Arthur wrote: > John writes - > > >>Of course implementing something like a queue which has state >>(side-effects) is not pure functional programming, but real LISP >>programmers don't worry too much about that. > > > John sounds like a real LISP programmer (he's being hiding that from us > until now ;) - and I am interpreting him to be confirming the point Peter > Seibel is making in the book I referenced, i.e. that many folks know of LISP > via Scheme and therefore tend to understand LISP to be more purist > functional than it is in practice. >
OK, OK, I'm somewhat busted. My background in AI has caused me to become better in LISP than your average bear, but I would never claim to be a "real LISP programmer." The absolute truth of the matter is that I once _was_ a real Prolog programmer. If you really want to expand your horizons, you can't beat Prolog. It's as close as we've gotten to God's own language. > My impetus in approaching LISP would be to become a better Python programmer > (presuming that it is awfully late in the game to try to become anything of > a LISP programmer), and that does have something to do, in my mind, with > more exposure to functional programming. But concluded that Scheme sounded > a bit austere on this account, and taking Seibel at his word, I would be > hoping to get, through LISP, to functional thinking within a multi-paradigm > context - which should be easier to translate into Pythonic thinking . > I happen to think that LISP and Python are very similar languages. Python's syntax is easier to read, and LISP's is better/easier for meta-programming. The underlying model is very much the same. --John -- John M. Zelle, Ph.D. Wartburg College Professor of Computer Science Waverly, IA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (319) 352-8360 _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
