Why lisp is growing
Marc Spitzer
1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
3: growing number of open source projects for cl
4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
5: several lisp gui's are available
6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
7: it is pure fun to work with
I am sure I forgot some obvious stuff so please add
it to the lisp, for fun and google.
marc
Peter Seibel
> 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
Just out of curiosity, are any implementors (commercial or otherwise)
thinking about moving their own FFI toward the UFFI? Are there great
differences between different FFI that make them a competitive
advantage or is that an area where there could be a reasonable de
facto standard?
-Peter
--
Peter Seibel
pe...@javamonkey.com
Kenny Tilton
specificaly the number of open/free/whatever-you-call-them
implementations? I was reminded of this by the recent ECL announcemnt
here. Granted that is subsumed in part by #3, but might be worthy of its
own itemization.
--
kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
---------------------------------------------------------------
""Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor,
and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.""
Elwood P. Dowd
Gabe Garza
> Marc Spitzer <mspi...@optonline.net> writes:
>
> > 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
>
> Just out of curiosity, are any implementors (commercial or otherwise)
> thinking about moving their own FFI toward the UFFI? Are there great
> differences between different FFI that make them a competitive
> advantage or is that an area where there could be a reasonable de
> facto standard?
The biggest obstacle I can see to implementations adopting UFFI is
that some implementations (notably LispWorks and ACL(??)) provide a
"call back" mechanism so you can call Lisp from other languages but
most implementations don't. UFFI doesn't have this functionality;
perhaps it could move from "an implementation that UFFI supports
provides all of this functionality" to "an implementation that UFFI
supports provides a (possibly improper) subset of this functionality."
Gabe Garza
Roger Corman
wrote:
Corman Lisp supports callbacks as well. Any complete Windows
implementation needs to support them, because so much of the Win32 API
is based on callbacks. Also, I believe Lisp has big potential for
creating extensions, or plug-ins. In Windows this is done with DLLs,
and included functions must all be callable by foreign code.
Roger
Paul F. Dietz
> here we go
>
> 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
> 2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
> 3: growing number of open source projects for cl
> 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
> 5: several lisp gui's are available
> 6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
> 7: it is pure fun to work with
8: ?
9: Profit!
Paul
Tim Bradshaw
> Just out of curiosity, are any implementors (commercial or otherwise)
> thinking about moving their own FFI toward the UFFI? Are there great
> differences between different FFI that make them a competitive
> advantage or is that an area where there could be a reasonable de
> facto standard?
last time I looked at UFFI (which was months ago, I would be glad to
be wrong about what it can do now) it had two crippling issues which
would mean I just could never use it:
- No callbacks, (calls from C into Lisp) which are essential for
things like window system programming, where the underlying system
needs to call into Lisp on events.
- No way of specifying external formats for strings, and having the
conversion to a Lisp string just happen. So for instance if you
have something that deals with UTF-8 encoded strings, you have to
write your own UTF-8 encoder/decoder.
The application I've spent most of my time on since the start of the
year uses expat for XML parsing, which needs callbacks, and deals in
UTF-8 encoded strings. So UFFI isn't much use for me at the moment,
while the implementation's native FFI just works.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw
> How about the astonishing number of CL implementations available, and
> specificaly the number of open/free/whatever-you-call-them
> implementations? I was reminded of this by the recent ECL announcemnt
> here. Granted that is subsumed in part by #3, but might be worthy of
> its own itemization.
The `languages' (really implementations) perceived to be most
successful - Perl, Python &co often have essentially only one
implementation. I don't think implementation count correlates with
`success' at all.
--tim
Kenny Tilton
Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> * Peter Seibel wrote:
>
>>Just out of curiosity, are any implementors (commercial or otherwise)
>>thinking about moving their own FFI toward the UFFI? Are there great
>>differences between different FFI that make them a competitive
>>advantage or is that an area where there could be a reasonable de
>>facto standard?
>
>
> last time I looked at UFFI (which was months ago, I would be glad to
> be wrong about what it can do now) it had two crippling issues which
> would mean I just could never use it:
>
> - No callbacks, (calls from C into Lisp) which are essential for
> things like window system programming, where the underlying system
> needs to call into Lisp on events.
Well for a cross-platform like Cells, UFFI saves me a lot of trouble.
When I get callbacks I'll do something UFFI-like of my own for the
callbacks, but I would be doing that in any case. UFFI is not costing me
anything, but it is giving me a lot in other areas.
"Crippling" is a bit harsh, but I am guessing you just need to get your
stuff working with one FFI, so UFFI has nothing to offer and all you are
left with are the shortcomings arising from the LCD design.
>
> - No way of specifying external formats for strings, and having the
> conversion to a Lisp string just happen.
that would be sweet.
Kenny Tilton
Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> * Kenny Tilton wrote:
>
>>How about the astonishing number of CL implementations available,
>
> .... I don't think implementation count correlates with
> `success' at all.
>
You confuse necessary with sufficient. You also think we are saying
"Lisp roolz", when we are saying "Lisp will soon rool". Note the subject
line.
Paolo Amoroso
wrote:
> 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
The grand total of currently in business _commercial_ vendors of Common
Lisp systems is 9. There are also 6 currently maintained open-source Common
Lisp implementations.
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
Tim Bradshaw
> You confuse necessary with sufficient. You also think we are saying
> "Lisp roolz", when we are saying "Lisp will soon rool". Note the
> subject line.
You confuse statistics with logic, and make silly inferences about my
mental state to boot. Read what I *wrote* not what you think I meant.
--tim
Tim Bradshaw
> "Crippling" is a bit harsh, but I am guessing you just need to get
> your stuff working with one FFI, so UFFI has nothing to offer and all
> you are left with are the shortcomings arising from the LCD design.
Well, I consider not being able to get my program to run at all on
*any* implementation with UFFI to be pretty crippling, actually.
Maybe `fails to work for the same reasons on all platforms' is seen as
better than `works on several platforms, with porting effort' in
somebody's world.
--tim
Skull
Chris Gehlker
Spitzer" <mspi...@optonline.net> wrote:
Another way to characterize the same facts is to think of Lisp eras. In the
first era Lisp was limited to being a research language at a few
Universities. Dialects were largely incompatible. The next era saw the raise
of dedicated Lisp hardware. Lisp moved out of the Universities into
corporations but it was still not something that a individual could
reasonably hope to use. The third era could be called the workstation era.
Lisp was available for commodity hardware but a typical Lisp development
environment still cost several times the going rate for a C/C++/Java/Pascal
setup. Finally we have the current, popular era where Lisp is available free
or commercially at competitive prices for commodity hardware. I don't think
that the word is really out there though. Think how different the world
might be if Borland had introduced TurboLisp instead of TurboPascal.
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Dave Pearson
>[SNIP] Think how different the world
> might be if Borland had introduced TurboLisp instead of TurboPascal.
I've got this vague recollection that Borland did sell a Lisp product at one
point in their early days. Am I getting confused?
--
Dave Pearson: | lbdb.el - LBDB interface.
http://www.davep.org/ | sawfish.el - Sawfish mode.
