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"Lisp's paradigm is sufficiently different from the normal imperative languages, e.g. C or Python, that grokking Lisp means you understand more than one paradig
by bsaunder 19y ago
"Lisp's paradigm is sufficiently different from the normal imperative languages, e.g. C or Python, that grokking Lisp means you understand more than one paradigm. It's this that's valuable, not knowledge of Lisp itself."
This was exactly my point... grokking Lisp is a hallmark of intelligence. I don't think there is any other programming language that rises to this level.
- ralph 19y agoWhat other languages do you think don't rise to this level?
- bsaunder 19y agoLet me reconsider (I had forgotten about Paul Graham's, Python article). I suspect there are other langauges (not many) that reach this same level of intelligence tagging. I think the second paragraph of his Python article captures much of my intent. But still, there seems to be something just a bit different about LISP than most other langauges. Perhaps it is LISP's durribility or the fact that over time different (smart) people develop new lanuages and eventually begin to incorporate more and more features of LISP. LISP clearly got some things right in a fundamental way that every one seems to be rediscovering every decade. This leads me to believe that if you understand LISP, you have a deeper understanding of how things really fit together. With specific regards to your question, I'd include most main stream programming languages (but that's kinda obvious). At this point, I'd include Ruby in this list, but may not Python. Although even in the case of Python, it strikes me as being very similar to other OO languages (better perhaps, but similar none-the-less).