL. That's funny.
> I can't read your writing. ...
you know, often when i got a response in newsgroup, i do a check
whether the guy is a friend or foe. This i do by clicking on the user
profile in google group, so it will show a page of the guy's past
posts. Then, i type Xah in the search box to search thru his posts,
effectively listing exchanges i had with the guy. This is a effective
way to remind myself what this joe is like, and i can evaluate him
right there by judging what he has written in response to my often
controversial posts. I can, for example, get a glimpse of his writing
skill, critical thinking skill, programing skill, online personality,
etc. The above usually takes about 50 seconds.
So, i did that you.
Sorry i'm somewhat a newsgroup celebrity and lots folks compete to
jump onto me. There are too many of them and i can't remember who's
what. (exception being those who attack me frequently and flagrantly
with the most stupid drivels. These class have made indelible
impressions on me (comp.lang.lisp examples that comes to mind
include: Rainer, Tim X, Don, George ... some i came to know better
this year due to more post here and most if not all have at least
changed their initial view of me as some type of idiot ... and i think
they are
nice people after all ... (as opposed to some newsgroup tech geekers,
who are motherfucker hateful, society's scumbag.)) )
So, i was saying, i clicked and looked at the past exchanges between
us, here:
judging from that list, i'd say you are a fan. LOL.
Welcome Aboard.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
papers in computer science journals.
I have actually never read computer science journals. I do read math
journals but basically stopped reading any dedicated journal since
about 1999.
As regards to the value of knowledge sources, i value them roughly
like this:
1. General reference. e.g. encyclopedia, Wikipedia, specialized
encyclopedia such as “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematica” (aka
EDM).
2. Text books. e.g. SICP, the algorithm book, dragon book, network
book, math etc. In general, given a subject, there are few classic
well known ones.
3. Research papers. e.g. ACM, AMS, MAA publications, phd thesis. And
basically lots of such journals published in particular field, any
academic field, poetry, architecture, philosophy, and so on.
In general, i despise the 3rd class, i.e. those esoteric, very
specialized, papers. Those who are fond of citing such are good
indication that they are first class morons. In fact, i despise those
who write these papers. Typically, these are academician morons who
never amount to any noteworthy results in history. They “publish” to
survive.
Text books are fantastic! They give a focused, summarized, exposition
on a particular subject. Text books are my favorite type of book, in
my 20s and 30s, roughly the 1990s.
Today, my favorite source of knowledge is general reference. i.e.
encyclopedias. Basically, scientific and technological progress is too
fast to keep up. Specialization becomes necessary as a force of the
structure of technological society but specialists are all too often
morons because they have no basic knowledge of the whole. (this can be
likened to perl fanatics, Java fanatics, Common Lisp fanatics. The
fanatism completely control their thought and blind their sight.)
also, btw, my opinion of the paper
“On the expressive power of programming languages” (1991) by Matthias
Felleisen, is that it's one of the moronic paper, to tell you the
truth.
I have spent maybe 10 min scanning it 1 or 2 years ago. It is one of
those papers that are theoretically useless and practically useless.
Academecians doing their routine masterbation. (don't quote me on this
though. It's just a first impression, not a confident evaluation)
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
On Aug 20, 7:33 pm, "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Rob Warnock,
>
> > You, on the other hand, are apparently not aware that this has been
> > an active area of computer science research for decades!! E.g., see:
>
> > http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.51.4656
>
> See:http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.perl.misc/msg/4e10dfd77a7efd70
>
> Btw, i didn't think that was a great paper.
>
> I was temped to call you a moron, but decided against it, because i
> think you are still good.
>
> Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
> Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
> For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” athttp://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
>
> If you didnt start the post with this irreverence “You, on the other
> hand, are apparently not aware ...”, then you'd be very good. From my
> impression of your past posts, you often are not into heated debates,
> defensive stupidity, or Lisp dogma pushing. So, i think you are good.
>
> > | Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
> > | discussed above?
> > +---------------
>
> > Yes.
>
> “What is Expressiveness in a Computer Language” (2005-02) byXahLee.http://xahlee.org/perl-python/what_is_expresiveness.html
>
> “A New Kind of Science” (2002) Stephen Wolframhttp://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/toc.html
>
> “Notes on A New Kind of Science” (2004-2008) byXahLee.http://xahlee.org/cmaci/ca/ca.html
>
> Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
> (i recommend anyone spend say, 30 min on this encyclopedia everday. As
> for Wikipedia, i spend about 4 hours on it per day for maybe 4 years
> now. See for example:
> Links To Wikipedia from XahLee.orghttp://xahlee.org/wikipedia_links.html
>
> Lispers and Wikipediahttp://xahlee.org/emacs/lispers_n_wikipedia.html
Kenny
> Btw Rob, perhaps you are expecting me to cite some esoteric research
> papers in computer science journals.
Xah! We Free Spirits must not allowed ourselves to be dragged from our
Lofty Heights where the air is pure and we achieve our Clarity down into
the befogged befuddled tedium of Citations and Factuality where the
lesser lights dwell!
Don wrote:
"I'm trying to focus down to a specific technical point that we might be
able to resolve."
Savage! Would you harness a wild stallion to a plow?!!
And Rob* cruelly took you up on...
Xah wrote:
| Do you need me to cite papers, books, on these definition issues i
| discussed above?
In sports we call this "playing the other guy's game".
Stick to your flamboyant hyperbole, let the bookkeepers mop up after
you. Stick to bigthink, let others fret over accuracy <spit>. They have
all the facts, we have our instincts, unsupported, undocumented,
unresearched, indefensible, and right:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ace/Literaria/Poem-Graves.html
Rant on, Xah!
kt
* Good call, btw, Rob is way cool, met him once, saw his smile, nuff
said. I bet Don rocks, too.
Tamas K Papp
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> wrote on Wed, 20 Aug 2008:
>> there's this Don Geddis now having a debate with me. i ran out of
>> patience in dealing with Don.
>
> Xah, I've tried to be technical with you. You write so much, and I
> disagree with almost all of it, that my response got long. (I also seem
> to have made a cut&paste error in my last posting; there appears to be
> duplicate text. Sorry about that.)
Hi Don,
Why do you argue with him? Don't you see that he doesn't care about
understanding, so you have no common ground? He just keep ranting on
CLL. First I thought he was an AI, but a well-programmed AI would be
able to generate correct English text.
Your (and others') efforts to convince him or explain something to him
are in vain, you might as well try to teach your houseplants to play the
violin. You are wasting your time. Accidentally, you also increase the
signal/noise ratio for others who have long ago killfiled Xah, if people
did not keep replying to him, we would not see him at all.
Best,
Tamas
Kenny
Dying is easy, comedy is hard.
Meanwhile the jackals circle ever closer to the mighty but hamstrung
antelope, sensing weakness. Xah's reward for taking us clowns seriously?
Death by a thousand cuts of having his own words thrown in his face. I
pity the hyena who first sinks his teeth into Xah, but look forward to
his wake. I hear the food is great at wakes.
:)
kzo
Pascal J. Bourguignon
> Why do you argue with him? Don't you see that he doesn't care about
> understanding, so you have no common ground? He just keep ranting on
> CLL. First I thought he was an AI, but a well-programmed AI would be
> able to generate correct English text.
Well, perhaps not correct English, but an AI would aim to *learn*
something at least...
> Your (and others') efforts to convince him or explain something to him
> are in vain, you might as well try to teach your houseplants to play the
> violin. You are wasting your time.
Which indeed is not the case.
> Accidentally, you also increase the
> signal/noise ratio for others who have long ago killfiled Xah, if people
> did not keep replying to him, we would not see him at all.
