Re: why not "stripes" in: (let ((zebra 'stripes) ... ; strings vs symbols?

[Rustom Mody]

Emanuel Berg writes:
> Rustom Mody writes:
>
> > LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the
> > profound enlightenment experience you will have when
> > you finally get it. That experience will make you a
> > better programmer for the rest of your days, even if
> > you never actually use LISP itself a lot.
>
> To learn Lisp and then to never use it sounds like
> something the landed aristocracy could do just before
> they get executed by a bunch of revolutionaries.

When I was in school I was training for cycling races -- used to
get up every morning and 'practice' (which means cycle) for
almost an hour.

One day my mother discovered through a friend a national level
cycling champ. We went to him for advice.

"Ok lets see you cycle" the champ asked me.
After a minute or two of such checking me out, this was his advice:
"Stop your cycling and do weight training. You need to do squats."

I protested: "Look! I am not into weight training, I want to be a cyclist!"
He shrugged: "Yeah I know. You can follow my advice and come back
after 3 weeks of weight training... Or do what you like..."

After 3 weeks, I had so much more power in my legs, I did not need to
go back and got the prizes I had set out to.

So...

If you think our field is about technology, the above is irrelevant.
If on the other hand you understand that the brain is
a muscle, the question will naturally arise: How do I train?

Yes as a technology, Lisp is mostly irrelevant, as an ideology its
doing great guns. Just look past the fashion-fad names like
'functional programming'
Some more on my blog:
http://blog.languager.org/2012/10/functional-programming-lost-booty.html