I want to ask you All an advice, please.

I want to ask you All an advice, please.

[Artiom Ivanov]

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My name is Artiom, And I� am from Ukraine (it�s near Russia)
My problem is that I want to study IT but I� am not sure what languages and
technologies I must learn in order to be a professional. I mean that it will
be cool if you could list me some number of computer languages (the best on
your point of view) and technologies (the most important on your point of
view) that I should study. It�s clear that it�s impossible to study
everything so I want to choose a number of topics and to become a specialist
in it. My goal it�s not primary to find a good job but also a scientific
interest so the technologies must be general and should cover the majority
of aspects of IT. I know already C/C++, Ada, Java, Delphi (Object Pascal), a
little of Common Lisp, UML, HTML, JavaScript and a base of XML and Visual
Basic. But now I understand that it�s too difficult to practice in all this,
so I forget something and now I want to choose something concrete, and to
choose some �direction� in clear.
Big thanks to All in advance.

Re: I want to ask you All an advice, please

[Kenny Tilton]

Bengt Richter wrote:
> On 12 Nov 2002 13:40:33 +1100, "Artiom Ivanov" <rarelang@ua.fm> wrote:
> 
> 
>>...I know already C/C++, Ada, Java, Delphi (Object Pascal), a
>>little of Common Lisp, UML, HTML, JavaScript and a base of XML and Visual
>>Basic...
> 
> I think you should learn Python (see www.python.org). I predict it will
> rapidly become your favorite language.

No, he already knows a little Common Lisp, so he won't be able to deal 
with such a primitive approach to garbage collection. Look at the effort 
required to handle cyclic references:

   http://www.python.org/doc/api/supporting-cycle-detection.html

Artiom, finish learning Common Lisp, http://www.alu.org, then you will 
be in the best position to decide which features you are most able to 
tolerate living without when you pick your career language (while 
keeping your eye open for Lisp positions). Here are the features I would 
not want to give up:

- interactive development (no linking, compile individual functions, the 
REPL which only seems like an interpreter)
- speed (optimize-compiled to machine code)
- decent GC (transparent, efficient)
- macros (procedural, not just token-replacing)
- multiple-inheritance and all the other features of CLOS, the OO package
- generic functions
- &key, &rest, and &optional args
- standardized (as in ANSI)
- mature (as in stable)
- closures
- special variables
- (sexpr notation (as in parentheses))
- automatic indentation by the editor
- restarts from a backtrace
- OO condition system
- four or more vendors, free trial versions, several free projects

Once you know why each of those is cool, you'll do a better job of 
picking the least abysmal alternative. (Hint: I have personal knowledge 
of Lispers who have found happiness in Python or JavaScript.)

-- 

  kenny tilton
  clinisys, inc
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
""Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five years, Doctor,
   and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.""
                                                   Elwood P. Dowd

Re: I want to ask you All an advice, please

[Martti Halminen]

Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> In comp.lang.ada Fred Gilham <gilham@snapdragon.csl.sri.com> wrote:
> 
> :     o simple syntax[2]

> 
> If you can't accept that this may be considered syntax (also),
> then consider that "human stacks" are pretty bad in bracket
> matching. After all there is a reason that we write many small functions
> and not a few big ones. I believe that too many ()s will make you crazy
> and not very productive.

What makes you think that it would be any different in Lisp? In my
programs the average size of a lisp function is less than 15 lines.

> How many levels of nested function application can a human being
> remember? Try
>   (+ 3 (* 4 (+ 7 6 (- 5 1)) (/ 4 (+ 5 6)))
> "by hand" for an easy example. The tree isn't unusually high.

Few Lisp programmers would write it like that.

(+ 3 (* 4
	(+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
	(/ 4 (+ 5 6))))
would be more likely to be found in actual code.
The trick in reading Lisp is to leave the bellyaching about parentheses
to the compiler and editor, and use the indentation to read the code
structure.

--

Re: I want to ask you All an advice, please

[AG]

"Martti Halminen" <martti.halminen@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
news:3DD3C19A.C0DAD898@kolumbus.fi...
> Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> > How many levels of nested function application can a human being
> > remember? Try
> >   (+ 3 (* 4 (+ 7 6 (- 5 1)) (/ 4 (+ 5 6)))
> > "by hand" for an easy example. The tree isn't unusually high.

>
> Few Lisp programmers would write it like that.
>
> (+ 3 (* 4
> (+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
> (/ 4 (+ 5 6))))
> would be more likely to be found in actual code.
> The trick in reading Lisp is to leave the bellyaching about parentheses
> to the compiler and editor, and use the indentation to read the code
> structure.

Unfortunately, in your own example, as posted, there are no visible
indentations. If, by "indentation" you simply mean the nested brackets
put on separate lines, well then, simple SQL statements can also be
written like that:

... where x1 =
(... where x2 =
(... where x3 =
(...     ...)))

If that's the best Lisp techniques can offer, it's not terribly impressive
really.
Mind you, I'm not saying that it *is* the best it can offer (or even think
so)
but that particular example simply doesn't hold water, sorry.

Re: I want to ask you All an advice, please

[Martti Halminen]

AG wrote:
> 
> "Martti Halminen" <martti.halminen@kolumbus.fi> wrote in message
> news:3DD3C19A.C0DAD898@kolumbus.fi...
> > Georg Bauhaus wrote:
> 
> > > How many levels of nested function application can a human being
> > > remember? Try
> > >   (+ 3 (* 4 (+ 7 6 (- 5 1)) (/ 4 (+ 5 6)))
> > > "by hand" for an easy example. The tree isn't unusually high.
> 
> >
> > Few Lisp programmers would write it like that.
> >
> > (+ 3 (* 4
> > (+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
> > (/ 4 (+ 5 6))))
> > would be more likely to be found in actual code.
> > The trick in reading Lisp is to leave the bellyaching about parentheses
> > to the compiler and editor, and use the indentation to read the code
> > structure.
> 
> Unfortunately, in your own example, as posted, there are no visible
> indentations. 

When the message was sent, it did have indentation, and still has when
looked at in Google, for example. If you are reading it with a
newsreader which with proportional fonts or otherwise clobbers the
whitespace, that is your problem.

The original version, with leading whitespace converted to underlines:

(+ 3 (* 4
________(+ 7 6 (- 5 1))
________(/ 4 (+ 5 6))))

- Not that this is in any way a realistic code example, anyway.

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