Comments on: Thanksgiving, Computer Languages

By: Ed That Goes Ping

Ed That Goes Ping — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:32:11 +0000

It makes sense in retrospect I guess — and it *would* be nice not to have to use “lst” as the name of a variable for a generic list in a generic list-processing function. Thanks! :)

By: Daniel Weinreb

Daniel Weinreb — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:16:07 +0000

The business of using #’ is because Common Lisp is what’s called a “Lisp-2″, a Lisp with separate value cells and function cells. Scheme is a “Lisp-1″. For the best discussion of this topic, see

http://www.nhplace.com/kent/Papers/Technical-Issues.html

Kent Pitman and Richard Gabriel explain it all.

Here’s one simple thing: There’s a function called “list”, but it’s useful to be able to use “list” as a variable name.

Common Lisp had to be a Lisp-2 in order to compatibly run the vast majority of existing Lisp code that existed in the ancestor dialects. We didn’t have any real choice in the matter. It was highly controversial, nevertheless, during the original Common Lisp design.

By: Ed That Goes Ping

Ed That Goes Ping — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:36:42 +0000

Cool. The Rails book is still calling my name.

As is Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby.

By: James

James — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 05:29:05 +0000

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past few days immersed in the Ruby on Rails book. I’m very impressed, though I’m also a Ruby newbie. The test will be when I get back to my test apps with the new knowledge I’ve acquired, but every time I’ve found myself thinking “yes, but I need to be able to do X” the next section has covered it.

The hype is going to hurt Rails, particularly with way too many people touting it as a replacement for Java. But for medium sized web apps, it seems like a great option.