Sorry.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
This universe shipped by weight, not volume. Some expansion may have
occurred during shipment.
xah...@gmail.com
>
> On your web page, you wrote:
>
> [L]isp syntax has several irregularities, that reduces such syntax's
> power and confuses the language semantics. (i.e. those «' # ; ` ,»
> chars.) [...]
>
> Lisp's irregular syntax [...] made the lang less powerful. [...]
>
> A regular nested syntax, makes it possible to do systematic source
> code transformation in a way that's also trivial to implement. There
> are important consequences. Some of the examples are: lisp's macros
> [...]
>
> In this writing, and earlier in this thread, you basically say that Lisp's
> "irregular" syntax causes problems, specifically with macros.
It is not about causing problems to lisp lang as it exist.
It is more about possibilities; about what could have been. Please
take a quick scan of the past 2 replies i wrote. I believe in several
places i tried to express this.
> I've asked you
> to give me a concrete example of a Common Lisp macro that can even notice
> the "irregular syntax" of Lisp. To repeat, the example is:
>
> (defmacroxah(f n m) (list 'funcall f n m))
> (defun test1 () (xah#'+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2)) ; Hi again,Xah!
> (defun test2 () (xah(function +) 1 2))
>
> The challenge is: please rewrite the macro "xah", such that the functions
> "test1" and "test2" (which differ only in whether they use "regular" lisp
> syntax or "irregular" lisp syntax) return different values. (Right now,
> both return 3).
i don't think i clearly communicated what i mean.
For example, in your example, using a lisp using regular syntax, might
be this:
(defmacro xah (f n m) (list (' funcall) f n m))
(defun test1 () (# (xah (' +) 1 (#| HiXah!) 2))) (; Hi again,Xah!)
(defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
Why is this better? Because, as you can see, the syntax all have this
regular form: “(f x1 x2 ...)”, no exceptions. What's the advantage of
this? In my view, the advantage is the same that lispers love lisp's
nested syntax for, namely the regularity, simplicity, the ability to
parse it trivially. In my essay (
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
), i have detailed many advantages and consequences of such a simple
syntax. This nested syntax, is in fact the foundation of lisps, and is
widely touted, in just about every lisp publication and advocacy. What
i'm saying, is that these publications, advocacies, almost never
mentioned the irregularities in lisp's syntax, and there are quite a
few, and actually growing in Scheme 6. Lispers themselves do not seem
to be conspicuously aware that lisp syntax actually are irregular.
What i'm saying, is that these irregularities, hampered lisp's
development. That if these irregularities did not exist, lisp would
have been better.
I'll repond to your other message, perhaps pieces by pieces...
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
> Why do you keep regurgitating stuff that other people wrote.
Huh?
Do you mean to say that my lisp criticism
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
are on the spot, but the problem i discussed is actually well known
and has been written about in the lisp community?
If that's what you mean, then apparently many lispers here disagree or
don't seem to be aware of it. As you can see in this thread, they are
explicitly saying i don't know lisp, i was incorrect, i'm a troll,
etc.
Also, i agree that lisp's cons considered as a language flaw, is a
well known in lisp community. (but seldomly explicitly acknowledged as
a flaw) However, the lisp syntax irregularity, and the detail that i
criticised, is i think new.
One might ask, that if lisp's irregular syntax is a problem, why
didn't any lispers in the past few decades noticed or wrote about it?
It is my guess that there are people who have noticed it as a problem
in almost the same way as i detailed in my criticism. Perhaps they
might have even have published papers about it. (hopefully someone
resourceful might dig up something)
On the other hand, the fact that very few actually explicitly
criticized lisp's irregular syntax problem and the cons problem as i
have done, i think is because most so-called computer scientists are
morons. (Actually, in the past few years as i get older, i consider it
more that i'm relatively a genius.)
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
> > Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
> > Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
> > For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> > http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
Ari Johnson wrote:
> I can't read your writing. It's not written in a language I
> understand. Since you have come up with a mathematical formula to
> determine the objective worth of a Usenet post, ...
Btw, it's not “ mathematical formula to determine the objective worth
of a Usenet post”. Apparantly you misread my essay.
My essay:
“(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
is about explaining why i'm rude to people. In particular, i
explained, that the rudeness in my reply is proportional to the value
of: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” in their message. In
particular, the value “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” is not
about some “objective worth of Usenet post” as you seems to think.
For my opinion about the value of related to your idea of “objective
worth of Usenet post”, please see:
“Philosophies of Netiquette”, at
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/phil_netiquette.html
Here's a relevant excerpt:
«The Rococo style posters are in general more scholarly and emphasize
on quality and value. The intrinsic quality of a post of the Rococo
stylists can be judged on content and presentation aspects. The
presentation part essentially means the poster's writing skill and
effort she puts into posts. This fact is not highbrowism because
communication using newsgroups are done in written form: wrote and
read; not spoke and heard. The criterions for judging a post's content
are essentially the same as that of a scholar's work in science or
humanitarian diciplines, roughly that of correctness, originality, or
artistry.»
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
Don Geddis wrote:
> Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
> Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
> "reduce [the] syntax's power".
Here's some concrete examples of what i mean by power of syntax.
In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
to prepend each line by a semicolon. However, if you have nested
comment syntax, one could just braket the block of code to comment it
out. This, is a simple, perhaps trivial, example of “power of a
syntax”.
You know that in Python, the formatting is part of the lang's syntax.
Many programers may not like it, but it is well accepted that due to
Python's syntax, python code is very easy to read, and it much done
away about programer preferences and argument about code formatting.
This is example of power of a syntax.
Let me give another, different example. You know that perl's syntax,
often the function's arguments do not necessarily need to have a paren
around it. For example, “print (3);” and “print 3;” are the same
thing. This is a example of power of syntax, when considered as a
flexibity or save of typing, for good or bad. Similarly, in javascript
for example, ending semicolon is optional.
(for sample perl and python code, see
http://xahlee.org/perl-python/index.html
)
In Mathematica, the language has a systax syntem such that you can
have fully uniform nested notation, or you have have a uniform postfix
notation, and prefix notation, as well as infix notation, for ANY
function in the language, and you can mix all of the above. This is a
example of power of syntax.
(for detailed explanation of Mathematica syntax and comparison to
lisp's, see:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/notations.html
)
In general, a computer lang has a syntax. The syntax, as text written
from left to right, has various properties and characteristics. Ease
of input (think of APL as counter example), succinctness (e.g. Perl,
APL), variability (Perl, Mathematica), readibility (Python),
familiarity (C, Java, Javascript, ...), 2-dimentional math notation
(Mathematica), ease of parsing (lisp), regularity (APL, Mathematica,
Lisp, ...), flexibility (Mathematica)... etc. Basically, you can look
at syntax, and programer's need to type them, from many perspectives.
The good qualities, such as ease of use, flexibitity, ease of reading,
ease of parsing, ease of input, etc, can be considered as the syntax's
power.
As a example of syntax of little power... think of a lang using binary
digits as its sole char set.
I hope the above clarified what i mean by syntax's power, when i used
the phrase “reduces such syntax's power” in my criticism
“Fundamental Problems of Lisp” at
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
. (note that the essay isn't well written as it was originally a
newsgroup post. Possibly i'll edit it later)
Possibly we can start the argument from this point if you don't agree
i have a valid criticism. Or, if you have other points in your
previous post that i should address, please let me know. (i'll read
more and may reply but possibly tomorrow...)
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Kenny
> 2008-08-21
>
> Don Geddis wrote:
>
>
>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>
>
> Here's some concrete examples of what i mean by power of syntax.
>
> In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
> Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
> have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
> to prepend each line by a semicolon.