Emacs: | uptimes.el - Record emacs uptimes.
http://www.davep.org/emacs/ | quickurl.el - Recall lists of URLs.
Pascal Costanza
> * Chris Gehlker <geh...@fastq.com>:
>
>
>>[SNIP] Think how different the world
>>might be if Borland had introduced TurboLisp instead of TurboPascal.
>
>
> I've got this vague recollection that Borland did sell a Lisp product at one
> point in their early days. Am I getting confused?
>
They definitely had a TurboProlog!
Pascal
--
Pascal Costanza University of Bonn
mailto:cost...@web.de Institute of Computer Science III
http://www.pascalcostanza.de Römerstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn (Germany)
Daniel Barlow
Who said anything about 'success'? The thread is discussing the
reasons that Lisp is 'growing'.
'Course, they haven't defined 'growing' either. Maybe the GC is leaking.
-dan
--
http://www.cliki.net/ - Link farm for free CL-on-Unix resources
larry
extolling the virtues Lisp.I've seen such articles about Ruby,
Python,Perl. Is the dearth or articles on Lisp because Lisp people
don't feel the need
to proselytize and so don't write magazine articles or is it because
computer magazines refuse to publish positive articles about Lisp?
"Paul F. Dietz" <di...@dls.net> wrote in message news:<_AWdnfhnIew...@dls.net>...
Jochen Schmidt
> I was wondering why you don't see articles in computer magazines
> extolling the virtues Lisp.I've seen such articles about Ruby,
> Python,Perl. Is the dearth or articles on Lisp because Lisp people
> don't feel the need
> to proselytize and so don't write magazine articles or is it because
> computer magazines refuse to publish positive articles about Lisp?
At least in Germany there were several articles in several magazines
published within the last and this year.
ciao,
Jochen
Tim Bradshaw
> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
> Who said anything about 'success'? The thread is discussing the
> reasons that Lisp is 'growing'.
> 'Course, they haven't defined 'growing' either. Maybe the GC is leaking.
Well, I guess, in the self-fulfilling sense that there are more
implementations than there used to be this might mean something (but
then why quote all the other reasons it's `growing'). I assumed that
`growing' had some more useful definition like `growing in number of
programmers' or `growing in number and significance of deployed
applications' or something. But I guess making assumptions like that
is somewhat foolish, given the response I got...
--tim
Ed Symanzik
>
> The thread is discussing the reasons that Lisp is 'growing'.
What got me interested was seeing three slashdot articles in one
month related to Lisp.
Two articles by Paul Graham, "Beating the Averages" and "A Plan
for Spam" - he's a great preacher. Also, an article comparing the
performance of Lisp and Java showed up while I was investigating
Java.
Following up, I discovered a wealth of information online, including
articles, code, tutorials, books(!), and free implementations.
So far, I've been able to find information written to my level
as my exploration expands.
My two biggest obstacles right now are:
- My vi background.
- Lack of a simple project to start on.
Matthew Danish
> Marc Spitzer <mspi...@optonline.net> writes:
>
> > 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
>
> Just out of curiosity, are any implementors (commercial or otherwise)
> thinking about moving their own FFI toward the UFFI? Are there great
> differences between different FFI that make them a competitive
> advantage or is that an area where there could be a reasonable de
> facto standard?
UFFI as it exists currently is the subset of FFI functionality that can
be supported across all platforms. This is obviously not suitable for a
real FFI. I would like to see an effort to create such a standardized
FFI, especially after all the pitfalls I encountered working with CL-SDL
and UFFI. When I have some time I plan on drawing up a basic interface,
but I don't anticipate anything happening soon. There are a number of
inadequacies with the current interfaces, such as macro-based `static'
interfaces where you cannot specify types and slots to be determined at
runtime. I have yet to determine whether this is simply an
implementation choice or something necessary.
--
; Matthew Danish <mda...@andrew.cmu.edu>
; OpenPGP public key: C24B6010 on keyring.debian.org
; Signed or encrypted mail welcome.
; "There is no dark side of the moon really; matter of fact, it's all dark."
Andreas Hinze
>
> I was wondering why you don't see articles in computer magazines
> extolling the virtues Lisp.I've seen such articles about Ruby,
> Python,Perl. Is the dearth or articles on Lisp because Lisp people
> don't feel the need
> to proselytize and so don't write magazine articles or is it because
> computer magazines refuse to publish positive articles about Lisp?
>
http://www.mdlug.de/index.php/kalender/themenabend-lisp.inc?LAYOUT=mdlugv3
Regards
AHz
Hannah Schroeter
Ed Symanzik <z...@msu.edu> wrote:
>[...]
>My two biggest obstacles right now are:
> - My vi background.
You're not alone. I'm using vim 6.x with :set lisp ai sm
Perhaps still not ilisp, but usable.
> - Lack of a simple project to start on.
Use your imagination *g*
Kind regards,
Hannah.
Chris Gehlker
"Dave Pearson" <davep...@davep.org> wrote:
> * Chris Gehlker <geh...@fastq.com>:
>
>> [SNIP] Think how different the world
>> might be if Borland had introduced TurboLisp instead of TurboPascal.
>
> I've got this vague recollection that Borland did sell a Lisp product at one
> point in their early days. Am I getting confused?
I Google search turned up a reference to an AutoLisp IDE that they
apparently sold at one point.
Heow
What set me off on my recent "Lisp Revival" is that since this is my
10th year of professional development, I'm being a little
introspective. So what do I have to show for 10 years of development?
Well, a bunch of C++/Java skills as well as lots of "non-trivial"
problems that simply couldn't be answered no matter which design
patterns you throw at them. Oh yeah, and ~50% of my projects either
failed in spectacular ways or simply never shipped- I'm still trying
to mentally reconcile that.
Yeah, I'll admit I'm also a little bitter as I expected functional
languages to take over the world 5 years ago. On the bright side
though, the rise of Perl, Python, and Ruby have proven to me that PHBs
are finally groking the value of developer time. I think that this
unique period could prove to be beneficial to the lisp community-
especially considering the current amount of "free or nearly-so" Lisp
tools and information available.
Also I feel like I have a bit of catching up to do. 10 years ago
Common Lisp was anything but, and although CLOS technically did exist,
I wasn't aware of it. But to be fair, during that same time, my peers
were driving me nuts by putting C++ on their resumes just because they
liked to use the keen '//' comment operator.
Besides all that, Lisp is fun! You can produce interesting code to
wrap your head around, where in the C++/Java world, all I have to look
forward to anymore is the "Obfuscated C Contest".
Ok, I'm done now, move along folks. :-)
- Heow
Kenny Tilton
Heow wrote:
> Oh yeah, and ~50% of my projects either
> failed in spectacular ways or simply never shipped- I'm still trying
> to mentally reconcile that.
No need. Much of my best work never went into production. One time I got
put on a two-year old dying project. Started from scratch and was ready
for acceptance testing in two months. Users had lost interest by then.
So blame management. If you are management, blame Canada.
