Editing 224: Lisp
Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
The edit can be undone.
Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 18: | Line 18: | ||
Cueball's remarks about patterns, metapatterns, and the disappearance of syntax are reactions to the elegant simplicity of the Lisp programming language, in which it is relatively easy to build immensely sophisticated programs using simple recursive elaborations of structure. This is fundamentally unlike the much more typical and common {{w|Imperative programming|imperative programming languages}}, in which programs are written as chains of instructions for the machine to follow. | Cueball's remarks about patterns, metapatterns, and the disappearance of syntax are reactions to the elegant simplicity of the Lisp programming language, in which it is relatively easy to build immensely sophisticated programs using simple recursive elaborations of structure. This is fundamentally unlike the much more typical and common {{w|Imperative programming|imperative programming languages}}, in which programs are written as chains of instructions for the machine to follow. | ||
β | + | God replies that the universe was actually hacked together with the programming language {{w|Perl}}. Perl employs an idiosyncratic syntax that borrows liberally from a number of other languages. Although a versatile language often employed for assembling projects quickly (the much-loved {{w|Programming Perl}} introduces it as "[the] ''language for getting your job done''"), Perl has a reputation for being ugly and inelegant, partly as a result of its pidgin-like fusion of many inconsistent language elements and code styles. It was famously described as a "{{w|Swiss Army knife|Swiss-Army}} chainsaw," because it is very powerful but also unwieldy and unattractive. By way of contrast to Daniel Friedman above, {{w|Larry Wall}}, the creator of Perl, criticized the highly cerebral Lisp attitude toward programming with the words | |
β | |||
β | |||
<blockquote>"By policy, LISP has never really catered to mere mortals.</blockquote> | <blockquote>"By policy, LISP has never really catered to mere mortals.</blockquote> | ||
<blockquote>And, of course, mere mortals have never really forgiven LISP for not catering to them."</blockquote> | <blockquote>And, of course, mere mortals have never really forgiven LISP for not catering to them."</blockquote> |