Re: why learn C?

[Ray Blaak <rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net>]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> jayessay wrote:
> > Please.  You are embarassing yourself with this.
> 
> I notice you have no comment on the lack of mind-numbingness
> in my C++ template primality tester. Given that you're wrong
> about C++, I have no trouble believing that you're wrong about
> Lisp as well.

This is getting stupid. Jon probably knows both C++ templates and definitely
knows Lisp quite well.

The fact that you can code up a Car/Cdr abstraction in some programming
notation does note make it lisp like. You can code these list abstractions in
any language you choose, and that does not make a lisp.

What makes something a Lisp is a whole philosophy of symbolic, dynamic and
introspective (and protected!) programming that C++ simply is not natively
capable of. Also, Lisp's list syntax notation is also critical (Dylan be
damned!), as that syntax is what allows the whole "programs as data" paradigm
to practically work.

Your basic point that C++ templates need not be considered as a fundamental
evil is properly taken. In fact C++ in general tends to get a bad rap in
c.l.a. The simple fact of the matter is that a professional programmer worth
their salt should know how to use C++ properly so as to readily and easily
avoid its stupidities and program safely.

However, even with your demonstration of some cool templates, it is still the
case that "programming" like this with templates is fundamentally strange. One
has to think very differently compared to the usual programming languages.

More importantly, the need to program like this in templates I have strong
doubts about. If you really want to test a prime, for example, why on earth
would you not do so at run time, when you actually need the value? Even if
it's for a constant, you can compute it lazily, or during initialization,
making it externally read only, etc. That is a much much clearer and
understandable way to present things.

The proper way to program at compile time should be with traditional program
statements that happen to run in the "build" phase. This is much more direct
and clearer to understand. I note that you can actually do that with
Lisp/Scheme.

-- 
Cheers,                                        The Rhythm is around me,
                                               The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak                                      The Rhythm is inside me,
rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net                    The Rhythm has my soul.