I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove
useful in the future I use #+shhhh
I also have a feature X42 that is indeed on *features* list and some of
those prints that come and go repeatedly are featured #+x42 when I want
them active, #+x4x when not. To enable such a print, I just change the
trailing x to 2. When a debugging firefight is over I do a global
search/replace on x42/x4x to quickly silence those.
kt
Ari Johnson
>> If your formula is objective, then this will be possible. If you have
>> put any thought into it at all, you will know how to calculate it. If
>> you have even the slightest skill at the things you write about so
>> voluminously, you will be able to write this function.
>>
>> I would suggest you use Emacs Lisp, because then I can add it to my
>> .emacs and use it to determine the worthiness of my post right from
>> the editor I wrote it in, before I submit it to my Usenet server.
>>
>> Thanks for your time.
>
> LOL. That's funny.
Yes, it is. Because there's no way you are capable of backing
anything you say up. It might not be so bad if you were fluent in
English *or* competent in computer science, but you are neither, and
you make up for it by hurling badly-coined insults at people.
The way I see it, you have three options. Put your money where your
mouth is and provide some code as described above, admit that your
formula is not objective and is rather just a handy "I don't have to
respond to you on an intellectual level because the math doesn't work
out" tool, or prove that you are incapable of reason by doing neither.
> judging from that list, i'd say you are a fan. LOL.
This is just another thing about which you are delusional.
Ari Johnson
> Xah wrote:
>> > Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
>> > Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
>> > For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
>> > http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
>
> Ari Johnson wrote:
>> I can't read your writing. It's not written in a language I
>> understand. Since you have come up with a mathematical formula to
>> determine the objective worth of a Usenet post, ...
>
> Btw, it's not “ mathematical formula to determine the objective worth
> of a Usenet post”. Apparantly you misread my essay.
You are wrong. I *didn't* read your essay because it's not written in
any human language.
> My essay:
> “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
>
> is about explaining why i'm rude to people. In particular, i
> explained, that the rudeness in my reply is proportional to the value
> of: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” in their message. In
> particular, the value “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” is not
> about some “objective worth of Usenet post” as you seems to think.
Okay, so it's not about objective worth, but you are still claiming
that it's an objective formula. My point stands.
xah...@gmail.com
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Xah wrote:
> >> > Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
> >> > Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
> >> > For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> >> >http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
>
> > Ari Johnson wrote:
> >> I can't read your writing. It's not written in a language I
> >> understand. Since you have come up with a mathematical formula to
> >> determine the objective worth of a Usenet post, ...
>
> > Btw, it's not “ mathematical formula to determine the objective worth
> > of a Usenet post”. Apparantly you misread my essay.
>
> You are wrong. I *didn't* read your essay because it's not written in
> any human language.
well, it's in english, n english is a human lang.
also, perhaps you mean it's badly written. Actually, the quality my
writing is better than, say, average english professor or average
professional journalist, in general. Some of my fastly typed out
newsgroups posts are exceptions though.
> > My essay:
> > “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> >http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
>
> > is about explaining why i'm rude to people. In particular, i
> > explained, that the rudeness in my reply is proportional to the value
> > of: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” in their message. In
> > particular, the value “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” is not
> > about some “objective worth of Usenet post” as you seems to think.
>
> Okay, so it's not about objective worth, but you are still claiming
> that it's an objective formula. My point stands.
Nowhere i claimed or implied that my judgement of “(Knowledge +
Love) / Disrespectfulness” ratio is objective.
bozo, nice try. lol.
(line stolen from Kenny.)
Ari, what kinda name is that? Btw you are sooo stupid. Your respones
to my threads in the past years are stupid (just google group search
“ari johnson” and “xah”). However, your posts in my thread are not
aggressive like some other tech geeking morons, so your name never got
into my mind. You are still good.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Don Geddis
> Don wrote:
> "I'm trying to focus down to a specific technical point that we might be able
> to resolve."
>
> Savage! Would you harness a wild stallion to a plow?!!
Kenny, I bow to your superior analogies... You are, indeed, The Kenny.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
If it's not one thing, it's your mother.
Don Geddis
>> Don Geddis wrote:
>>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
>>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>>
>> Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
>> have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
>> to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>
> I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
> For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
> in the future I use #+shhhh
And also:
#|
...<multiline code> ...
|#
is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
So, Xah, Kenny and I have shown you two different ways, in standard Common
Lisp, to easily comment-out multi-line code.
On this narrow topic, can you admit that you were in error, and this isn't
a "fundamental problem of Lisp" after all?
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Job vacancy advertisment. Wanted: Small man for job as a mud flap.
Must be flexible and willing to travel.
Ari Johnson
> On Aug 21, 7:13 am, Ari Johnson <iamthe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
> > > Xah wrote:
> > >> > Why would i call you a moron? Because your “(Knowledge + Love) /
> > >> > Disrespectfulness” ratio in this post is low.
> > >> > For detail, see: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> > >> >http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
> >
> > > Ari Johnson wrote:
> > >> I can't read your writing. It's not written in a language I
> > >> understand. Since you have come up with a mathematical formula to
> > >> determine the objective worth of a Usenet post, ...
> >
> > > Btw, it's not “ mathematical formula to determine the objective worth
> > > of a Usenet post”. Apparantly you misread my essay.
> >
> > You are wrong. I *didn't* read your essay because it's not written in
> > any human language.
>
> well, it's in english, n english is a human lang.
No, your writings are not in English. English has rules about grammar
and spelling that you do not adhere to, here or in your "essays."
> also, perhaps you mean it's badly written. Actually, the quality my
> writing is better than, say, average english professor or average
> professional journalist, in general. Some of my fastly typed out
> newsgroups posts are exceptions though.
You're right. Some of your Usenet posts actually do make your essays
look better. To say, though, that your writing is better than an
average English professor or average professional journalist is just
part of your unjustified arrogance.
> > > My essay:
> > > “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” at
> > >http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/disrespectfulness.html
> >
> > > is about explaining why i'm rude to people. In particular, i
> > > explained, that the rudeness in my reply is proportional to the value
> > > of: “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” in their message. In
> > > particular, the value “(Knowledge + Love) / Disrespectfulness” is not
> > > about some “objective worth of Usenet post” as you seems to think.
> >
> > Okay, so it's not about objective worth, but you are still claiming
> > that it's an objective formula. My point stands.
>
> Nowhere i claimed or implied that my judgement of “(Knowledge +
> Love) / Disrespectfulness” ratio is objective.
The use of mathematical symbols carries with it an implicit assertion
that the formula is objective. If you didn't know that already, now
you do.
> bozo, nice try. lol.
> (line stolen from Kenny.)
You've stolen someone else's words to insult me. How flattering! See
below for the grand sum of the emotional harm I've suffered as a
result.
> Ari, what kinda name is that?
One that you most likely can't pronounce, can't figure out the origins
of, and can't figure out the origins of the name it's short for. Do
you understand what an ad hominem argument is, and how making one
undermines your credibility?
> Btw you are sooo stupid. Your respones
> to my threads in the past years are stupid (just google group search
> “ari johnson” and “xah”).
I knew that the insults were coming at some point, rather than a
response to what I've actually written and asked. Attacking a person
without addressing his position can be useful, if you wish to injure
the person rather than to demonstrate the flaws in his position.
Sometimes, that is the desired effect. In this case, it most likely
is not. Either way, it is not an actual effect.
You are doing one of two things here. If you are doing what you
generally claim to be doing, which is, generally stated, educating the
world about how you are right and the rest of us are all wrong about
any topic you proclaim yourself to be an expert on, then injuring the
person is not the desired effect. If you think that injuring the
person proves your point, then you should read a book on logical
discourse. If you are not attempting to insult people and that is
just how you communicate your point, then you should read both a book
on logical discourse and several on interpersonal communication.
