85% languages (was Re:Linux fat/bloated)

[Christopher Browne]

On 4/7/06, Chris F.A. Johnson <cfaj-uVmiyxGBW52XDw4h08c5KA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Apr 2006, Jason Spiro wrote:
>
> > 2006/4/7, Peter <plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org>:
> >> On Fri, 7 Apr 2006, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> >>> Doh.  I misread the small print on the chart I looked at.  Yes tcl is
> >>> from 1988. :(  So it matches with perl in age. :)  I thought have
> >>> realized that given it is a much higher level language than what I would
> >>> have expected in 1968.
> >>
> >> Lisp is higher level than Tcl and predates it ...
> >>
> > The problem is with the brackets. No matter how good Lisp is, people
> > will still stay away from learning more about it because they're
> > scared of parentheses for some reason. :-)
>
>     The problem is not the parentheses so much as the style that lisp
>     coders use: "))))))))))))))" does look intimidating. If they were
>     indented in the way most other language styles prefer, they would
>     be quite understandable.

"Parentheses?  What  parentheses? I  haven't  noticed any  parentheses
since my  first month of Lisp  programming.  I like to  ask people who
complain about  parentheses in  Lisp if they  are bothered by  all the
spaces between words in a newspaper..."
-- Kenny Tilton <tilt-MaFCEaLBwFg at public.gmane.org>

If you're using a text editor that knows how to indent parentheses in
good form, then it truly does cease to be a problem after about the
first month of programming in Lisp.

The following is a bit of Lisp that, as it happens, runs about every
60 seconds on several of my boxes, in order to update .signatures. 
Yeah, there are a bunch of parentheses at the end of the function. 
Putting them on separate lines would NOT make the code any more
readable; to the contrary, it would make it a lot LESS readable.

(defun build-cookie-file (dest cookie)
  (let ((fpath (cookielocation-fpath dest))
        (signer (cookielocation-signer dest))
        (website (cookielocation-website dest))
        (prefix-lines (cookielocation-prefix-lines dest))
        (suffix-lines (cookielocation-suffix-lines dest))
	(humorlessp (cookielocation-humorlessp dest))
        (cookieprefix (cookielocation-cookieprefix dest)))
    (with-open-file
     (out fpath :direction :output :if-exists :supersede)
     (loop for cookieline in prefix-lines do
	   (format OUT "~A~%" cookieline))
     (if humorlessp
	 (format OUT *LIBSIG* signer)
       (loop for cookieline in (append (if website
					   (list signer website))
				       cookie)
	     do (format OUT "~A~%" (funcall cookieprefix cookieline))))
     (loop for cookieline in suffix-lines do
	   (format OUT "~A~%" cookieline)))))
--
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/lisp.html
"A lot  of people come to  this newsgroup and  do nothing but complain
about Lisp.   I think maybe they  are such heavy complainers that they
think they read comp.lain.lisp." -- Erik Naggum
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