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Your point and the grandparent's point are not contradictory. 'car' and 'cdr' can be opaque pieces of jargon that make the language slightly but noticeably mor
by Majromax 2y ago
Your point and the grandparent's point are not contradictory. 'car' and 'cdr' can be opaque pieces of jargon that make the language slightly but noticeably more difficult for new learners, and they also can be standard pieces of jargon that current users would find no value in changing.
In that way, it's a bit like indentation in Python.
- pfdietz 2y agoI think this illustrates that perceived shallow blemishes that upset newbies have nothing to do with success or failure of a programming language. Another example here is "all those parentheses", and perhaps even lack of static typing.
- kerkeslager 2y agoIt's a shallow blemish yes. I wouldn't say is has nothing to do with the success or failure--but as I said in my post, it kind of doesn't matter much. The problem I have here is this total unwillingness to admit that it is a blemish. Like because Common Lisp did it, it can't be wrong, so we have to come up with bizarre justifications for this like pretending some ancient hardware architecture is better than today's "braindamaged" CPUs.
- pfdietz 2y agoI don't think anyway says it isn't a blemish. The point being made is that it's a trivial, irrelevant, and unimportant blemish.
- kerkeslager 2y agoThe way Naggum presents it, it's as if it is not only not a blemish, but a work of genius.
- pfdietz 2y agoIf I wanted to nitpick, I'll point out that I used "says", not "said". In the present tense, Naggum can no longer say anything at all. :/
- zahlman 2y agoI would say that it's more like the `def` keyword in Python. People learn that it's short for "define" - but that doesn't make much sense given that other kinds of things can perfectly well be "defined". It also leads to beginners expressing themselves weirdly - I've read things like "so I have a defined function like so:" countless times.
- theonemind 2y agoWhat do you find strange about someone saying they defined a function? Just curious. I can't find anything strange about the wording or conceptual understanding likely behind such a statement.
- zahlman 2y agoNot "I have defined a function", but "I have a defined function". As if they think that "defined" is part of the terminology.