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Your question seems to be about how others feel about Lisp. It's not clear to me why that's even an interesting question. That's like choosing a hammer based on

by daly 4y ago

Your question seems to be about how others feel about Lisp. It's not clear to me why that's even an interesting question. That's like choosing a hammer based on how popular its color is. The language you use decides what you can think. Unlike other languages, Lisp doesn't decide for you. I can, and have, programming in every style I've seen while writing Lisp. Most programmers won't find that a feature. Also, Emacs. If you're gonna Lisp, you really want Emacs. I've been a Lisper for 52 years.

eimrine 4y ago
It's awesome for me to have a talk to a man who programs twice as long as my life. Can you share your views on the future of Lisp? Maybe you have unfulfilled hopes about the future of this language? What was the biggest breakthrough in your 52 years of watching Lisp? (I understand that this is a garbage collector and tail optimization, but as far as I remember, these inventions happened earlier than 52 years ago). What is the biggest limiting factor to your productivity when writing Lisp in Emacs? (for me it's not touch typing oriented enough compared to vim). How can you personally explain the fact that for all the objective power of any dialect of Lisp, there is still no free software that has utilized the language's capabilities in the same way that Wolfram Alpha does?
- daly 4y ago
  I don't see a need to change lisp. It does everything I've ever tried to do. The biggest breakthrough was Common Lisp. I don't quite understand your Emacs question. The biggest limiting factor of any lisp programming is me. Lisp is clay for the mind and sometimes my mind-clay is too dry. Lisp and Emacs don't limit me in any way. That said, other languages "get in the way" all the time. It is nearly impossible to think of certain ideas[0] . Try merging your rule based expert system approach with your subsumption based knowledge representation system so that rules and knowledge are two surface representations of the same (lisp) structure[1]. I have no comment about Wolfram software. [0] The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that the grammatical and more verbal structure of a person's language influences how they perceive the world. It emphasizes that language either determines or influences one's thoughts. [1] Integrating rules and inheritance networks in a knowledge-based financial marketing consultation system https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/hicss/1988/00011946/12OmNAJVcEx https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/hicss/1988...)

by daly 4y ago

eimrine 4y ago

It's awesome for me to have a talk to a man who programs twice as long as my life. Can you share your views on the future of Lisp? Maybe you have unfulfilled hopes about the future of this language? What was the biggest breakthrough in your 52 years of watching Lisp? (I understand that this is a garbage collector and tail optimization, but as far as I remember, these inventions happened earlier than 52 years ago). What is the biggest limiting factor to your productivity when writing Lisp in Emacs? (for me it's not touch typing oriented enough compared to vim). How can you personally explain the fact that for all the objective power of any dialect of Lisp, there is still no free software that has utilized the language's capabilities in the same way that Wolfram Alpha does?

daly 4y ago
I don't see a need to change lisp. It does everything I've ever tried to do. The biggest breakthrough was Common Lisp. I don't quite understand your Emacs question. The biggest limiting factor of any lisp programming is me. Lisp is clay for the mind and sometimes my mind-clay is too dry. Lisp and Emacs don't limit me in any way. That said, other languages "get in the way" all the time. It is nearly impossible to think of certain ideas[0] . Try merging your rule based expert system approach with your subsumption based knowledge representation system so that rules and knowledge are two surface representations of the same (lisp) structure[1]. I have no comment about Wolfram software. [0] The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that the grammatical and more verbal structure of a person's language influences how they perceive the world. It emphasizes that language either determines or influences one's thoughts. [1] Integrating rules and inheritance networks in a knowledge-based financial marketing consultation system https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/hicss/1988/00011946/12OmNAJVcEx https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/hicss/1988...)