Now, on the other hand, if you are not actually attempting to have a
discussion about the topic but rather just want to insult people, you
are dishonest in claiming otherwise. Furthermore, you are misguided,
as I doubt there is a current comp.lang.lisp reader who does in fact
take any of your ridiculous insults personally. I certainly do not.
What you have accomplished, no matter your intent and no matter
whether you are aware of your methods attempting to execute that
intent, is to become a laughingstock and a running joke. Nearly
everyone who responds to you does so for the purpose of
self-amusement.
> However, your posts in my thread are not
> aggressive like some other tech geeking morons, so your name never got
> into my mind. You are still good.
Your comprehension of the English language leaves a bit to be desired,
if that's what you think. Read some of Laurence Sterne's or
Shakespeare's works if you'd like to learn how to be aggressive
without resorting to cliche insults and foul language.
Ari Johnson
> "xah...@gmail.com" <xah...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Nowhere i claimed or implied that my judgement of “(Knowledge +
> > Love) / Disrespectfulness” ratio is objective.
>
> The use of mathematical symbols carries with it an implicit assertion
> that the formula is objective. If you didn't know that already, now
> you do.
I did forget to make one observation on this point. If you are using
a mathematical formula to determine something subjective, then you are
engaging in a corollary of Disraeli's third type of lies.
xah...@gmail.com
> No, your writings are not in English. English has rules about grammar
> and spelling that you do not adhere to, here or in your "essays."
it's still english though.
also, note that notable writers don't necessarily adhere to the the
style of the plebeians. shakespear, cumming, emily. I feel cheap to
mention this in a earnest way, but tech geekers don't know nothing
about literature stuffs
i have some collected writing about this. see:
“Language and English”
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/bangu/bangu.html
Excerpt of the intro:
«... my writing is razor blades in hot buns to grammarians, chocking
dagger to mouthing moralists, logic bomb to irreflecting morons, eye
opener to epochal theorists, immaculate calculus to logicians,
euphoric oxygen to English masters, orgasmic honey to poetic chicks.
That is to say, when i wanna be on the right occasion, too.»
«you see, English under me is like a love slave. I say jump and she
jumps, I say kiss and she kisses. And when i need to vent, she bends
double and pleads cum. Of course, it is not to say my theories are
unerring or i'm impeccable or sans foibles and grammatical
trespassings. But all things considered...»
> The use of mathematical symbols carries with it an implicit assertion
> that the formula is objective.
LOL. How stupid can you be?
That's a joke right?
> What you have accomplished, no matter your intent and no matter
> whether you are aware of your methods attempting to execute that
> intent, is to become a laughingstock and a running joke. Nearly
> everyone who responds to you does so for the purpose of
> self-amusement.
Not really. That's the surprising part. Since i started conversational
styled posts in recent months esp in gnu.emacs.help , and responding
to almost all messages addressed to me, i have realized, the degree of
stupidities in tech geekers. Sometimes i think something is obvious
playing dumb or a joke, but it turns out they mean it. For some
detailed account and the exact threads you can see this, see:
What I've Learned By Conversational Styled Posts
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/chat_style_posts.html
> Read some ... Shakespeare's works
See:
“The Tragedy Of Titus Andronicus” (1594) by William Shakespeare,
annotated by Xah Lee.
http://xahlee.org/p/titus/titus.html
Ari, Thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Don Geddis
> It is more about possibilities; about what could have been.
Exactly. I'm asking you to show me, SPECIFICALLY, how things might have
been better, with your design for Lisp.
>> I've asked you to give me a concrete example of a Common Lisp macro that
>> can even notice the "irregular syntax" of Lisp. To repeat, the example
>> is:
>> (defmacro xah (f n m) (list (quote funcall) f n m))
>> (defun test1 () (xah #'+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2)) ; Hi again, Xah!
>> (defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
>> The challenge is: please rewrite the macro "xah", such that the functions
>> "test1" and "test2" (which differ only in whether they use "regular" lisp
>> syntax or "irregular" lisp syntax) return different values. (Right now,
>> both return 3).
>
> For example, in your example, using a lisp using regular syntax, might
> be this:
> (defmacro xah (f n m) (list (' funcall) f n m))
> (defun test1 () (# (xah (' +) 1 (#| HiXah!) 2))) (; Hi again,Xah!)
> (defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
> Why is this better? Because, as you can see, the syntax all have this
> regular form: “(f x1 x2 ...)”, no exceptions.
You've missed the point. (I rewrote my "xah" macro above using your
preferred notation.) The point is, the test1 and test2 functions.
They are IDENTICAL, except that one uses a lot of "irregular" syntax,
and the other only uses your preferred "regular" syntax.
I'm asking you to give me ANY (just one!) example of how the difference
between the _functions_ test1 and test2, can matter at all for Common Lisp
macros.
I'm asking you to write your own macro "xah", which test1 and test2 are
going to call, that can even tell the difference between test1 and test2!
Much less cause test1 (with "irregular syntax") to make writing the macro
"harder", which has been your claim from the beginning. (And is the claim
I'm trying to dispute.)
> What's the advantage of this? In my view, the advantage is the same that
> lispers love lisp's nested syntax for, namely the regularity, simplicity,
> the ability to parse it trivially.
These are all generic claims, that I disagree with. Which is why I'm trying
to get you to give me a specific piece of code. Otherwise, you just continue
to shout "it's better!" and I'll continue to shout "not it's not better!"
and the discussion will go nowhere.
So, if you are right, and "regular" syntax in CL code is better -- for
ANYTHING -- then I'm asking you to give me a SPECIFIC example where something
-- anything! -- is actually easier because of that regular syntax.
You have my example above. The functions test1 and test2 are identical,
except that one is regular syntax, and one is irregular syntax. You claim
that regular syntax is better. Fine. Show me ANY code (esp. a macro, which
is a specific part of your claim) where ANYTHING is easier/better because
of the definition of test2 (using regular syntax) instead of test1.
If you think this is true in general, then surely you can generate at least
ONE concrete example, no?
If you are unable to generate ANY concrete examples of regular syntax being
better, then I'll be forced to stick with my current theory, that it isn't
actually better. For anything. And your claims about the benefits of
"regular" syntax in your essay are simply wrong.
> What i'm saying, is that these irregularities, hampered lisp's development.
> That if these irregularities did not exist, lisp would have been better.
That's a claim. Give a concrete example. Show some piece of code that
is "better" in some way, if there is regular syntax, instead of the existing
CL syntax.
For example, define a "xah" macro in my challenge code above, that does
different things with the test1 and test2 functions. (That's just a
suggestion. _Any_ concrete example would be sufficient.)
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Mediocrity: It takes a lot less time and most people won't notice the
difference until it's too late. -- Despair.com
xah...@gmail.com
> Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 21 Aug 2008:
>
> >xah...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Don Geddis wrote:
> >>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
> >>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
> >>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>
> >> In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
> >> Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
> >> have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
> >> to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>
> > I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
> > For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
> > in the future I use #+shhhh
>
> And also:
> #|
> ...<multiline code> ...
> |#
> is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
>
> Lisp, to easily comment-out multi-line code.
>
> On this narrow topic, can you admit that you were in error, and this isn't
> a "fundamental problem of Lisp" after all?
Dear Don Geddis fuckface, are you still trying to have a earnest
conversation, or are you reverting back to playing a game?
You want me to clarify “power of syntax” by concrete examples, and i
gave you 4 examples using lisp, perl, python, mathematica. One of them
uses lisp to illustrate single-line comment vs multi-line comment
systems, and how the latter con be considered more powerful.
The “#|” is not a valid comment in emacs lisp.
*** Welcome to IELM *** Type (describe-mode) for help.
ELISP> (+ 3 4 #| see |#)
*** Read error *** Invalid read syntax: "#"
ELISP>
suppose the #| is common lisp's comment in macros. That's good but
then it introduces complexity. For example, now there are 2 comments.
