[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > After much attempts to convince myself I should learn Lisp I just > can't do it.
It sounds like you think you still can, as you're asking for another push. > The *best* use for Lisp I can think if I that I may possibly write > some super-uber-complicated-AI-compiler-thingy in the future that > begs for macros and self-modifying code..... Why would you think that? The only correlation between Lisp and AI is that man failed AI companies and projects happened to be using Lisp in their heyday. > Even that argument is full of holes since modern scripting languages > have regular expressions, operator overloading and OOP which let you > write 'mini-languages'. But Lisp's suitability for AI programming has little to do with these language features or libraries. It has more to do with the interactive and exploratory programming model most Lisps /can/ offer, now being aped by many current languages that offer a(n albeit restricted) interactive shell. But if you've never really programmed in a properly set-up Lisp environment, this won't make much sense to you. You can't appreciate something you've never imagined you could have. > Plus, Lisp loses on size of community and size of standard > libraries. True, but if you're just trying to find some excuse why a given language isn't worth learning, that should be just as possible with any language you choose to shoot down. Every language can "lose" for some reason, yet people use them all to great effect. > How the @[EMAIL PROTECTED] am i supposed to convince myself to spend 3 years > learning all the goodies of Lisp then? Three years? Give yourself a month. That would be enough to taste it and see if you want to go further. Have you watched this movie showing SLIME in action? http://www.cl-user.net/asp/web-sites/slime-video Here are a few more similar ones: http://www.cl-user.net/asp/web-sites/episode1 http://www.cl-user.net/asp/web-sites/episode2 http://www.cl-user.net/asp/web-sites/ucw-video If you're not comfortable with Emacs, here are a few others to consider to bootstrap a capable Common Lisp environment: o Allegro CL 8.0 Free Express Edition http://www.franz.com/downloads/ o LispWorks Personal Edition http://www.lispworks.com/downloads/index.html -- Steven E. Harris -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
