Newsgroups: alt.lang.design,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.lisp
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!festival!edcogsci!jeff
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Subject: Re: Comparing productivity: LisP against C++ (was Re: Reference  Counting)
Message-ID: <D1yJqD.Etv@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (C News Software)
Nntp-Posting-Host: bute.aiai.ed.ac.uk
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
References: <s>	<D1t6q3.Lqy@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>> <BUFF.95Jan3121232@pravda.world>
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 1995 00:23:00 GMT
Lines: 45
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:106080 comp.lang.lisp:16283

In article <BUFF.95Jan3121232@pravda.world> buff@pravda.world (Richard Billington) writes:
>In article <D1t6q3.Lqy@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>   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
>
>The point of the 'A' + 'A' reply was (I think, it's not my reply) something
>that I wholeheartedly agree with - the semantics of the expression:
>
><something-that's-supposed-to-be-a-char> + <another-char-thing>
>
>is inscrutible without deep understanding of the entire program. Strong
>typing is overall a good thing - lisp is NOT strongly typed, but (using CLOS)
>you can reap some of the benefits. There are two primary benefits: [...]

This is all pretty much orthogonal to what I was saying (which is
actually rather trivial).  You can do arithmetic on characters in
many Lisps -- so where is the advantage over C?  (Indeed, C probably
comes out ahead here.)  You can't add characters in Common Lisp
and certain other Lisps.  But if that's what someone has in mind,
much confusion will be avoided if they say "Common Lisp" or
"modern Lisps" or whatever rather than just "Lisp".  I also note
that Lisp is not a single language (it's a family of languages)
than that it's written "Lisp" these days rather than "LISP".

-- jeff