:)
Oleg
In case people are interested in comparing USENET traffic of various
comp.lang groups, there is a site that does just that. It appears that CLL
traffic increased by a factor of 2 in a year. The traffic is measured by
doing google groups querries from a perl script. I'm not sure how reliable
the data is, since google frequently lies about the number of matches
unless all results fit on one page. So if this can be worked around, and if
cross-posted articles and spam are excluded, it would be interesting to
look at the results. Here is the link:
http://www.chez.com/prigaux/language-study/usenet-traffic-ranking/
Another interesting thing to look at would be the percentage of articles
containing insulting words in various groups.
Oleg
Oleg
> Besides all that, Lisp is fun! You can produce interesting code to
> wrap your head around, where in the C++/Java world, all I have to look
> forward to anymore is the "Obfuscated C Contest".
<quote source="http://mindprod.com/unmaintricks.html">
LISP is a dream language for the writer of unmaintainable code. Consider
these baffling fragments:
(lambda (*<8-]= *<8-[= ) (or *<8-]= *<8-[= ))
(defun :-] (<) (= < 2))
(defun !(!)(if(and(funcall(lambda(!)(if(and '(< 0)(< ! 2))1 nil))(1+ !))
(not(null '(lambda(!)(if(< 1 !)t nil)))))1(* !(!(1- !)))))
</quote>
BTW, the web site itself is a very entertaining read.
Oleg
marcel haesok
"Marc Spitzer" <mspi...@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:86wumi2...@bogomips.optonline.net...
> here we go
>
> 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
> 2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
> 3: growing number of open source projects for cl
> 6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
> 7: it is pure fun to work with
>
> it to the lisp, for fun and google.
>
I would add an item:
8. CPU has become so powerful that the market is
becomming ready for commercially viable AI products.
Frank A. Adrian
> Besides all that, Lisp is fun!
This is the essential and most important reason!
faa
Kenny Tilton
Oleg wrote:
> Another interesting thing to look at would be the percentage of articles
> containing insulting words in various groups.
That's a fuckin' great idea!
Bruce Hoult
Paolo Amoroso <amo...@mclink.it> wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Dec 2002 22:55:54 GMT, Marc Spitzer <mspi...@optonline.net>
> wrote:
>
> > 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
>
> The grand total of currently in business _commercial_ vendors of Common
> Lisp systems is 9. There are also 6 currently maintained open-source Common
> Lisp implementations.
I've got to say that's a lot.
How many C++ compilers are there these days? Fewer than nine, perhaps.
-- Bruce
Oleg
case): perhaps this is because Lisp got a lot better than it was. My
understanding is that Lisp used to be quite bad, and it made some
improvements: lexical scoping instead of dynamic helped make it somewhat
less error-prone, and sophisticated GC and compiled execution helped make
some Lisp implementations reasonably efficient.
Oleg
Tim Bradshaw
But these things happened at least 20 years ago...
--tim
Tom Lord
Western capitalism has been highly oppressive, highly corrupt, and
highly irrational about engineering for longer than that. Good
lisp-based engineering optimizes rationally, but not in ways commonly
favored by CFOs. Those factors have kept lisp (including scheme)
down.
Some notable recent commercial successes of lisp have been in areas
that were sufficiently complicated that the probability that only a
lisp hacker could achieve results was high.
Lisp may be gaining a little, but "engineering by ignorant management
platitudes" and "engineering by quarterly results" is still (all too)
popular.
Good lisp hackers: go get your MBA, maybe?
-t
Oleg
I'll quote Graham 1996: "Until RECENTLY, most Lisp implementations have had
bad garbage collectors".
Oleg
Tim Bradshaw
> I'll quote Graham 1996: "Until RECENTLY, most Lisp implementations have had
> bad garbage collectors".
I think his definition of `recently' is pretty loose, and also `most'
doesn't really count: it should only take one good implementation.
I'm unclear when stock-hardware lisps got good GCs, but I suspect that
LispM lisps had good ones in about 1985 (so, OK that's 17 years, sorry
I exaggerated).
--tim
Joe Marshall
The LMI Lambda had generational GC circa 1985 - 1987 (it existed in
1985, but it took a while to get find all the places in the microcode
that were a bit cavalier with pointers). Symbolics had it a couple of
years earlier. Patrick Sobalvarro did Lucid's around 1987-1988.
Paolo Amoroso
> Good lisp hackers: go get your MBA, maybe?
Can't do it now, too busy with my MFA :)
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
Duane Rettig
Allegro CL's generational gc was first committed to source file management
on 9/25/87.
--
Duane Rettig du...@franz.com Franz Inc. http://www.franz.com/
555 12th St., Suite 1450 http://www.555citycenter.com/
Oakland, Ca. 94607 Phone: (510) 452-2000; Fax: (510) 452-0182
Christopher C. Stacy
Joe> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
>> * oleg inconnu wrote:
>>
>> > I'll quote Graham 1996: "Until RECENTLY, most Lisp implementations have had
>> > bad garbage collectors".
>>
>> I think his definition of `recently' is pretty loose, and also `most'
>> doesn't really count: it should only take one good implementation.
>> I'm unclear when stock-hardware lisps got good GCs, but I suspect that
>> LispM lisps had good ones in about 1985 (so, OK that's 17 years, sorry
>> I exaggerated).
Joe> The LMI Lambda had generational GC circa 1985 - 1987 (it existed in
Joe> 1985, but it took a while to get find all the places in the microcode
Joe> that were a bit cavalier with pointers). Symbolics had it a couple of
Joe> years earlier. Patrick Sobalvarro did Lucid's around 1987-1988.
In 1980, we used Lisp Machines running for weeks at a time.
The garbage collector was "good enough" for that.
Hannah Schroeter
Bruce Hoult <br...@hoult.org> wrote:
>[...]
>> The grand total of currently in business _commercial_ vendors of Common
>> Lisp systems is 9. There are also 6 currently maintained open-source Common
>> Lisp implementations.
>I've got to say that's a lot.
That's right.
>How many C++ compilers are there these days? Fewer than nine, perhaps.
More, I guess. The free ones may well be less than in the CL case
(gcc, tcc come to my mind), but the commercial ones are many, about
one per CPU architecture at least (the CPU vendor's one), plus
non-CPU-vendor versions (MicroSoft, Borland [or whatever their name
is today], etc.).
Kind regards,
Hannah.
Kaz Kylheku
> >> On the subject of why the popularity of Lisp is growing (if
> >> that's the case): perhaps this is because Lisp got a lot
> >> better than it was. My understanding is that Lisp used to
> >> be quite bad, and it made some improvements: lexical
> >> scoping instead of dynamic helped make it somewhat less
> >> error-prone, and sophisticated GC and compiled execution
> >> helped make some Lisp implementations reasonably efficient.
>
> > But these things happened at least 20 years ago...
>
> Western capitalism has been highly oppressive, highly corrupt, and
> highly irrational about engineering for longer than that. Good
> lisp-based engineering optimizes rationally, but not in ways commonly
> favored by CFOs. Those factors have kept lisp (including scheme)
> down.
Nonsense. If you are optimizing in a way that does not jive with
capitalism, then you aren't doing it rationally. Ultimately,
programming decisions, in a commercial setting, are traceable to
business cases. Every competent programmer, Lisp or otherwise,
understands this.