But anyhow, both “;” and “#| ... |#” are irregularities of lisp's
nested syntax.
nice try though bozo.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
xah...@gmail.com
> >> I've asked you to give me a concrete example of a Common Lisp macro that
> >> can even notice the "irregular syntax" of Lisp. To repeat, the example
> >> is:
> >> (defun test1 () (xah#'+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2)) ; Hi again,Xah!
> >> The challenge is: please rewrite the macro "xah", such that the functions
> >> "test1" and "test2" (which differ only in whether they use "regular" lisp
> >> syntax or "irregular" lisp syntax) return different values. (Right now,
> >> both return 3).
>
> > For example, in your example, using a lisp using regular syntax, might
> > be this:
> > (defun test1 () (# (xah(' +) 1 (#| HiXah!) 2))) (; Hi again,Xah!)
> > (defun test2 () (xah(function +) 1 2))
> > Why is this better? Because, as you can see, the syntax all have this
> > regular form: “(f x1 x2 ...)”, no exceptions.
>
> You've missed the point. (I rewrote my "xah" macro above using your
> preferred notation.) The point is, the test1 and test2 functions.
> They are IDENTICAL, except that one uses a lot of "irregular" syntax,
> and the other only uses your preferred "regular" syntax.
Ok, i see the purpose of your 2 versions of xah macro now. Thanks for
the clarification. Yes i misunderstood you before.
Let me explain, that your macro example:
(defmacro xah (f n m) (list (quote funcall) f n m))
(defun test1 () (xah#'+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2)) ; Hi again,Xah!
(defun test2 () (xah(function +) 1 2))
does not address the criticism on syntax irregularity.
For example, due to lisp's (almost) regular nested syntax, one of its
power is that the editor can understand the semantic structure of the
code, without actually being a parser or compiler. For example, in
emacs, you have forward-sexp, mark-sexp and a lot others that
manipulate lisp expressions. This can be done in lisp, precisely
because its syntax is based on a simple regular form. As a counter
example, this cannot be done in C, perl, java, javascript, python, etc
lang due to the fact that they don't use a regular simple syntax.
So, in your macro example, for example this one:
(defun test1 () (xah# '+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2))
i cannot move my cursor to the “#|” part and call mark-sexp to select
it.
However, if suppore there is a RegLisp that does not have such
irregularity in syntax, suppose it looks like:
(defun test1 () (# (xah (' +) 1 (#| HiXah!) 2)))
then emacs sexp manipulation functions works anywhere in the code.
Can you see what i mean?
Also, this is one concrete, simple example, to illustrate one power
that's lost due to irregularities in syntax. I gave many detailed
explanation in my original article here: http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
I quote 3 paragraphs:
«
• Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. Because of such regularity
of the syntax, it allows transformation of the source code by a simple
lexical scan. This has powerful ramification. (practically, lispers
realized just one: the lisp macros) For example, since the syntax is
regular, one could easily have alternative, easier to read syntaxes as
a layer. (the concept is somewhat known in early lisp as M-expression)
Mathematica took this advantage (probably independent of lisp's
influence), so that you really have easy to read syntax, yet fully
retain the regular form advantages. In lisp history, such layer been
done and tried here and there in various forms or langs ( CGOL↗,
Dylan↗), but never caught on due to largely social happenings. Part of
these reasons are political. (thanks to, in part, sensitive and
ignorant lispers here that stops proper discussion of it.)
• One of the advantage of pure fully functional syntax is that a
programer should never need to format his source code (i.e. pressing
tabs, returns) in coding, and save the hundreds hours of labor,
guides, tutorials, advices, publications, editor tools, on what's
known as “coding style convention”, because the editor can reformat
the source code on the fly based on a simple lexical scan. This is
done in Mathematica version 3 (~1996). In coding elisp, i'm pained to
no ends by the manual process of formatting lisp code. The lisp
community, established a particular way of formatting lisp code as
exhibited in emacs's lisp modes and written guides of conventions. The
recognization of such convention further erode any possibility and
awareness of automatic, uniform, universal, formatting. (e.g. the
uniform and universal part of advantage is exhibited by Python)
• Lisp relies on a regular nested syntax. One of the power of such
pure syntax is that you could build up layers on top of it, so that
the source code can function as markup of conventional mathematical
notations (i.e. MathML) and or as a word-processing-like file that can
contain structures, images (e.g. Microsoft Office Open XML↗), yet lose
practical nothing. This is done in Mathematica in ~1996 with release
of Mathematica version 3. (e.g. think of XML, its uniform nested
syntax, its diverse use as a markup lang, then, some people are adding
computational semantics to it now (i.e. a computer language with
syntax of xml. e.g. O:XML↗). You can think of Mathematica going the
other way, by starting with a computer lang with a regular nested
syntax, then add new but inert keywords to it with markup semantics.
The compiler will just treat these inert keywords like comment syntax
when doing computation. When the source code is read by a editor, the
editor takes the markup keywords for structural or stylitic
representation, with title, chapter heading, tables, images,
animations, hyperlinks, typeset math expression (e.g. think of
MathML↗) etc. The non-marked-up keywords are shown as one-dimentional
textual source code just like source code is normally shown is most
languages.)
»
are you convinced?
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Kenny
> Kenny <kent...@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 21 Aug 2008:
>
>>xah...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>Don Geddis wrote:
>>>
>>>>Not the power of a "language". The power of a language's _syntax_.
>>>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>>>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>>>
>>>In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
>>>Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
>>>have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
>>>to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>>
>>I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners.
>>For print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
>>in the future I use #+shhhh
>
>
> And also:
> #|
> ...<multiline code> ...
> |#
> is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
Easy? Now I have to keychord to the end of the block, type in a separate
delimiter, and when I want to restore take out two things.
You must like typing. :)
>
> So, Xah, Kenny and I have shown you two different ways, in standard Common
> Lisp, to easily comment-out multi-line code.
>
> On this narrow topic, can you admit that you were in error, and this isn't
> a "fundamental problem of Lisp" after all?
The Xah cannot be in error any more than Picasso can screw up by putting
both eyes on one side of the face.
kt
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
S-Expressions are not the syntax of Lisp code.
They are the syntax for Lisp data. By understanding s-expressions
the Editor still knows nothing about the syntax of Lisp code forms.
If you write (defun) it is a valid s-expression, but not
valid Lisp code. (defun (foo)) is also nicely nested, still
it is not valid Lisp code.
S-Expression support in the editor allows nice manipulations of
tree-structured data. But the editor does not know because
of just s-expressions what a variable is, what a function name is,
what a list of bindings is, what an arglist is and so on.
It does not know that the second item in
(defun foo (a b) (baz a b))
has to be a symbol and be there. It does not know that the third item
has to be a list
and be there. It does not know that after the arglist any number of
Lisp forms
is allowed.
Just because of s-expressions, the editor will not know
that DEFUN is the name of a macro, foo is the name of a function,
(a b) is an arglist, a and b are parameters, (baz a b) is a function
call
and so on. All the editor would see is a list of things.
(foobar barfoo (baz foo) (blah baz foo)) has the same semantic
content as above. It is also a list of things. The editor
will not tell you any difference just be understanding
s-expressions. s-expressions also have nothing to do with
semantics of code.
> For example, in
> emacs, you have forward-sexp, mark-sexp and a lot others that
> manipulate lisp expressions. This can be done in lisp, precisely
> because its syntax is based on a simple regular form. As a counter
> example, this cannot be done in C, perl, java, javascript, python, etc
> lang due to the fact that they don't use a regular simple syntax.
