Emacs website, Lisp, and other

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Monday, August 05, 2024 at 10:43 PM
> From: "Emanuel Berg" <incal@dataswamp.org>
> To: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Emacs website, Lisp, and other
>
> Christopher Dimech wrote:
>
> > It all depends on the specific work one is doing. In some
> > instances the indented style and excessive use of () makes
> > working with lisp code harder than other languages.
>
> After writing just a few programs in Python I wrote it pretty
> fluently with very few syntax errors and very few stop - if
> ever - to just look at the code and figure out - ???. Yet
> after doing all this Elisp for all this time both in terms of
> intensive hours _and_ many years for it to "assimilate" if you
> will I can honestly/regretfully say I'm nowhere close to my
> Python fluency after just a few short programs. Well, now
> I have lost that as well, of course. And a lot of code even in
> Emacs is very difficult to understand. It is the same language
> but a completely, many completely different styles.

For machine learning etc... the proper thing is using C, not Python.

> > Many people are being forced to use Python especially in
> > many university graduate schools. Lisp has always been
> > a choice.
>
> Hardly. If anywhere, Lisp is stronger at universities.

But mostly for the old-school programmers.  Today, most groups
employ Python.  Go check for yourself if you do not trust me.

For instance, see

2021. Inguva Pavan, Bhute Vijesh, Cheng Thomas, Walker Pierre; "Introducing
students to research codes: A short course on solving partial differential
equations in Python".  Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 36, Pages 1-11.

> And around Emacs. Everywhere else it is completely
> marginalized. And if you think about what the universities
> are, and what Emacs is - Lisp has underperformed grossly if
> one assumes it is more expressive and powerful than any other
> language. If it is, then it is a joke. But it isn't and it
> isn't, it is just a marginalized programming language, like
> boxing is a fringe sport or whatever. It still exists, all
> is good.

As outlined, the focus should be on C.  Just knowing and using
a single language is the strategy of fools.

> > The best education one can get today is by self discovery.
> > Schools are not the way.
>
> They actually do give classes in philosophy.
>
> >> Okay, then everyone should know this is a controversial
> >> thing to say. No one, or very few, would recommend Emacs
> >> Lisp as an alternative to Python 2024.
> >
> > There is nothing controversial, one simple has to see how
> > things are in specific situations.
>
> Very controversial, if it is boasting like hockey talk or
> self-PR it is okay but we can't say that with a straight face
> to the youngsters. Not many of us anyway.

One simply has to look at things the way they are.  If one does
that, there is no controversy.  The youngsters should not look
up to anybody, not even to us.

> > The designers of Lisp had to deal with much more things.
> > Hence its design has been very well thought out by extremely
> > good designers. Today there are many programmers, but good
> > system designers are rare despite the increase in systematic
> > education strategies.
>
> I don't know the details of the history but I doubt it
> happened that way.
>
> As for educated people, the skills today and the volume of
> people doing technology including programming is astronomical
> compared to 1958 and also to 1985.

But the number of world renowned system designers has gone down.
Certainly few of the caliber as Richard Stallman, Guy Steele,
Leslie Lamport, Edsger Dijkstra, etc.

> --
> underground experts united
> https://dataswamp.org/~incal
>
>
>