On 25 March 2010 23:17, Tony Mechelynck wrote: > On 15/02/10 23:33, Ben Schmidt wrote: > [...] > > > > Vim is essentially an imperative procedural language. > > Lisp is essentially a functional language. Most people > > find imperative languages easier to understand because > > they're a bit more like recipes and a bit less like > > Mathematics! Some people find the reverse, though. > > > > Lisp is certainly more elegant than Vimscript, which is > > just a mess, with as many exceptions as rules, and > > different escaping mechanisms needed every few lines. > > If you want to do serious programming, Lisp is the way > > to go. If you want a quick hack, Vimscript is probably > > easier.
Depends on the hack. Vimscript is a domain-specific language, so for quick hacks on text files, yeah. > [...] (also how to compute a square root, but that wasn't > a required subject; I learnt it from the arithmetics book > without even telling the teacher, because it was my kind > of fun). [...] > > Lisp looks like Volapük to me; Then check out the SICP lectures. The videos are online for free. The first one teaches you the basics of Lisp (well, Scheme) in a few minutes, and it (or maybe the second one, I can't remember) shows you how to compute a square root :-). It really is a wonderful language. > Vimscript I can (more or less) understand. Of course, the > Blob argument invalidates this line of reasoning, letting > it even appear that "therefore" (which I challenge as > "the argument of obscurity") Lisp would be "more > powerful" than vimscript. What is "serious" programming > anyway? Not having to prefix function parameters with `a:'! :-) > AFAICT, the collection of Vim plugins run the whole gamut > from the most serious to the most fun; but of course, for > heavy number-crunching, vimscript has the same > performance liabilities as most interpreted languages -- > maybe not really all of them: so perhaps I could say that > for serious programming, FORTH is the way to go? ;-) Not sure what you're saying here. > And BTW, (in answer to another post) how to compute an > arbitrary sum (of zero or more terms)? IIRC (it was > several decades ago): > > 0 > 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + > PRINT > ----> 10 > > Simple isn't it? (And the 0 can be left out if you also > omit the first +) By the time you've finished entering > the data, you have the result. :-P Now put your HP calculator away. :-) --Antony -- You received this message from the "vim_use" maillist. Do not top-post! Type your reply below the text you are replying to. For more information, visit http://www.vim.org/maillist.php To unsubscribe from this group, send email to vim_use+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