> Some notable recent commercial successes of lisp have been in areas
> that were sufficiently complicated that the probability that only a
> lisp hacker could achieve results was high.
>
> Lisp may be gaining a little, but "engineering by ignorant management
> platitudes" and "engineering by quarterly results" is still (all too)
> popular.
Stupid management is not the same thing as capitalism. It's just
stupidity in a capitalist setting. Stupid management wastes
opportunities and wastes profit in ways that the smart CFO would
certainly not approve of, if they had greater visibility to him or
her.
The problem with stupid management is that it's carried out by idiots
who are too concerned with politics and personalities, rather than
getting the job done as fast and as best as possible. It's a hidden
form of socialism that rots the underbelly of capitalism. People must
``be a team player'' and ``feel good'' and all that collectivist crap.
The manager's true job is to allocate resources and remove obstacles
(which includes people) that stand in the way of the most productive
individuals, not to create useless, time-wasting protocols and
rituals.
It's collectivism that keeps bad programming tools in use! We wouldn't
want the idiots to feel bad or learn anything new, so let's stick with
the dumb, common-denominator crap that everyone already understands.
The goal is not to produce, but to live harmoniously with your fellow
man in the hours 9 to 5, whose feelings would be hurt if he were
outperformed by someone using a different programming language.
Moreover, the workers aren't individuals. They are just
interchangeable warm bodies. One programmer in language X is just as
good as another programmer of language X; every human is the same.
What is all this, if not a kind of micro-socialism within a
corporation?
But, ironically, when we actually make a product and market it, of
course we will insist that our product is different, and better than
everything else, demanding that customers apply a better reasoning
when selecting our product than what we did when we selected our
tools.
Oleg
> The problem with stupid management is that it's carried out by idiots
> who are too concerned with politics and personalities, rather than
> getting the job done as fast and as best as possible. It's a hidden
> form of socialism that rots the underbelly of capitalism. People must
> ``be a team player'' and ``feel good'' and all that collectivist crap.
This is quite off-topic, but I must say I couldn't agree more. Socialism is
like capitalism when the whole country is one big [inefficient]
corporation.
Oleg
Tom Lord
> Western capitalism has been highly oppressive, highly
> corrupt, and highly irrational about engineering for longer
> than that. Good lisp-based engineering optimizes
> rationally, but not in ways commonly favored by CFOs. Those
> factors have kept lisp (including scheme) down.
Nonsense. If you are optimizing in a way that does not jive
with capitalism,
You misunderstand. Capitalism itself isn't the problem. Capitalism
as it has been operated around here is.
Stupid management is not the same thing as capitalism.
I can see how things got confused.
By "Western capitalism" I meant our particular capitalist
institutions -- not the abstract economic strategy of capitalism.
Better (new and/or improved) capitalist institutions will do a better
job, and that probably includes applying lisp and lisp talent in more
situations.
If it were capitalism itself I was criticizing, I probably wouldn't
have suggested getting MBAs (though maybe you thought I was advocating
a take-down from the inside :-).
People on usenet are often really touchy about perceived or actual
criticisms of capitalism and very reflexive about their replies.
That's sad. It's intellectually stifling.
-t
Rand Sobriquet
Oleg,
May I ask what language(s) you use for development? From your message
it seems that you are comparing (implicitly) CL to a language that you
are currently using.
I am working on a commercial project whose implementation can be
nicely described with CLOS. Later, however, I am interested in doing
a small, numerical-extensive project: I would not mind learning a new
language if there's some advantages in speed.
Thanks,
Rand
Nils Kassube
> Python,Perl. Is the dearth or articles on Lisp because Lisp people
> don't feel the need to proselytize and so don't write magazine
> articles or is it because computer magazines refuse to publish
> positive articles about Lisp?
A good article takes a lot of work. The money you earn by writing
computer magazine articles is almost never worth the effort. Many
articles are just PR for other things its author sells: consulting,
training, whatever. Maybe we can deduce that all competent Lisp
programmers are already busy with more lucrative business :-)
Kenny Tilton
> larry...@hotmail.com (larry) writes:
>
>
>>Python,Perl. Is the dearth or articles on Lisp because Lisp people
>>don't feel the need to proselytize and so don't write magazine
>>articles or is it because computer magazines refuse to publish
>>positive articles about Lisp?
Someone in the audience at ILC during an exchange mentioned in passing
that OOPSLA would not take papers involving CLOS. I did not get a chance
to follow up to confirm I heard what I thought I heard, but they did go
on to say OOPSLA just wanted papers on <something> so pretty sure I
heard right.
And I once had a brief discussion with a MacTech editor about doing
something on MCL, but he steered it into "what can you do in MCL to help
specifically with Mac programming issues", away from "what a great tool
in general for development".
All this reminiscent of O'Reilly's "Lisp books? we don't need no
stinking Lisp books!".
--
kenny tilton
clinisys, inc
http://www.tilton-technology.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Cells let us walk, talk, think, make love and realize
the bath water is cold." -- Lorraine Lee Cudmore
Oleg
>> On the subject of why the popularity of Lisp is growing (if that's the
>> case): perhaps this is because Lisp got a lot better than it was. My
>> understanding is that Lisp used to be quite bad, and it made some
>> improvements: lexical scoping instead of dynamic helped make it somewhat
>> less error-prone, and sophisticated GC and compiled execution helped make
>> some Lisp implementations reasonably efficient.
>>
>> Oleg
>
> Oleg,
>
> May I ask what language(s) you use for development?
Knowing full well how intolerant some CLL regulars are to any language that
is not Lisp, I must say "you may not" to avoid another language war of the
week. Besides, what language a man uses for development is his own
business. It's in the Consitution.
Oleg
Marc Spitzer
> Rand Sobriquet wrote:
> > May I ask what language(s) you use for development?
>
> Knowing full well how intolerant some CLL regulars are to any language that
> is not Lisp, I must say "you may not" to avoid another language war of the
> week. Besides, what language a man uses for development is his own
> business. It's in the Consitution.
>
> Oleg
I have never seen anyone flamed for saying this is what I use to pay
the rent. I have seen people ask why CL was not used, but that is a
fair question here.
I have seen people get flamed for saying lisp sucks because it is not
like what I already know and you should fix that. And for a comment
like that they deserve it, when voiced in CLL.
marc
Oleg
>
> I have never seen anyone flamed for saying this is what I use to pay
> the rent. I have seen people ask why CL was not used, but that is a
> fair question here.
[...]
I'm in grad school. I use American taxpayers' money to pay the rent :)
Oleg
Joe Marshall
> Knowing full well how intolerant some CLL regulars are to any language that
> is not Lisp, I must say "you may not" to avoid another language war of the
> week. Besides, what language a man uses for development is his own
> business. It's in the Consitution.
Show a little spine!
There are many very good reasons not to use CL for development. Not
all of them are technical, but some are. You may even use another
language because you prefer to.
Of course if you find a different language to be universally better
than Lisp, why would you hang out here?
Oleg
> Oleg <oleg_i...@myrealbox.com> writes:
>
>> Knowing full well how intolerant some CLL regulars are to any language
>> that is not Lisp, I must say "you may not" to avoid another language war
>> of the week. Besides, what language a man uses for development is his own
>> business. It's in the Consitution.
