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> The only Lisp he learned was some imperative crappy style Not to be trolling myself, but I believe that's part of the "practical" aspect. You'll find much o

> The only Lisp he learned was some imperative crappy style Not to be trolling myself, but I believe that's part of the "practical" aspect. You'll find much of the same in "Practical common lisp".

lispm 11y ago
What I think of is Lisp code from the 60s, before structured programming, functional programming, etc. when he writes: (let (a b c) (setq a ...) ... (setq b ...) ....) That's basically the style of the past: (prog (a b c) (setq a ...) ...) With one difference: then it was usual to program control flows in Lisp with labels and gotos...
- brudgers 11y ago
  That in no way excuses being mean.
- xahlee 11y ago
  which way to use let is just a personal taste. When i begin in elisp, i ALWAYS stick with this form of using local var: (let (x y z) (setq ...) (setq ...) (setq ...) ... ) This makes it easier to read all local variable names. Especially when readers are beginners, non-professional programers, scientists, writers. If we always use this simple style of let, what possible problem can it create? • Does it creates algorithmic problem? • Does it slow down programs? • Does it violate some computer science principles? • Are there science based proof, or statistics, that shows this style does some damage, such as more difficult to maintain? The only thing i can think of, is a matter of esthetics. later on, sometimes i use this form (let (x (y 3) (z 4)) body) with the condition that, if i set the variable in the let parameter, it must be constant. The value never changes in the body. And now sometimes i also use the (let* ...) form. These variations are just sugar syntax. Not really important. It's a bikeshedding problem. The thing is, in emacs lisp, there's no way to declare constants. And also, it is unnatural to code elisp or even Common Lisp without lots of setq or setf or similar. In JavaScript, the issue is much worse. JavaScript Name Hoisting and One-Liner Functional Style http://xahlee.info/js/javascript_name_hosting_and_one-liner_functional_style.html http://xahlee.info/js/javascript_name_hosting_and_one-liner_...

> The only Lisp he learned was some imperative crappy style Not to be trolling myself, but I believe that's part of the "practical" aspect. You'll find much of the same in "Practical common lisp".

lispm 11y ago

What I think of is Lisp code from the 60s, before structured programming, functional programming, etc. when he writes: (let (a b c) (setq a ...) ... (setq b ...) ....) That's basically the style of the past: (prog (a b c) (setq a ...) ...) With one difference: then it was usual to program control flows in Lisp with labels and gotos...

brudgers 11y ago
That in no way excuses being mean.
xahlee 11y ago
which way to use let is just a personal taste. When i begin in elisp, i ALWAYS stick with this form of using local var: (let (x y z) (setq ...) (setq ...) (setq ...) ... ) This makes it easier to read all local variable names. Especially when readers are beginners, non-professional programers, scientists, writers. If we always use this simple style of let, what possible problem can it create? • Does it creates algorithmic problem? • Does it slow down programs? • Does it violate some computer science principles? • Are there science based proof, or statistics, that shows this style does some damage, such as more difficult to maintain? The only thing i can think of, is a matter of esthetics. later on, sometimes i use this form (let (x (y 3) (z 4)) body) with the condition that, if i set the variable in the let parameter, it must be constant. The value never changes in the body. And now sometimes i also use the (let* ...) form. These variations are just sugar syntax. Not really important. It's a bikeshedding problem. The thing is, in emacs lisp, there's no way to declare constants. And also, it is unnatural to code elisp or even Common Lisp without lots of setq or setf or similar. In JavaScript, the issue is much worse. JavaScript Name Hoisting and One-Liner Functional Style http://xahlee.info/js/javascript_name_hosting_and_one-liner_functional_style.html http://xahlee.info/js/javascript_name_hosting_and_one-liner_...