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> IMHO, there is quite a lot of support for the argument that modern day scripting languages are getting closer and closer to becoming lisps... Yes, but, I'm s

> IMHO, there is quite a lot of support for the argument that modern day scripting languages are getting closer and closer to becoming lisps... Yes, but, I'm sorry, not every computer science advance came from Lisp. (Not singling you out in particular, berntb.) Insisting otherwise makes one sound condescending, fanatic, and/or naive. There are good ideas in Lisp, yes, but there are also good ideas in ML, Lua, Awk, SQL, Smalltalk, Prolog, Haskell, SNOBOL, etc. Lisp is cool as a clean embodiment of the Lambda calculus and all, but if people stopped treating it like it were a divine revelation, other people would perhaps stop getting the impression that Lisp users are [insert torrent of unflattering adjectives]. (The Scheme community is generally much better about this than the Common Lisp community, but the Scheme community at large also seems to spend more time trying to actually move the language forward rather than insisting that some old standard has everything people will ever need.)

berntb 18y ago
Your point say something about the scars you got from your educational environment? :-) AFAIK, not even the lisp snobs would argue that everything worthwhile happened in lisp; they argue that most of the lisp characteristics was copied by everyone. For some values of "most", it seems like a very good argument.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  Dude, I was a history student. :) (I taught myself to program with library books and a C-64, starting when I was five or so.) Just, it boggles my mind how many ideas from barely ten years ago seem completely unfamiliar to most programmers. As Steve Yegge put it, "Oh, right, I keep forgetting: you were born in nineteen-ninety something, and you're nineteen, and I'm ninety-something." I'm only 27, but I'm starting to feel like I'm at least one programmer-generation back (and, occasionally, the cranky old man yelling, "get off my lawn!"). I find a lot of inspiration in the 70s-80s Unix-era books, for example. While some of the surface details have changed, those guys wrote lucidly about ways to design useful systems without them growing into impossibly tangled monstrosities (even before C++...). A lot of issues programmers struggle with today have been mulled over for decades, and there's a lot of good advice if you look. The field hasn't changed that much. I see ideas that keep getting rediscovered, and sometimes it's really sad how few stick. Lisp had a lot of great ideas in it, yes, but it's not the only old language that did, and the way it gets exalted that way touches a nerve of mine sometimes. (FWIW, the second paragraph in my response above was saved right as the edit window closed. I was still rewriting it, and it sounds harsher than I would have kept.)
  - berntb 18y ago
    Yeah, the standards seem to be lower in general. Probably because the barriers to entry are lower. (-: As an oldie, I try to be humble by remembering the Flynn effect. :-) And then... Be happy kid, it gets worse. :-) Exercise, take vacations and make certain you relax enough (a meditation-course is good; there are non-religious ones). Also, be careful with your teeth; an infection I had no other effects of, made me chronically tired for a long time and really destroyed my life (I thought I had burned out). And work with stuff you care about, otherwise you'll probably hate yourself and everyone else. Most other stuff you seem to know. Sorry for that, but a 20-something trying to sound world weary needs a pat on the head. :-)

berntb 18y ago

Your point say something about the scars you got from your educational environment? :-) AFAIK, not even the lisp snobs would argue that everything worthwhile happened in lisp; they argue that most of the lisp characteristics was copied by everyone. For some values of "most", it seems like a very good argument.

silentbicycle 18y ago
Dude, I was a history student. :) (I taught myself to program with library books and a C-64, starting when I was five or so.) Just, it boggles my mind how many ideas from barely ten years ago seem completely unfamiliar to most programmers. As Steve Yegge put it, "Oh, right, I keep forgetting: you were born in nineteen-ninety something, and you're nineteen, and I'm ninety-something." I'm only 27, but I'm starting to feel like I'm at least one programmer-generation back (and, occasionally, the cranky old man yelling, "get off my lawn!"). I find a lot of inspiration in the 70s-80s Unix-era books, for example. While some of the surface details have changed, those guys wrote lucidly about ways to design useful systems without them growing into impossibly tangled monstrosities (even before C++...). A lot of issues programmers struggle with today have been mulled over for decades, and there's a lot of good advice if you look. The field hasn't changed that much. I see ideas that keep getting rediscovered, and sometimes it's really sad how few stick. Lisp had a lot of great ideas in it, yes, but it's not the only old language that did, and the way it gets exalted that way touches a nerve of mine sometimes. (FWIW, the second paragraph in my response above was saved right as the edit window closed. I was still rewriting it, and it sounds harsher than I would have kept.)
- berntb 18y ago
  Yeah, the standards seem to be lower in general. Probably because the barriers to entry are lower. (-: As an oldie, I try to be humble by remembering the Flynn effect. :-) And then... Be happy kid, it gets worse. :-) Exercise, take vacations and make certain you relax enough (a meditation-course is good; there are non-religious ones). Also, be careful with your teeth; an infection I had no other effects of, made me chronically tired for a long time and really destroyed my life (I thought I had burned out). And work with stuff you care about, otherwise you'll probably hate yourself and everyone else. Most other stuff you seem to know. Sorry for that, but a 20-something trying to sound world weary needs a pat on the head. :-)