>
> Show a little spine!
s/spine/naivete
Marc Spitzer
> Joe Marshall wrote:
>
> > Oleg <oleg_i...@myrealbox.com> writes:
> >
> >> Knowing full well how intolerant some CLL regulars are to any language
> >> that is not Lisp, I must say "you may not" to avoid another language war
> >> of the week. Besides, what language a man uses for development is his own
> >> business. It's in the Consitution.
> >
> > Show a little spine!
>
> s/spine/naivete
no
spine == spine
naivete == honest ignorance. Its "cute" because it does not last long
and we all can remember with fondness when we were starting out and
made the same kinds of mistakes, when you correct it it goes away.
When it does not go away after repeated prompts they are moved into the
stupid and/or asshole catagory(if they do not go away).
marc
Oleg
I know what "naivete" means, but thank you anyway.
Oleg
Tim Daly, Jr.
> Allegro CL's generational gc was first committed to source file management
> on 9/25/87.
>
Does that mean that you've been able to preserve your revision history
in some easily accessible form for ~15 years? Or did that involve
some archaeology? In case there really is a revision control system
that's met your needs for over a decade, could you perhaps tell me
what it is? :)
-Tim
Duane Rettig
We had started in RCS, and that was (for the most part) upward compatible
with CVS. I don't remember when we started using CVS, though.
Tim Bradshaw
> Does that mean that you've been able to preserve your revision history
> in some easily accessible form for ~15 years? Or did that involve
> some archaeology? In case there really is a revision control system
> that's met your needs for over a decade, could you perhaps tell me
> what it is? :)
Why is this weird? I have things that went into RCS in 1990 and are
now in CVS, with their histories intact. A revision control system
that won't last a decade or more isn't a very good system.
--tim
Tim Daly, Jr.
Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> writes:
> * Tim Daly, wrote:
> > Does that mean that you've been able to preserve your revision history
> > in some easily accessible form for ~15 years?
...
> Why is this weird? I have things that went into RCS in 1990 and are
> now in CVS, with their histories intact. A revision control system
> that won't last a decade or more isn't a very good system.
Hehe.. Yes, well, this _is_ a Lisp newsgroup. As you might recall,
the rest of the world has a certain self-destructive preference for
broken technology with little pictures glued to it. I should've
known that the answer would be RCS/CVS. Just like Lisp, it's out
there, everybody kind of knows about it, but it's all too often
written off as archaic.
Thanks for the feedback, Tim and Duane.
-Tim
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
> I should've known that the answer would be RCS/CVS. Just like Lisp,
> it's out there, everybody kind of knows about it, but it's all too
> often written off as archaic.
My guess is that the vast bulk of Unixish development is under CVS.
Certainly it's the major player when it comes to free software
development. In that sense, it's not like Lisp at all.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
la...@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
Tim Daly, Jr.
> t...@tenkan.org (Tim Daly, Jr.) writes:
>
> > I should've known that the answer would be RCS/CVS. Just like Lisp,
> > it's out there, everybody kind of knows about it, but it's all too
> > often written off as archaic.
>
> My guess is that the vast bulk of Unixish development is under CVS.
> Certainly it's the major player when it comes to free software
> development. In that sense, it's not like Lisp at all.
I think that you're trying to say that CVS is popular, and Lisp is
not, hence they are dissimilar. Am I right?
That may or may not be true. To clarify, I wanted only to say that,
in my (admittedly brief) career, I've often had to code in gimpy
language X, when I know Lisp would be better, and likewise check my
code into gimpy revision control system Y, when I know CVS would be
better. I figured it might be a common experience.
Beyond that, I don't happen to think that CVS and Lisp have much in
common either.
-Tim
Paul Dietz
> Beyond that, I don't happen to think that CVS and Lisp have much in
> common either.
PRCS ( http://prcs.sourceforge.net/ ) seems lispier to me.
Paul
Tim Daly, Jr.
Why do you say that? I've not worked with it, but I read some of the
comparisons to CVS on their site. It sounds basically the same, minus
some features.
-Tim
Paul Dietz
> > PRCS ( http://prcs.sourceforge.net/ ) seems lispier to me.
> Why do you say that? I've not worked with it, but I read some of the
> comparisons to CVS on their site. It sounds basically the same, minus
> some features.
For the superficial reason that it uses S expressions.
Paul
Steven E. Harris
> the commercial ones are many
Many of those commercial C++ compilers rely upon the excellent EDG
front-end, and are hence nearly interchangeable from the "swallow the
source" perspective. This reliance upon EDG is good for programmers
who desire a standard-compliant compiler, but it decreases the number
of would-be /separate/ compiler front-ends out there.
--
Steven E. Harris :: seha...@raytheon.com
Raytheon :: http://www.raytheon.com
Erann Gat
<s...@speakeasy.org> wrote:
> han...@schlund.de (Hannah Schroeter) writes:
>
> > the commercial ones are many
>
> Many of those commercial C++ compilers rely upon the excellent EDG
> front-end, and are hence nearly interchangeable from the "swallow the
> source" perspective. This reliance upon EDG is good for programmers
> who desire a standard-compliant compiler, but it decreases the number
> of would-be /separate/ compiler front-ends out there.
That's not quite true, since a licencee of the EDG front end can modify
it, so each separate licensee is potentially a separate contribution to
the C++ compiler front-end gene pool.
Still, 345 kloc for a parser? Holy shit! (And why in the world would a
front end have host and target dependencies?)
E.
Hannah Schroeter
Erann Gat <g...@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>[...]
>Still, 345 kloc for a parser? Holy shit!
C++ syntax and semantics *are* complicated.
>(And why in the world would a
>front end have host and target dependencies?)
If you want to build up an IR which is already a little host/target
dependent...
E.g. constant literals (you have to do constant arithmetics using
the host resources, but target semantics!).
>E.
Kind regards,
Hannah.
Steve
> here we go
>
> 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
> 2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
> 3: growing number of open source projects for cl
> 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
> 5: several lisp gui's are available
> 6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
> 7: it is pure fun to work with
>
> I am sure I forgot some obvious stuff so please add
> it to the lisp, for fun and google.
>
> marc
I would look for these two indicators to forecast a lisp comeback:
1. Typing "lisp" in as a keyword in the search engine at your favorite
tech job site and having a healthy number of results returned to you.
2. Having any tech savy person being able to list a number of popular
applications written in lisp and having the people listening being
already familiar with the names of those apps.
Anything else is just the positive thinking of the faithful
Steve
Pascal Costanza
These indicators would in fact tell you that Lisp is already popular
again. What's the point in forecasting something that has already happened?
> Anything else is just the positive thinking of the faithful
"If you are really interested in change, then optimism is the best
strategy."
- Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad
Pascal
--
Pascal Costanza University of Bonn
mailto:cost...@web.de Institute of Computer Science III
http://www.pascalcostanza.de Römerstr. 164, D-53117 Bonn (Germany)
Bulent Murtezaoglu
[...]
S> 2. Having any tech savy person being able to list a number of
S> popular applications written in lisp and having the people
S> listening being already familiar with the names of those apps.
