On 1/27/07, Bob W <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Lisp is truly beautiful, you have to try to see its beauty. > > The concept > > of a program that can write itself at run-time and then be evaluated > > > (executed) is truly brilliant. > > Not too sure about that. I had an excellent training in programming > all those years ago. In my first job as a programmer I (and my > colleagues who joined before me) where handed some standard specs on > day one, pointed towards the cupboard full of manuals, and told to > come back in a few months when I'd written all the programs in > assembler. After that we wrote a mix of COBOL and assembler. > > One of my colleagues, just for the helluvit, wrote an assembler > program which he then translated into a large string constant which he > coded into the Working Storage of a COBOL program. The first > instruction of the COBOL program was a branch to the start of Working > Storage, where it then executed the constant as a program. > > Very clever, but not exactly a maintenance programmer's dream.
Yes, thats ugly. The Data=Program paradigm of Lisp is not like this. For example, I could build and save a bunch of lambda expressions (mini functions) as data, then pass that data as the mechanism to get specific things sorted to a quick sort function, or any other function that can take this type of executable data. Its a very powerful mechanism and is used frequently and is not considered kludgey. A typical use was to write out the data out as a program, and when you loaded it back, you just evaluated it to get the original data, no parsing necessary. > > > Given the time when it was > > envisioned... > > Well, one of the key insights of von Neumann (?) was the equivalence > of data and program, so we should expect that someone would make use > of the idea. In fact, I think even Turing may have done so. > > -- > Bob > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > > Behalf Of Boris Liberman > > Sent: 27 January 2007 05:47 > > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > Subject: Re: Interest in developing a software around photograhy? > > > > Peter, > > > > P. J. Alling wrote: > > > IIRC LISP came first. I find it's notation annoying at best and > > > impenetrable at worst. > > > C and C++ were elegant, until such things a Templates, (with their > > > > particularly un-C like syntax), were grafted onto the language. > > > > > > Now ForTran that was man's language. > > > > Lisp is truly beautiful, you have to try to see its beauty. > > The concept > > of a program that can write itself at run-time and then be evaluated > > > (executed) is truly brilliant. Given the time when it was > > envisioned... > > > > C is cool, but from totally different perspective. C++ is just > > monstrous. I think C++ is actually a Hummer H1 of programming > > languages. > > You can drive to the super market with it, and you can also > > go all the > > way off-road. And if you handle it right and give it proper > > maintenance, > > it will not disappoint you. Lisp on the other hand is like a glider > - > > taking you from A to B in a gentle breeze. > > > > Boris > > > > -- > > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > > PDML@pdml.net > > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
