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When did the shift that makes this okay happen? Once upon a time, people who knew a lot about computer science were respected and praised; people tried to emula

When did the shift that makes this okay happen? Once upon a time, people who knew a lot about computer science were respected and praised; people tried to emulate their algorithms, coding style and planning. Now, they are "wonks" for knowing a slightly different (and demonstrably effective) style of programming.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Hey! No offense meant. Its just true that a lot of programmers are not CS-trained. So not the target demographic of Lisp.
- Jtsummers 14y ago
  I would contend that not being CS-trained doesn't eliminate them from the pool of people who could benefit from knowing Lisp and similar languages. As a programmer, unless you just want to be outclassed in a few years, you have to stay on top of developments in the industry and the history of the industry. Knowing the languages that modern languages pull their tricks from is one such way. And it doesn't take a CS degree to do that with many of the resources being put out these days.
  - dalke 14y ago
    If someone is a biology researcher who does some programming for their research, does that programmer need to stay on top of developments in the software industry? Or know the history of the programming field ... as well as keep up with the biology field?
    - Lio 14y ago
      Well I guess that depends on what you're doing within you're research. In bioinformatics knowing about, say, functional programming and parallel algorithms could be really useful where data coming out of sequencers is growing faster than Moore's law can keep up, if you want to scale across many cores as efficiently as possible. Or graph theory, or... any number of useful techniques waiting for an application.
      - dalke 14y ago
        Certainly. But most aren't so inclined. Most need a way to glue together existing components. For example, "make a web connection to X, call command-line program Y, and use a shared-library extension to do Z. Plot in Excel." The result might be very useful scientifically, and it's definitely programming, but there's no real reason to learn about lambdas, s-expressions, and monads.
    - dfox 14y ago
      You would be surprised how often non-CS researchers doing some programming use languages that are essentially Lisp with weird syntax (R, Mathematica...). Which I think exactly demonstrates that you don't need any knowledge of history or modern developments in computing to benefit from Lisp.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    Same argument for any hot language. Who keeps up on them all? Excuse my french, "CS wonks" The rest of the crowd is trying to ship code, in the toolset they have some facility with. That toolset has to be available, easily digestible, hopefully targeted at their problem space.
- neverm0re 14y ago
  You do not need to be a CS major to appreciate Lisp. I've had a number of fun conversations discussing and demonstrating Scheme with novice and 'rank-and-file Java/C#' types. The ones who find programming languages fun in themselves are the sort of people who light right up when they're introduced to something like Scheme. That's really all it takes is just a bit of passion and curiosity to make the leap. In my experience, professional folks I've spoken to have either never heard of Lisp or have associated it with antiquity. You'd be very surprised who'd appreciate being shown new ways of doing things.
- KirinDave 14y ago
  I don't think the target demographic of Lisp is "CS-trained" people. Do you? Why? Because functional programming, which is actually a lot more like the math everyone else learns, is somehow for "wonks?" When you say things like this, part of me hears you saying, "I have not invested time learning this skillset. However, people argue I should. So I have decided said people are 'wonks,' and therefore I can safely dismiss them." Basically anyone with any differentiation from your skillset falls into that definition.
aaronblohowiak 14y ago
>When did the shift that makes this okay happen? Now that there are millions of programmers. Programming shifted from a fine art to a pop art, to crib something from Alan Kay.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Hey! No offense meant. Its just true that a lot of programmers are not CS-trained. So not the target demographic of Lisp.

Jtsummers 14y ago
I would contend that not being CS-trained doesn't eliminate them from the pool of people who could benefit from knowing Lisp and similar languages. As a programmer, unless you just want to be outclassed in a few years, you have to stay on top of developments in the industry and the history of the industry. Knowing the languages that modern languages pull their tricks from is one such way. And it doesn't take a CS degree to do that with many of the resources being put out these days.
- dalke 14y ago
  If someone is a biology researcher who does some programming for their research, does that programmer need to stay on top of developments in the software industry? Or know the history of the programming field ... as well as keep up with the biology field?
  - Lio 14y ago
    Well I guess that depends on what you're doing within you're research. In bioinformatics knowing about, say, functional programming and parallel algorithms could be really useful where data coming out of sequencers is growing faster than Moore's law can keep up, if you want to scale across many cores as efficiently as possible. Or graph theory, or... any number of useful techniques waiting for an application.
    - dalke 14y ago
      Certainly. But most aren't so inclined. Most need a way to glue together existing components. For example, "make a web connection to X, call command-line program Y, and use a shared-library extension to do Z. Plot in Excel." The result might be very useful scientifically, and it's definitely programming, but there's no real reason to learn about lambdas, s-expressions, and monads.
  - dfox 14y ago
    You would be surprised how often non-CS researchers doing some programming use languages that are essentially Lisp with weird syntax (R, Mathematica...). Which I think exactly demonstrates that you don't need any knowledge of history or modern developments in computing to benefit from Lisp.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Same argument for any hot language. Who keeps up on them all? Excuse my french, "CS wonks" The rest of the crowd is trying to ship code, in the toolset they have some facility with. That toolset has to be available, easily digestible, hopefully targeted at their problem space.
neverm0re 14y ago
You do not need to be a CS major to appreciate Lisp. I've had a number of fun conversations discussing and demonstrating Scheme with novice and 'rank-and-file Java/C#' types. The ones who find programming languages fun in themselves are the sort of people who light right up when they're introduced to something like Scheme. That's really all it takes is just a bit of passion and curiosity to make the leap. In my experience, professional folks I've spoken to have either never heard of Lisp or have associated it with antiquity. You'd be very surprised who'd appreciate being shown new ways of doing things.
KirinDave 14y ago
I don't think the target demographic of Lisp is "CS-trained" people. Do you? Why? Because functional programming, which is actually a lot more like the math everyone else learns, is somehow for "wonks?" When you say things like this, part of me hears you saying, "I have not invested time learning this skillset. However, people argue I should. So I have decided said people are 'wonks,' and therefore I can safely dismiss them." Basically anyone with any differentiation from your skillset falls into that definition.

aaronblohowiak 14y ago

>When did the shift that makes this okay happen? Now that there are millions of programmers. Programming shifted from a fine art to a pop art, to crib something from Alan Kay.