[...]
_Any_ tech-savvy person? Ask people who consider themselves knowledgeable
on the internet about the most used MTA, HTTP server, DNS server etc.
and I highly doubt that they'll be able to name sendmail, apache and
bind. (most likely answer "what's a MTA?", everybody uses IIS, whatever
comes with Windows). Why should Lisp be different? Besides, what popular
app is written in Java?
I think that lack of convincing stories to tell to Eran Gatt's bosses at
JPL is much more important than getting random two-bit techies to name apps
written in Lisp.
cheers,
BM
Kenny Tilton
Steve wrote:
> Marc Spitzer <mspi...@optonline.net> wrote in message news:<86wumi2...@bogomips.optonline.net>...
>
>>here we go
>>
>>1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
>>2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
>>3: growing number of open source projects for cl
>>4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
>>5: several lisp gui's are available
>>6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
>>7: it is pure fun to work with
>>
>>I am sure I forgot some obvious stuff so please add
>>it to the lisp, for fun and google.
>>
>>marc
>
>
> I would look for these two indicators to forecast a lisp comeback:
>
> 1. Typing "lisp" in as a keyword in the search engine at your favorite
> tech job site and having a healthy number of results returned to you.
i do not think "forecast" means what you think it means. :) that's /is/
the comeback.
>
> 2. Having any tech savy person being able to list a number of popular
> applications written in lisp and having the people listening being
> already familiar with the names of those apps.
>
> Anything else is just the positive thinking of the faithful
well, yes, exactly, based on positive signs we are discussing. i think
you missed the spirit of the discussion, and are starting a new thread,
viz, How we'll know lisp is kicking ass and taking numbers.
10. O'Reilly publishes a Lisp book.
9. Someone writes Comp Sci 101 based on Lisp
8. Graham abandons Arc
7. Larry Wall switches to Lisp
6. Norvig does the 3rd edition of PAIP in Lisp
5. Guido switches to Lisp
4. XML is dumped in favor of sexprs
3. Grace Hopper switches to Lisp
2. MS does Visual Lisp
1. NASA puts /Eran/ in space and....
... Erik makes the cover of Wired.
:)
Michael Schuerig
> 6. Norvig does the 3rd edition of PAIP in Lisp
There isn't a 2nd edition. You're thinking of AIMA (2nd edition due
every day now)?
Michael
--
Michael Schuerig If at first you don't succeed...
mailto:schu...@acm.org try, try again.
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/ --Jerome Morrow, "Gattaca"
Paolo Amoroso
> 4. XML is dumped in favor of sexprs
Make sexp not war!
> 3. Grace Hopper switches to Lisp
R.I.P. Maybe her ghost.
Paolo
--
EncyCMUCLopedia * Extensive collection of CMU Common Lisp documentation
http://www.paoloamoroso.it/ency/README
Richard Fateman
will be disappointed. Each offers help for cheaters
(at a price) to program up something, perhaps for
homework. (Or more legit purposes perhaps....)
But they don't offer help on lisp.
Maybe some underemployed soul should register and
see if he/she gets any bids. that would be evidence
that lisp is growing.
Also one could then send the people who ask here for
the solution to a homework problem off to a site
where the solution could be sold to them instead of
blurting it out free / inundating them with
subtle stuff to confuse them and their instructors.
RJF
Michael Sullivan
> Marc Spitzer wrote:
> > here we go
> >
> > 1: 2 new lisp vendors, corman and scl
> > 2: more messages on cll and new faces showing up
> > 3: growing number of open source projects for cl
> > 4: UFFI, get n FFI's for the price of 1
> > 5: several lisp gui's are available
> > 6: new user's groups springing up, ok at least 1.
> > 7: it is pure fun to work with
> 8: ?
> 9: Profit!
YOMANK.
The response to this has been tragic. Absolutely tragic. Doesn't
anyone else watch South Park?
Michael
--
Michael Sullivan
Business Card Express of CT Thermographers to the Trade
Cheshire, CT mic...@bcect.com
Oleg
>
>> 4. XML is dumped in favor of sexprs
>
> Make sexp not war!
\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
\begin{document}
\begin{S_exp_war}
Lispers like to flame XML. Now, what is wrong with XML that
is {\em not} "wrong" with \LaTeX and HTML?
\end{S_exp_war}
\end{document}
Kenny Tilton
Michael Sullivan wrote:
> The response to this has been tragic. Absolutely tragic. Doesn't
> anyone else watch South Park?
mrum mm mmph rmmf.
Tim Bradshaw
> \documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
> \bibliographystyle{unsrt}
> \begin{document}
> \begin{S_exp_war}
> Lispers like to flame XML. Now, what is wrong with XML that
> is {\em not} "wrong" with \LaTeX and HTML?
> \end{S_exp_war}
> \end{document}
HTML was never put forward as some kind of Universal Markup Language
for data interchange, neither was TeX/LaTeX; so there's no real
comparison. TeX has the advantage in its field that for certain kinds
of documents - things containing a lot of maths - it's *very* easy to
type compared to anything else I'm aware of, but the disadvantage that
it's a hideous macro language designed by someone with lots of strange
ideas.
--tim
Erik Naggum
| \documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
| \bibliographystyle{unsrt}
|
| \begin{document}
| \begin{S_exp_war}
| Lispers like to flame XML. Now, what is wrong with XML that
| is {\em not} "wrong" with \LaTeX and HTML?
| \end{S_exp_war}
| \end{document}
If you tried to build a huge information infrastructure on top of
LaTeX, it would probably be even worse than XML.
SGML was a good idea as long as it was strictly confined to marking
up a certain class of documents, whose processing applications were
clearly restricted in their design. Making it a meta-language, not
just an application-specific input language, was not the mistake.
The mistake that has cost the world billions of dollars was to let
it escape its confines. XML is everything that is bad about using
SGML in the wrong places for the wrong purposes. It is, in short,
the worst braindamage that has hit the computing world in a very
long time.
I still use SGML to produce documentation. I dislike HTML and the
incredible abuse it has seen. I positively /detest/ XML and the
disgusting mess it has introduced to the world.
--
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
Kaz Kylheku
As a language, TeX is an complete pile of crap. People use it,
especially in academia, because there is no other way to get equally
good looking documents. Don't assume that because some Lispers use
LaTeX, they endorse it as a language.
Knuth is one of those people who can hack some arcane garbage into
producing great output that is the result of sophisticated
computation. He's the ultimate Real Programmer.
Nothing epitomizes Knuth better than the obtuse instruction set
architecture he designed for the programming examples and exercises in
TAOCP. Bizarre numeric representations, strange encodings, odd
limitations. Blech. (Rhymes with TeX).
Kaz Kylheku
> comparison. TeX has the advantage in its field that for certain kinds
> of documents - things containing a lot of maths - it's *very* easy to
> type compared to anything else I'm aware of, but the disadvantage that
> it's a hideous macro language designed by someone with lots of strange
> ideas.
To be completely fair, it's quite likely that if Knuth were to design
a typesetting language from scratch today, it would be a lot better.