>
> So, in your macro example, for example this one:
>
> (defun test1 () (xah# '+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2))
>
> i cannot move my cursor to the “#|” part and call mark-sexp to select
> it.
That's the stupidity of Emacs. The editor I use has the command mark-
form and
happily marks the comment form (and all other forms in Lisp).
Instead of demonstrating your non-knowledge in comp.lang.lisp for the
past
years, you could have learned some Lisp-dialect by now. Make a
decision:
either learn some Lisp dialect or stop posting here.
xah...@gmail.com
> > For example, due to lisp's (almost) regular nested syntax, one of its
> > power is that the editor can understand the semantic structure of the
> > code, without actually being a parser or compiler. For example, in
> > emacs, you have forward-sexp, mark-sexp and a lot others that
> > manipulate lisp expressions. This can be done in lisp, precisely
> > because its syntax is based on a simple regular form. As a counter
> > example, this cannot be done in C, perl, java, javascript, python, etc
> > lang due to the fact that they don't use a regular simple syntax.
Rainer Joswig wrote:
> S-Expressions are not the syntax of Lisp code.
> They are the syntax for Lisp data. By understanding s-expressions
> the Editor still knows nothing about the syntax of Lisp code forms.
>
> If you write (defun) it is a valid s-expression, but not
> valid Lisp code. (defun (foo)) is also nicely nested, still
> it is not valid Lisp code.
>
> S-Expression support in the editor allows nice manipulations of
> tree-structured data. But the editor does not know because
> of just s-expressions what a variable is, what a function name is,
> what a list of bindings is, what an arglist is and so on.
> It does not know that the second item in
Rainer, i tried to explain this several times, you insist looking into
CL and clamour about its textual representation and internal object
differences.
The point here, is that a regular syntax can be parsed trivially by a
lexical scan and allow editors to reformat the code wihtout having a
parser proper builtin. Again, this is just one simple example of the
advantage. I have by now some 20 thousands words explanations and
examples. Are you ignoring them on purpose? perhaps because your
Common Lisp fanaticism, you simply don't see it?
I also explained in detail several times, that whatever your lisp
internal shit, the lang still just have one syntax. It is the one
programers types. It's great that common lisp has this and that
internal representation and shit and what's called textual
representation or print form, but still the lang has one syntax in the
context of lineaer, text based, computer languages, ok?
> (defun foo (a b) (baz a b))
>
> has to be a symbol and be there. It does not know that the third item
> has to be a list
> and be there. It does not know that after the arglist any number of
> Lisp forms
> is allowed.
It is not the editor's job to know.
The point about emacs's understanding of sexp, is to illustrate that
because lisp has a almost regular nested syntax, it allowed any editor
to parse and understand to great degree the lang's syntactic
structure.
The point is not about whether emacs contains a full lisp parser, or
whether emacs actually understands lisp semantics, or whether emacs
sucks and and true lisp editor blows.
> Just because of s-expressions, the editor will not know
> that DEFUN is the name of a macro, foo is the name of a function,
> (a b) is an arglist, a and b are parameters, (baz a b) is a function
> call
> and so on. All the editor would see is a list of things.
>
> (foobar barfoo (baz foo) (blah baz foo)) has the same semantic
> content as above. It is also a list of things. The editor
> will not tell you any difference just be understanding
> s-expressions. s-expressions also have nothing to do with
> semantics of code.
Moron Rainer, it's not about understanding the semantic of lisp.
lisp has a almost regular syntax. This syntax, has high degree of
correspondence to its semantics. So, any dumb editor can parse the
syntax by a lexical scan, and understand to some degree of the
semantic structure or its abstract syntax tree. This is in contrast
to, for example, langs with syntax soup as its syntax such as most von
neumann langs (e.g. C, C++, Java, perl, javascript, php...).
> > For example, in
> > emacs, you have forward-sexp, mark-sexp and a lot others that
> > manipulate lisp expressions. This can be done in lisp, precisely
> > because its syntax is based on a simple regular form. As a counter
> > example, this cannot be done in C, perl, java, javascript, python, etc
> > lang due to the fact that they don't use a regular simple syntax.
>
> > So, in your macro example, for example this one:
>
> > (defun test1 () (xah# '+ 1 #| HiXah! |# 2))
>
> > i cannot move my cursor to the “#|” part and call mark-sexp to select
> > it.
>
> That's the stupidity of Emacs. The editor I use has the command mark-
> form and
> happily marks the comment form (and all other forms in Lisp).
>
> Instead of demonstrating your non-knowledge in comp.lang.lisp for the
> past
> years, you could have learned some Lisp-dialect by now. Make a
> decision:
> either learn some Lisp dialect or stop posting here.
Rainer, after the numerous detailed exchange on this issue between us
and me and others, i don't know either you are truely a idiot, or your
lisp fanaticism really prevented you from seeing any validity in
negative criticisms, or that you are here just to fuck with me.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
It's the same in Emacs Lisp. You don't even understand the basics.
Look, this is ELISP:
ELISP> (setq myprogram '(defun foo (a) (print a)))
(defun foo
(a)
(print a))
ELISP> (eval myprogram)
foo
ELISP> (listp myprogram)
t
ELISP> (foo 3)
3
ELISP> (setq myprogram1 '(defun foo))
(defun foo)
ELISP> (listp myprogram1)
t
ELISP> (eval myprogram1)
*** Eval error *** Wrong number of arguments: defun, 1
Program source was a valid s-expression in both cases.
Both were lists.
One was a valid Lisp program, the other not.
See the ELISP?
> The point here, is that a regular syntax can be parsed trivially by a
> lexical scan and allow editors to reformat the code wihtout having a
> parser proper builtin.
Again, this is not how Lisp works. Not Emacs Lisp and not Common Lisp
and not other Lisps.
To format source code in a useful way, the formatter has to understand
more than the
s-expression syntax. Repeating your bullshit does not make it better.
See these lists:
(a b (d e) (f g h) (i j k))
How do you like it to be formatted?
If it's data, above would be fine.
Optionally I could imagine:
(a
b
(d e)
(f g h)
(i j k))
Now let's rename the symbols:
(defun foo (d e) (baz g h) (bar j k))
Now I want it formatted as:
(defun foo (d e)
(baz g h)
(bar j k))
Above is formatting of Lisp code. For that the formatter
has to know that defun should be on the first line with the name of
the function and the arglists.
The body of the code then should be indented by two characters.
LET has a different syntax.
(let ((a b)
(c d))
(+ a b))
It has a completely different formatting and a different syntactical
structure.
First is the symbol LET, then is a list of lists of two items (first a
symbol then some data),
then follows a body.
ELISP> (let (((a 1))) (foo a))
*** Eval error *** Wrong type argument: symbolp, (a 1)
ELISP>
(let (((a 1))) (foo a)) is simply not a valid Lisp program.
Still it is a valid s-expression.
> Again, this is just one simple example of the
> advantage. I have by now some 20 thousands words explanations and
> examples. Are you ignoring them on purpose? perhaps because your
> Common Lisp fanaticism, you simply don't see it?
I'd say it is your own ignorance.
>
> I also explained in detail several times, that whatever your lisp
> internal shit, the lang still just have one syntax. It is the one
> programers types.
What do you type? You don't type Lisp. You type nothing but text.
I type
(defun hex-to-bit-string (string)
(assert (evenp (length string)) (string))
(let ((result (make-string (/ (length string) 2))))
(loop for i from 0 by 2
for k from 0
while (< i (length string))
do (setf (aref result k)
(code-char (parse-integer string :start i :end (+ i
2) :radix 16))))
result))
That's Lisp code. Not just Lisp data. LET has a special syntax, defun
has, LOOP has, SETF has.
> It's great that common lisp has this and that
> internal representation and shit and what's called textual
> representation or print form, but still the lang has one syntax in the
> context of lineaer, text based, computer languages, ok?
