Re: Learning LISP; Scheme vs elisp.

[weber]

On Aug 1, 6:51 pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> writes:
> > I've decided I ought to train myself in the most elegant programming
> > weapon ---http://xkcd.com/297/--- so I've started working through
> > _The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs_.
>
> Notice that this is not a book about scheme, but about programming in
> general.  It just happens that it uses scheme for its examples (but
> there are blogs and wikis with the sicp examples translated in other
> programming 
> languages).http://codepoetics.com/wiki/index.php?title=Topics:SICP_in_other_lang...http://eli.thegreenplace.net/category/programming/lisp/sicp/
>
> To learn scheme there are easier books such as:
>
>          How to Design Programs -- An Introduction to Computing and 
> Programming
>          http://www.htdp.org/2003-09-26/Book/ 
>
>          Concrete Abstractions -- An Introduction to Computer Science Using 
> Scheme
>          http://www.gustavus.edu/+max/concrete-abstractions.html
>
> And of course, the 
> reference:http://www.schemers.org/Documents/Standards/R5RS/HTML/r5rs.html
> and documentation of the implementation, eg.http://www.drscheme.org/
> A new version of scheme just came out, R6RShttp://schemers.org/
> so be sure to use the version of the report implemented by your scheme.
>
> Nonetheless, SICP is a very good book that you should read anyways,
> but it will teach you more general and very important concepts, beyond
> the specific knowledge of scheme details.
>
> > In the long term I hope I'll be able to customize Emacs more in its
> > native way instead of wrapping external Perl programs in
> > shell-command-on-region (as I often do now).
>
> Yuck!
>
> > Any tips on transferring knowledge between Scheme and elisp?
>
> Emacs lisp is closer to Common Lisp than scheme.  The main separation
> line being this lisp-1 vs. lisp-2 affair.  But emacs lisp is also
> different enough from Common Lisp (the main difference being that all
> emacs lisp variables are special, while all scheme variables are
> lexical; in Common Lisp, there are both lexical and special
> variables).
>
> The fundamental lisp "primitives" will be about the same in all lisp
> languages.  You will have (eql (car (cons x y)) x) in all lisp, well
> (eqv? (car (cons x y)) x) in scheme.  But details may be different
> enough that it might be difficult to write code running with the same
> semantics or at all on both three.
>
> For example:
>
> (let ((a 1) (b 2) (c -1))
>   (do ((x 0 (+ 1 x)))
>       ((> x 10))
>    (print (+ c (* b (+ x (* a x)))))))
>
> will do about the same thing in emacs lisp and Common Lisp. For
> scheme, you will have to (define (print x) (newline) (display x)), but
> scheme will return #t, while Common Lisp returns NIL (and emacs lisp
> nil, since in emacs lisp the symbols are in lowcase by default
> contrarily to Common Lisp).
>
> Once you know well one of them, including their macro system, you will
> be able to write "portability"  function like the above print
> function.  In emacs lisp, there is the cl library (require 'cl) which
> exports some functions and macros found in Common Lisp and not in
> emacs lisp.
>
> Also, there are implementations of one in the other. For example:
> emacs-cl implements Common Lisp over emacs lisp.
> Pseudo   implements scheme r4rs over Common Lisp.
>
> ( Someone could have good fun trying to make Pseudo run over emacs-cl
> over emacs lisp, to have a scheme in emacs ;-) )
>
> But the main thing, with respect to emacs lisp is that if you want to
> learn it for emacs editing, then you will have to learn all the emacs
> "library" functions. Things about buffers, markers, files, windows,
> characters, inserting, deleting, replacing, regular expressions, etc,
> not mentionning all the emacs lisp libraries and applications.  This
> is an amount of knowledge orders of magnitude superior to the mere
> knowledge of the programming language.  (Don't be afraid, happily you
> don't have to learn it all at once, you can learn it piece by piece
> when you need it).
>
> You could learn emacs lisp from the emacs-lisp-intro tutorial, and
> translate the sicp examples in emacs lisp. It's already been done for
> Common Lisp, but not for emacs lisp.
>
> Finally, I should mention that you could skip emacs lisp altogether,
> learn Common Lisp, and use an emacs implemented in Common Lisp, such
> as Hemlock, or the more recent Climacs (but they don't benefit (yet)
> the same amount of contributions as emacs).
>
> > As a first observation, it seems to me that Scheme's define seems to
> > correspond to both defun and setq in elisp --- is that a fair
> > interpretation (or a stupid one)?
>
> As a first approximation, you're right.
>
> For more information see:
>
> http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=lisp-1+lisp-2&num=100&scoring=r&;...
>
> --
> __Pascal Bourguignon__                    http://www.informatimago.com/
> Until real software engineering is developed, the next best practice
> is to develop with a dynamic system that has extreme late binding in
> all aspects. The first system to really do this in an important way
> is Lisp. -- Alan Kay

Aren't you guys exaggerating? Maybe he just need to pickup the basics
to start writing his functions?

Check the manual and this perhaps (http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/
2008/01/emergency-elisp.html). If you have any specific doubts, ask on
gnu.emacs.help!

Cheers,
weber