----- Forwarded message from Gabriel Sechan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
From: "Gabriel Sechan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: any (practical) use for LISP? Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:25:09 -0600 >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Changing to >> Python/Java/Ruby/Lisp will not make you a better programmer, a faster >> programmer, be easier to prototype in, etc. Even talking about language >> "problems" like memory management in C-likes ends up beign wrong- if you >> actually track defects, memory ones end up being a negligible percent, >and >> they tend to be the low cost ones to fix as well. You just exchange >them >> for a similar class of errors in Java/Python/other anyway. If you grab >a >> reference from a data structure in those languages, are you getting a >deep >> or shallow copy? The difference matters, and without studying the >> individual structure you can't know. It tends to be a harder problem to >> debug as well, althout thats probably my lack of experience in those >> languages talking. > >Are you saying that experts in any language pretty much develop things >at the same rate? Yes. >Are you saying that it is impossible to >have a language automate some tedious task (memory management, >variable typing) without introducing new problems that are just as >bad? Yes. I'd also point out that typing is a bad example. There's a damn good reasons for types- it supplies information to the programmer/maintainer about what the variable is. Languages that eliminate type also eliminate this information. A bad tradeoff for a half dozen keystrokes. As for memory management- it just isn't a problem. I can't remember when the last time I had a memory pointer problem. You eliminate a negligible percentage of bugs at the cost of a lot of flexibility. Worse, in my experience, the problems are only partially eliminated at best, as explained previously. > Are you saying therefore that a C expert using C and a Python >expert using Python will both develop code at the same rate? Yes. Assuming the experts are equally skilled in the problem area (no one has domain knowledge the other lacks). > >How do you know? What are you basing these facts on? > Experience and observation. About all you can. The tricky part of all this is its a very hard thing to test empirically. You can't have one person write the code in 2 languages, he learns how to write the program on trial one. And having two separate experts write in their prefered language leaves questions as to thge relative capabilites of the two programmers, as well as the environment they program under. Gabe ----- End forwarded message ----- -- _______________________________________ Christian Seberino, Ph.D. SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego Code 2872 49258 Mills Street, Room 158 San Diego, CA 92152-5385 U.S.A. Phone: (619) 553-9973 Fax : (619) 553-6521 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________ -- KPLUG-List mailing list [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
