Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
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From: dp@world.std.com (Jeff DelPapa)
Subject: Re: Lisp Machines and Lisp on a Chip
Message-ID: <E0LAnq.Hv5@world.std.com>
Organization: Chaos and Confusion
References: <55ii0d$315@nntp.interaccess.com> <1996Nov8.183532.27966@wavehh.hanse.de>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 06:14:14 GMT
Lines: 56

In article <1996Nov8.183532.27966@wavehh.hanse.de>,
Martin Cracauer <cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de> wrote:
>rer@interaccess.com (Richard E. Robbins) writes:
>
>Features, no, the Genera Documentation shows richer functionality for
>almost every area, with the exception of "special" areas like GUI
>builders, SQL connectivity and such. But on stock operating systems
>you have the OS functionality in addition (Sometimes `find . -exec
>grep ...` is quite handy). You'll have to decide what is more useful
>for you.
>

Actually I rather liked :Find String .....  :system foo.  The unix
command requires far more typing, especially if you want to know what
file the line was in. (grep requires more than one file name before it
will print, /dev/null works, but you have to quote the slashes.  Same
for wildcard chars, or the shell will toss them before find sees
them.  Yes, I have scripts for the most common ones, but it is still a
pain.  Genera had the additional advantage that you didn't have to
type very much of the command (to enter the command above, I would
usually make no more than 10 keystrokes beyond what I was searching
for, and 4 of them were spaces.  You could also ask it to show you
lines around the hit, to get context.  And of course in dw, a single
mouse gesture would have the editor window in front of you, file read,
and positioned to the line in question.

The comparable unix line would be

find . -type f -name \*.lisp -exec grep -i ... {} \/dev\/null \; |more

60 keystrokes plus the search string, gives you one dead line per
file, (no easy grab to the editor), and will search every file of that
type, not just the active ones.

The unix lovers will argue that their way with generators and filters
is more flexible, you can always come up with a little program to do
it.  I compare this to bolting bits of dexion together, instead of
getting something built to do the job.  Especially since you have to
take the dexion apart and put it back together every time you want
one.  If you need something once, a collection of dexion is a handy
thing. If you are only going to fix your own bike once per season,
tying the frame to one of the posts in the basement is the right thing
to do.  If you just signed up to be route mechanic on a 4 day charity
bike ride, you would be insane to try to get by without a good
commercial bike stand.  You will be fixing hundreds of bikes a day,
you need to work fast, and need the specialized tool.

Likewise, at the end of the day, I just want my damm string found, I
don't want to spend my time writing 50 proglets/day all subtly
different, it takes away from the time I have to spend thinking about
the problem I set out to solve.  I am begginning to think all the
random little scripts that unix hacks throw off provides the same sort
of comfort that knitting or wittling provided earlier generations.

<dp>