Again, it's the same for Emacs Lisp. There is a difference what
valid s-expressions are and what syntactically valid Lisp
programs are.
(defun) is no valid Emacs program. If you don't understand that, then
you really should not be here.
ELISP> (defun)
*** Eval error *** Wrong number of arguments: defun, 0
That (defun) is a valid s-expression does not make it a valid Lisp
program.
>
> > (defun foo (a b) (baz a b))
>
> > has to be a symbol and be there. It does not know that the third item
> > has to be a list
> > and be there. It does not know that after the arglist any number of
> > Lisp forms
> > is allowed.
>
> It is not the editor's job to know.
>
> The point about emacs's understanding of sexp, is to illustrate that
> because lisp has a almost regular nested syntax, it allowed any editor
> to parse and understand to great degree the lang's syntactic
> structure.
Just data syntax. Not the programming language syntax.
Same for CL and Emacs Lisp and almost all other Lisp out there.
>
> The point is not about whether emacs contains a full lisp parser, or
> whether emacs actually understands lisp semantics, or whether emacs
> sucks and and true lisp editor blows.
>
The point is that your postings suck because they are removed
from anything software. You haven't written a single Lisp
program in any Lisp dialect of more then a few lines.
You are unwilling to read a manual or a text book about
Lisp, still you post your shit here. That sucks.
> > Just because of s-expressions, the editor will not know
> > that DEFUN is the name of a macro, foo is the name of a function,
> > (a b) is an arglist, a and b are parameters, (baz a b) is a function
> > call
> > and so on. All the editor would see is a list of things.
>
> > (foobar barfoo (baz foo) (blah baz foo)) has the same semantic
> > content as above. It is also a list of things. The editor
> > will not tell you any difference just be understanding
> > s-expressions. s-expressions also have nothing to do with
> > semantics of code.
>
> Moron Rainer, it's not about understanding the semantic of lisp.
>
> lisp has a almost regular syntax. This syntax, has high degree of
> correspondence to its semantics. So, any dumb editor can parse the
> syntax by a lexical scan, and understand to some degree of the
> semantic structure or its abstract syntax tree. This is in contrast
> to, for example, langs with syntax soup as its syntax such as most von
> neumann langs (e.g. C, C++, Java, perl, javascript, php...).
Understanding lisp expressions is the level of a 'lexer'
in most languages. The syntax of Lisp programs cannot
be understood by that alone. Lisp itself uses 'code walkers' to
do manipulations to code - these are programs that
understand the syntax of the programming langauge Lisp.
> Rainer, after the numerous detailed exchange on this issue between us
> and me and others, i don't know either you are truely a idiot, or your
> lisp fanaticism really prevented you from seeing any validity in
> negative criticisms,
Your criticisms are simply not based on any practical experience.
They are useless and suck.
> or that you are here just to fuck with me.
I just think that you are an idiot posting here and being totally
unable to learn anything. Nobody takes you serious if you
have almost zero experience in actual programming in Lisp.
You are posting here now for years and all we got was
ten lines of Emacs Lisp? All code shown to you was not
understood by you. It takes about a week to learn the basics
of Scheme or Common Lisp. Why don't you just invest the time?
All you do is beg people to use Emacs Lisp so you think that
you may be able to understand something. But you don't even
understand Emacs Lisp.
Xah, learn something useful to participate here, or just go and do
something
else. Paint keyboard bindings or such.
>
> Xah
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄
xah...@gmail.com
> Don Geddis wrote:
Kenny, is this Rainer Joswig and this Don Geddis truely idiots? or
they just fucking around?
Seriously, their IQs can't be at the idiot level. I do think they are
a bit of fucking around attitude, due to my returning insults.
However, i think overall they are still sincerely thinking they have a
point, even though i think they are beginning to see that my criticism
has valid points. I think what's really going on, is that their common
lisp fanaticism blinded their judgement.
As you know, in this month i tried a conversational styled posting
manner in gnu.emacs.help, and really tried to stick on topic, and
refrain from swearing at these idiotic tech geekers. My experiences is
that it actually worked. It actually taught, shown light, convinced
these tech geekers something in the few hundreds of posts among 3+
threads. However, in comp.lang.lisp esp in this thread, even though i
did chat style and reply to almost all posts addressed to me, but i
have not refrained from calling morons morons. I think that is the
cause that these morons are still being morons.
So, if i go all out in the effort to educate, i.e. refrain from
showing any attitude, be the most patient, i think i'll be able to
convince these morons. Should i? but i don't want to. I consider
myself a member of the lisp community, in particular in the faction of
emacs and emacs lisp. I don't see myself venturing into Common Lisp
anytime soon. I have a personal interest in seeing emacs prosper. I
don't have particular interest in seeing common lisp prosper. I mean,
sure i'd help whenever i can, or even learn CL tidbits, but not when
common lisp morons insist being obtuse and fuck with me. So, i don't
think i'll let common lisp morons run around here without a moron tag.
Yeah, Rainer and Don are morons. LOL. Rainer and Don, you are morons.
M, O, R, O, N, and i think i will be sticking around here to make sure
you wear the tag.
Also note, notice how other lispers, who probably see the validity of
my criticism by now, but they cower in their pants quietly and watch
the show. How funny. Chinese has a saying on this: 隔桥观虎斗, meaning,
watching the tigers fight over the other side of a river. What would
be a english saying for this situation?
This post is posted to:
comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.functional
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
jos...@corporate-world.lisp.de
Look Xah, you are a Lisp loser. You have failed to learn the basics
for years. Basic manners, basic programming, etc. I think
I'm now so bored by your stuff that I put you back in my killfile
for the next years.
>
> Also note, notice how other lispers, who probably see the validity of
> my criticism by now, but they cower in their pants quietly and watch
> the show. How funny. Chinese has a saying on this: 隔桥观虎斗, meaning,
> watching the tigers fight over the other side of a river. What would
> be a english saying for this situation?
>
> This post is posted to:
> comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.functional
>
> Xah
This user is now killfiled again.
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄
xah...@gmail.com
> It's the same in Emacs Lisp. You don't even understand the basics.
>
> Look, this is ELISP:
>
> ELISP> (setq myprogram '(defun foo (a) (print a)))
> (defun foo
> (a)
> (print a))
>
> ELISP> (eval myprogram)
> foo
> ELISP> (listp myprogram)
> t
> ELISP> (foo 3)
> 3
> ELISP> (setq myprogram1 '(defun foo))
> (defun foo)
>
> ELISP> (listp myprogram1)
> t
> ELISP> (eval myprogram1)
> *** Eval error *** Wrong number of arguments: defun, 1
>
> Program source was a valid s-expression in both cases.
> Both were lists.
it's not about the lists. It's about syntax.
For example, let's say this non lang plain text:
[something [3 4] [yes [nah] oh] no but]
can you see, the regularity of this text? In in is a textual
representation of a tree.
And such textual representation, can be manipulated by a text editor
with a simple lexical scan, and do all sort of transformation on it,
yet the editor or tool needs not to know any meaning of it. You see?
XML is a good example.
But now let's say, instead of the regularity in
[something [3 4] [yes [nah] oh] no but]
you have
[something [3 4] yes[ [nah] oh] no] ; but
can you see that, it no longer has a simple tree structure?
For more detail, see:
★ “Fundamental Problems of Lisp”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/lisp_problems.html
★ “The Concepts and Confusions of Prefix, Infix, Postfix and Fully
Functional Notations”
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/notations.html
> Xah, learn something useful to participate here, or just go and do
> something
> else. Paint keyboard bindings or such.
do you mean you liked my ergonomic based emacs shortcut set?
