[Pdx-pm] Lisp class, L2 acquisition, Prolog, etc.

Austin Schutz tex at off.org
Mon May 2 16:43:47 PDT 2005


On Mon, May 02, 2005 at 01:10:08PM -0700, Rafael Almeria wrote:
> >	IIRC there was a slashdot article about this where a yahoo employee
> >commented about how the lisp stuff was a total mess and they were in 
> >the
> >process of rewriting it.
> 
> When people complain about code being a "total mess" it's quite
> possibly a non-issue brought about by the fact that code is simply
> hard to read.
> 

	This is true, and it's probably in part from my own paraphrasing.
The reason for switching over seems to be in dispute amongst the people
involved. Also if it were a mess that is not necessarily the language's fault.
	I also admit a personal bias: the lisp code I've seen involves such
an extreme use of parentheses it doesn't _look_ practical or maintainable to
my eyes.
	As far as functionality, I've done a fair bit of programming in RPN
which is a bit like Lisp but without the parentheses and backwards. Pretty
handy for some stuff, but I can't imagine using it like the swiss army
knife perl is. But then again, a swiss army knife isn't too handy when
you want a table saw .. 


	Austin


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