Newsgroups: alt.lang.design,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.lisp
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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Comparing productivity: LisP against C++ (was Re: Reference Counting)
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References: <3danhm$fqi@xmission.xmission.com> <D1FpDD.4A7@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <1994Dec31.081843.1549@mole-end.matawan.nj.us>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 02:54:02 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:105596 comp.lang.lisp:16241

In article <1994Dec31.081843.1549@mole-end.matawan.nj.us> mat@mole-end.matawan.nj.us writes:
>In article <D1FpDD.4A7@rheged.dircon.co.uk>, simon@rheged.dircon.co.uk (Simon Brooke) writes:
>> >That's not true.  You can do arithmetic on unsigned chars in C, it works
>> >fine. 
>> 
>> Ohhh... at this point us poor lispers listening in don't know whether
>> to laugh, cry, or call in the men with the plain white ambulance. 'You
>> can do arithmetic on unsigned chars'. Someone tell me, what is
>> 'A' + 'A'? Is it 'A'? Is it 'B'? Guys, they program in this. Did they
>> let these folk loose on the Airbus flight control system... Oh G*d.
>> Ohh G*d, don't let me fly in an Airbus!
>
>Awright, wiseacre, lissenup!
>
>The definition of C's character types allows them to be used as small
>integers.  If this is too `machiney' for a LISPer's taste, so be it.

Lisp (BTW not LISP these days) is not a single language.  If people
mean Common Lisp, I wish they would *say* Common Lisp.  There are
plenty of Lisps that use integers to represent characters.

-- jeff