Tim Bradshaw
> To be completely fair, it's quite likely that if Knuth were to design
> a typesetting language from scratch today, it would be a lot better.
It would be interesting to see a language that was a lot better *for
typing maths* (I agree that TeX, as a language, is really horrible).
I've never seen anything that comes close, except possibly eqn (which
I never used enough to know). A long time ago I spent some time
typing in mathematical monographs to earn some money, and it got to
the point where I could just look at a (neatly) handwritten set of
displayed equations, and just type it in, and it would almost always
work. TeX is just incredibly good for that purpose.
--tim
Charlton Wilbur
TB> It would be interesting to see a language that was a lot
TB> better *for typing maths* (I agree that TeX, as a language, is
TB> really horrible). I've never seen anything that comes close,
TB> except possibly eqn (which I never used enough to know). A
TB> long time ago I spent some time typing in mathematical
TB> monographs to earn some money, and it got to the point where I
TB> could just look at a (neatly) handwritten set of displayed
TB> equations, and just type it in, and it would almost always
TB> work. TeX is just incredibly good for that purpose.
Also, once you're working at the level of (say) LaTeX, much of the
ugliness of the language is hidden, and what's left is just quirks of
syntax. LaTeX does 80% of what I want right out of the box, and a few
ventures into deeper layers has brought that number closer to 95%.
Given that Word hovers around 45%, that's a win. And besides, delving
into LaTeX and TeX innards is a beautiful procrastination exercise
when I should be working on writing something else.
Charlton
Kaz Kylheku
> Also, once you're working at the level of (say) LaTeX, much of the
> ugliness of the language is hidden, and what's left is just quirks of
> syntax.
That is false; quirks of semantics pervade LaTeX, because of the shaky
foundation on which it is built. Why can't you use certain constructs
in certain contexts? It's just not hygienic.
In a paragraph I can use \verb|...| but in a section heading or
footnote, I think, I must switch to {\tt ...}. Why? Who cares?
At some point you stop caring and just crank out the document.
Pascal Bourguignon
> Daniel Barlow wrote:
> >
> > The thread is discussing the reasons that Lisp is 'growing'.
>
> What got me interested was seeing three slashdot articles in one
> month related to Lisp.
>
> Two articles by Paul Graham, "Beating the Averages" and "A Plan
> for Spam" - he's a great preacher. Also, an article comparing the
> performance of Lisp and Java showed up while I was investigating
> Java.
>
> Following up, I discovered a wealth of information online, including
> articles, code, tutorials, books(!), and free implementations.
> So far, I've been able to find information written to my level
> as my exploration expands.
>
> My two biggest obstacles right now are:
> - My vi background.
You're surely aware (but just in case) of emacs and it's numerous
vi-like modes and that it speaks lisp nativelym aren't you.
> - Lack of a simple project to start on.
--
__Pascal_Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a fault in reality. do not adjust your minds. -- Salman Rushdie
John Williams
I must say that I think we can fairly easily have the beautiful output
from Tex with the notational elegance of using s-exp.
I am starting to use an s-exp notation to prepare technical content to
support lectures that I give. The content is presented online using a
common lisp server and the obvious techniques for such things but can
be just as trivially mapped to latex to produce printed documents.
As an example the equations (which are certainly one of the real wins
of using LaTex) can be entered as strings using the Latex notation -
this is obviously transparently passed through to produce Latex and
printed output. A preprocessing stage creates a gif image for each
equation when it the documents are to be used online.
A notation like
((section :title "my section title")
(p "A paragraph with some inline math: " ((math :latex t) "|E|")
" followed by an equation and a figure")
(equation "\\[E=\\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty}|g(t)|^2\\,dt\\]")
((figure :caption
"The relationship between the fundamental frequency of a signal
and its bit rate")
((graphic :mag 0.7) "fundamental.eps")))
is rendered obviously.
Such is the power of s-exp with common lisp processing that it appears
to be pretty easy to add new output and indeed input formats. I
already have students entering their own articles using structured
text which is converted to s-exp for subsequent processing and
display.
I would guess I am not the first to attempt this - it might be
interesting to hear of others experience in relation to using s-exp
in this way. Is this something we should try and put into a library -
say in CLOCC?
>>>>> "Kaz" == Kaz Kylheku <k...@ashi.footprints.net> writes:
Kaz> Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote in message
Kaz> news:<ey3bs3j...@cley.com>...
>> comparison. TeX has the advantage in its field that for
>> certain kinds of documents - things containing a lot of maths -
>> it's *very* easy to type compared to anything else I'm aware
>> of, but the disadvantage that it's a hideous macro language
>> designed by someone with lots of strange ideas.
Kaz> To be completely fair, it's quite likely that if Knuth were
Kaz> to design a typesetting language from scratch today, it would
Kaz> be a lot better.
--
Dr. John A.R. Williams | http://www.aston.ac.uk/~willijar
Photonics Research Group | http://www.ee.aston.ac.uk/research/photonics
Electronic Engineering | http://www.ee.aston.ac.uk/
Aston University | http://www.aston.ac.uk
thelifter
>
> it escape its confines. XML is everything that is bad about using
> SGML in the wrong places for the wrong purposes. It is, in short,
> the worst braindamage that has hit the computing world in a very
> long time.
I don't understand your criticism of XML. Basically XML is just
another way of writing S-expr or Trees or whatever you want to call
it. It's more verbose, ok, but I wouldn't consider this to be so a
great disadvantage. I use XML on a daily basis and think it is a
simple and intelligent way to represent data. I would like to hear why
you think it is so bad, can you be more specific please? And how would
you improve on it? For example how would you save a Text document from
a wordprocessor with layout informations if you didn't use XML(or
something equivalent)?
Ray Blaak
> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no> wrote in message news:<32492439...@naggum.no>...
> > SGML in the wrong places for the wrong purposes. It is, in short,
> > the worst braindamage that has hit the computing world in a very
> > long time.
>
> I don't understand your criticism of XML.
Google previous Erik/XML threads in this group. He lays it out pretty clearly.
--
Cheers, The Rhythm is around me,
The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak The Rhythm is inside me,
bl...@telus.net The Rhythm has my soul.
Raymond Toy
JW> A notation like
JW> ((section :title "my section title")
JW> (p "A paragraph with some inline math: " ((math :latex t) "|E|")
JW> " followed by an equation and a figure")
JW> (equation "\\[E=\\int_{-\\infty}^{\\infty}|g(t)|^2\\,dt\\]")
JW> ((figure :caption
JW> "The relationship between the fundamental frequency of a signal
JW> and its bit rate")
JW> ((graphic :mag 0.7) "fundamental.eps")))
JW> is rendered obviously.
As a user I would hate this. One of the nice things about TeX was
that simple text paragraphs are rendered as paragraphs. No special
nesting rules, no markers, just the obvious blank line. No need to
properly enclose/nest sections either---just a simple \section{title}.
Makes it easy to move text around too.
The parts for math, equations, and figures are ok, though.
Ray
Kaz Kylheku
> Erik Naggum <er...@naggum.no> wrote in message news:<32492439...@naggum.no>...