★ “A Ergonomic Keyboard Shortcut Layout For Emacs”
http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html
this messag is posted to: comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.scheme,
comp.lang.functional .
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
Don Geddis
> On Aug 21, 11:58 am, Don Geddis <d...@geddis.org> wrote:
>> Kenny <kentil...@gmail.com> wrote on Thu, 21 Aug 2008:
>> >xah...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> Don Geddis wrote:
>> >>>Recall, _you_ are the one making the claim, that the irregularities
>> >>>"reduce [the] syntax's power".
>>
>> >> In lisp, the comment is done by the char “;” running to end of line.
>> >> Note that this does not allow nested comment. So for example, if you
>> >> have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all, you have
>> >> to prepend each line by a semicolon.
>>
>> > I use a feature like #+nicetrybozo or #+chya for multi-liners. For
>> > print statements that are getting distracting but which may prove useful
>> > in the future I use #+shhhh
>>
>> And also:
>> #|
>> ...<multiline code> ...
>> |#
>> is another easy way to quickly comment out multiple lines.
>
> comment systems, and how the latter con be considered more powerful.
But, as Kenny and I showed you, Common Lisp _already_ has a multi-line
comment system. Despite your claim (above) that:
if you have multi-line code, and you want to comment out them all,
you have to prepend each line by a semicolon.
You were wrong about this, just like you have been wrong about almost all
your criticisms of lisp.
> The “#|” is not a valid comment in emacs lisp.
> *** Welcome to IELM *** Type (describe-mode) for help.
> ELISP> (+ 3 4 #| see |#)
> *** Read error *** Invalid read syntax: "#"
> ELISP>
I've told you many times: I'm only discussing Common Lisp. It is not a valid
criticism of CL, to complain that Emacs Lisp does something differently. I
don't care what Emacs Lisp does.
> suppose the #| is common lisp's comment in macros.
Wrong again. #| ... |# comments have nothing at all to do with macros.
> That's good but then it introduces complexity. For example, now there are 2
> comments. But anyhow, both “;” and “#| ... |#” are irregularities of
> lisp's nested syntax.
Yes, I'm aware that they are "irregular" in the manner that bothers you
so much.
What you have failed to do, is demonstrate even a single example of why
this so-called irregularity matters at all to any programmer.
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Giving a person a high IQ is kind of like giving a person a million dollars.
A few individuals will do something interesting with it, but most will piss
it away on trinkets and pointless exercises. -- J. Andrew Rogers
Don Geddis
> The Xah cannot be in error any more than Picasso can screw up by putting both
> eyes on one side of the face.
Kenny wins again. I am humbled by his insight.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall
under the ruthless domination of our solar system.
-- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey [SNL]
Kenny
> So, if i go all out in the effort to educate, i.e. refrain from
> showing any attitude, be the most patient, i think i'll be able to
> convince these morons. Should i? but i don't want to.
Life is short. Move on. Many are called, few are chosen.
Exchanges of more than a certain length are probably futile and
certainly become less and less fun. We need one fo your formulas: fun
times chance of persuading times prospect of producing world peace over
frustration.
I consider
> myself a member of the lisp community, in particular in the faction of
> emacs and emacs lisp. I don't see myself venturing into Common Lisp
> anytime soon. I have a personal interest in seeing emacs prosper. I
> don't have particular interest in seeing common lisp prosper. I mean,
> sure i'd help whenever i can, or even learn CL tidbits, but not when
> common lisp morons insist being obtuse and fuck with me. So, i don't
> think i'll let common lisp morons run around here without a moron tag.
> Yeah, Rainer and Don are morons. LOL. Rainer and Don, you are morons.
> M, O, R, O, N, and i think i will be sticking around here to make sure
> you wear the tag.
We call this a non-disengaging disengagement.
>
> Also note, notice how other lispers, who probably see the validity of
> my criticism by now, but they cower in their pants quietly and watch
> the show. How funny. Chinese has a saying on this: 隔桥观虎斗, meaning,
> watching the tigers fight over the other side of a river.
Nice. Healthier or non-combatants than "when the elephants fight the
grass gets trampled".
> What would
> be a english saying for this situation?
"staying out of it".
kt
Cor Gest
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)
>> What would
>> be a english saying for this situation?
>
> "staying out of it".
Quietly stepping aside to watch the squeaking puppy being devoured.
Cor
--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving armed conflict : Have a gun !
Don Geddis
> (defmacro xah (f n m) (list (quote funcall) f n m))
> (defun test2 () (xah (function +) 1 2))
> does not address the criticism on syntax irregularity.
You have said many things about lisp's "syntax irregularity", but one of
the things was that it makes writing macros harder/more difficult/wrong.
I'm asking you to prove that very narrow claim. Or to withdraw it.
Show me how the "syntax irregularity" of Common Lisp, affects Common Lisp
macros. In any way at all.
> For example, due to lisp's (almost) regular nested syntax, one of its power
> is that the editor can understand the semantic structure of the code,
> without actually being a parser or compiler.
OK, so now you've moved on to editing source text. That's a different
discussion than programming macros.
I'm trying to get you to focus, Xah. You say so many (wrong!) things, that I
want to pin you down on a single one at a time. You have a habit of moving
on to new topics, when you get challenged or become uncomfortable with the
offhand claims you've made on old ones.
You said that syntax irregularities in lisp make macros more difficult.
Stick to that topic. Prove it.
> For example, in emacs, you have forward-sexp, mark-sexp and a lot others
> that manipulate lisp expressions. This can be done in lisp, precisely
> because its syntax is based on a simple regular form. As a counter example,
> this cannot be done in C, perl, java, javascript, python, etc lang due to
> the fact that they don't use a regular simple syntax.
Yes, yes. We all know this part.
> So, in your macro example, for example this one:
> (defun test1 () (xah #'+ 1 #| Hi Xah! |# 2))
> i cannot move my cursor to the “#|” part and call mark-sexp to select it.
Well, the content inside is English text, which is a _different_ syntax than
sexps, so it's no surprise that "mark-sexp" shouldn't mark it. (Consider,
for example, this comment fragment: #| ))))(( (a) (b (( |#. What do you even
think a "mark-sexp" operation ought to do, on a form that isn't a sexp?)
But you're wrong about your overall concern anyway. Unless maybe you don't
know how to use emacs? Because I find that I can manipulate that expression
perfectly fine using emacs commands like forward-sexp, etc. Put the cursor
after the "1", do a "forward-sexp", and you wind up just after the "2",
exactly as desired.
Unlike your claims, the syntax of lisp causes NO PROBLEMS when manipulating
the source code in a lisp-syntax-aware editor like emacs.
> However, if suppore there is a RegLisp that does not have such
> irregularity in syntax, suppose it looks like:
> (defun test1 () (# (xah (' +) 1 (#| HiXah!) 2)))
And what kind of restrictions do you think you'll need to force on the
content of the comment text? Does imposing the restrictions buy you any
value?
> then emacs sexp manipulation functions works anywhere in the code.
Just as they work on existing Common Lisp code ALREADY, even despite the
"syntax irregularities" that have you so concerned.
> Can you see what i mean?
I see what you think you mean. You are just wrong about what the problems
might be.
> I gave many detailed explanation in my original article here
> I quote 3 paragraphs:
Yes, yes. I've read your original article many times. Strangely, it becomes
no more compelling on each additional reading. It's still full of incorrect,
unsupported wild claims. And no proof.
> are you convinced?
Not even close.
Are you?
-- Don
_______________________________________________________________________________
Don Geddis http://don.geddis.org/ d...@geddis.org
Scott: You know, if you don't yell you're more likely to get what you want.
Boss: I want to yell.
Scott: I see. That is a flaw in the plan.
-- Basic Instructions, "How to Be Diplomatic", 5/4/2008