From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 107f24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid107f24,public X-Google-Thread: f4fd2,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gidf4fd2,public X-Google-Thread: 10259a,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid10259a,public X-Google-Thread: 103d24,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid103d24,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,ea8ea502d35ca2ce X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1164ba,626a0a064b320310 X-Google-Attributes: gid1164ba,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-10 04:10:12 PST Path: newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!news-out-sjo.usenetserver.com!news.tele.dk!141.201.2.63!newshunter!cosy.sbg.ac.at!newsfeed.Austria.EU.net!newsfeed.kpnqwest.at!newsfeed.wu-wien.ac.at!not-for-mail From: Markus Mottl Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.basic,comp.lang.functional,comp.lang.scheme,comp.lang.perl Subject: Re: Beginner's Language? Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 11:09:08 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of Economics and Business Administration, Vienna, Austria Message-ID: <9ddssk$bb7$1@bird.wu-wien.ac.at> References: <9cukad$nn68@news-dxb> <9d6b6e$1bt$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <87snihxiwc.fsf@frown.here> <9dbi83$sji$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <87heyu7cqd.fsf@frown.here> <9dc20p$hh15e$1@ID-37382.news.dfncis.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: miss.wu-wien.ac.at X-Trace: bird.wu-wien.ac.at 989492948 11623 137.208.107.17 (10 May 2001 11:09:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news-admin@wu-wien.ac.at NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 11:09:08 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981225 ("Volcane") (UNIX) (OSF1/V4.0 (alpha)) Xref: newsfeed.google.com comp.lang.ada:7451 comp.lang.lisp:9921 comp.lang.smalltalk:9681 comp.lang.functional:5618 comp.lang.scheme:3770 comp.lang.perl:2769 Date: 2001-05-10T11:09:08+00:00 List-Id: In comp.lang.functional Andreas Krennmair wrote: > The problem is that Lisp is in no way similar to a natural language. Same is true for all _programming_ languages. Let's not try to maintain the illusion that programming languages are, could be, or even should be similar to natural language. Natural language is highly ambiguous and imprecise, which surely does not make it a good choice for programming tasks. > And natural language can be understood easier than some functional, > theoretical stuff with a unique concept like Lisp. Sure: you have had about two decades of training, several hours a day. This definitely makes you good at speaking natural language. Natural language more easily understood than Lisp? Try to learn Chinese and tell me again... Furthermore, I wouldn't regard Lisp as particularly theoretically inspired, at least not if you compare it to "real" functional languages like e.g. Haskell. And yes, this "theoretical" stuff is remarkably readable. Go and look for yourself: http://www.haskell.org Or try a language from the ML-family, e.g.: http://www.ocaml.org > I was bored in the beginning, because I already knew Pascal, but then > the teacher explained me that they chose to teach Pascal because it > is so easy to read and to understand and it still has so many things > common with other languages. The true reason most likely is that he had learnt Pascal himself in school and therefore also uses it for teaching. > Lisp has hardly anything in common with natural > languages. Or could you express "My girlfriend's name is Suzy and her age > is 17" as readable as this in Lisp: > $girlfriend{'name'} = "Suzy"; > $girlfriend{'age'} = 17; Don't cheat yourself. There is absolutely no reason why a language like Perl should be considered anywhere close to natural language. And yes, I'd say that most well-designed languages make tasks like handling records significantly easier and safer than Perl. Take this Lisp-example. First we define a structure to describe persons: (defstruct (person) (name) (age)) Now we create a value for your girlfriend: (make-person :name "Suzy" :age 17) To be clear, I am not a particular friend of Lisp and strongly prefer other (functional and logic) languages. But I just wanted to show that your claim is not justified. Other languages also seem much more "natural" to me than your Perl-example, e.g.: OCaml with tuples: let my_girlfriend = "Suzy", 17 Or (with more structure for readability): type person = { name : string; age : int } let my_girlfriend = { name = "Suzy"; age = 17 } None of these examples looks more "theoretical" or less "natural" than yours. It's probably best if you just take a look at the documentation of these and other languages, play around a bit, and maybe you'll find that these languages are much more elegant than you initially thought... Best regards, Markus Mottl -- Markus Mottl, mottl@miss.wu-wien.ac.at, http://miss.wu-wien.ac.at/~mottl