> >
> > it escape its confines. XML is everything that is bad about using
> > SGML in the wrong places for the wrong purposes. It is, in short,
> > the worst braindamage that has hit the computing world in a very
> > long time.
>
> I don't understand your criticism of XML. Basically XML is just
> another way of writing S-expr or Trees or whatever you want to call
Lisp expressions are richly typed. How do you write a bitvector in
XML? A complex number? A rational number? How do you distinguish
between a symbol and a string? What about circularity? How do you
write the following in XML?
#1=(a b #*0111(d e #1#) #c(2 3/2))
In XML, if I have <foo>1234</foo>, what is 1234? Is it a character
string of four digits? Or is it an integer? Where are the semantics?
> it. It's more verbose, ok, but I wouldn't consider this to be so a
> great disadvantage.
It is not only more verbose, but substantially harder to parse.
Verifying that XML has correct read syntax requires symbol table
lookup, so that tags can be matched. Verifying that Lisp has correct
read syntax requires only simple lexical pattern matching, combined
with the balancing of parentheses. This means that using XML in small
embedded platforms introduces time and space overheads. It means that
on a fast network where communication becomes CPU-bound, XML can
introduce a visible throughput hit.
> I use XML on a daily basis and think it is a
> simple and intelligent way to represent data.
Nothing which contains so much redundancies and superfluous crud can
possibly be considered intelligent---unless you believe that anyone
who works with computers and can come up with a working data
representation is intelligent. He or she may be intelligent among the
general population, but not necessarily intelligent within the
relevant peer group.
> I would like to hear why
> you think it is so bad, can you be more specific please? And how would
> you improve on it?
I would toss it in the trash.
> For example how would you save a Text document from
> a wordprocessor with layout informations if you didn't use XML(or
> something equivalent)?
I would use Lisp forms.
Tim Haynes
[snip]
> In XML, if I have <foo>1234</foo>, what is 1234? Is it a character string
> of four digits? Or is it an integer? Where are the semantics?
While I'm not attempting to make any defence of XML here, there may be
*some* meaning imposed by external context: I tentatively suggest the
viewpoint `if you're dealing with SVG, "these" things are numeric', fsvo
"these".
It's still not an integral feature of the document at-hand, of course.
>> For example how would you save a Text document from a wordprocessor with
>> layout informations if you didn't use XML(or something equivalent)?
>
> I would use Lisp forms.
After the last couple of days' experiments, I'm tempted to agree.
Background: writing a weblog-style system-news announcement system.
Data entered from an html textarea, stored in $RDBMS as-is.
Have a CGI (written in ruby, just 'cos), designed to spew output in
?format=(xml|html|text|sexp) form.
Can take SQL query result-set and generate XML just fine. Am attempting to
push this through sqlxml2{html,text}.xsl in order to generate the html and
plaintext forms.
For HTML, I want embedded ^M characters in the "body" section of each
article to appear as <br> tags. For plaintext, I want to "body" section
refilled at <80 characters.
Some investigation shows that "the" way to replace ^M by <br> tags in XSL
is about 10 lines of templates to match before-part and after-part of the
field. Right. Let there be s///, let there be #gsub(), let there be
*anything* other than more spikey <> stuck in my face.
So far any properly programmed way would be better.
~Tim, a sort-of newbie to lispy things.
--
Move a mountain / Fill the ground |pig...@stirfried.vegetable.org.uk
Take death on wheels / Re-create the land |http://spodzone.org.uk/
thelifter
> > another way of writing S-expr or Trees or whatever you want to call
>
> Lisp expressions are richly typed. How do you write a bitvector in
> XML? A complex number? A rational number? How do you distinguish
> between a symbol and a string? What about circularity? How do you
> write the following in XML?
>
> #1=(a b #*0111(d e #1#) #c(2 3/2))
>
> In XML, if I have <foo>1234</foo>, what is 1234? Is it a character
> string of four digits? Or is it an integer? Where are the semantics?
Often it is clear from the context what type it is. Often it doesn't
matter, you can just treat everything as a string. And if you want to
introduce type, nothing stops you. Example:
<foo type="integer">1234</foo>
>
> > it. It's more verbose, ok, but I wouldn't consider this to be so a
> > great disadvantage.
>
> It is not only more verbose, but substantially harder to parse.
Ok, it's harder to parse. But this doesn't mean that it is a pile of
crap.
> > For example how would you save a Text document from
> > a wordprocessor with layout informations if you didn't use XML(or
> > something equivalent)?
>
> I would use Lisp forms.
Yes, but as I already said, you can convert any Lisp form to XML and
vice-versa.
Basically all you said is that XML is harder to parse. Ok, but it
isn't a pile of crap. I think it would be more fair to say:
XML is a harder to parse S-exp, so it generates more overhead. That's
the disadvantage of using it. Otherwise it is ok.
Oleg
[...]
> XML is a harder to parse S-exp, so it generates more overhead. That's
> the disadvantage of using it. Otherwise it is ok.
What are your thoughts, if any, on the circularity issue?
Cheers
Oleg
Henrik Motakef
> > XML is a harder to parse S-exp, so it generates more overhead. That's
> > the disadvantage of using it. Otherwise it is ok.
>
> What are your thoughts, if any, on the circularity issue?
<!DOCTYPE circularity-demo [
<!ELEMENT circularity-demo (cons+)>
<!ELEMENT cons (car, cdr)>
<!ATTLIST cons id ID #REQUIRED>
<!ELEMENT car (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT cdr EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST cdr ref IDREF #REQUIRED>
]>
<circularity-demo>
<cons id="cons1">
<car>foo</car>
<cdr ref="cons2"/>
</cons>
<cons id="cons2">
<car>bar</car>
<cdr ref="cons3"/>
</cons>
<cons id="cons3">
<car>baz</car>
<cdr ref="cons1"/>
</cons>
</circularity-demo>
Erik Naggum
| Yes, but as I already said, you can convert any Lisp form to XML
| and vice-versa.
I thought we had utterly destroyed this stupid argument when it is
phrased in terms of Turing Equivalence.
| Basically all you said is that XML is harder to parse. Ok, but it
| isn't a pile of crap. I think it would be more fair to say:
Why are you insiting so much on having other people approve of your
personal opinion?
| XML is a harder to parse S-exp, so it generates more overhead.
| That's the disadvantage of using it. Otherwise it is ok.
I think you need to realize that just because you have a personal
need to feel that you do not engage in something idiotic and evil
does not mean that it any less idiotic and evil.
I think I may have to answer your previous question thoroughly. If
you are not willing to accept that some people think that XML is
the worst piece of shit to hit the computer fan in /ages/, that is
OK, but that does not make those people go away, nor their arguments
that uninventing XML would be about as beneficial to the world as
unelecting George W. Bush. XML is in my view the result of idiots
who take something good and destroy it by taking it too far. But
more on that in another article.
thelifter
how about:
#1 = <foo>
<bar>
123
</bar>
<pointer>
#1
</pointer>
</foo>
Erik Naggum
Espen Vestre
> I thought we had utterly destroyed this stupid argument when it is
> phrased in terms of Turing Equivalence.
Agreed. I think we need a collary of Godwin's Law here.
--
(espen)