phillies wrote:There is a planet in the Honorverse that converted to lisp, and generated a device to summon all the resources needed so that they could use LISP for everything. They also have an errorfree complete set of computer programs. Alas, the resource summoner in order to make the code work had to summon all the parentheses...in the universe...so that all the places you think you see a parenthesis in David's writing you are actually seeing a { or }.
Yes. Parenthesis. Lots of parenthesis. But not just any old parenthesis. Beautiful, sophisticated, simple, powerful parenthesis. And the software manages them for you. Matches them all up. And even closes them for you when you inadvertently leave the door open.
Most Lisps can easily be set up to accept {} as parenthesis as well. Auto substituting where found. If it doesn't, it can easily be extended to do so. I've found Lisp to be the fastest prototyper around. You think of a subroutine that you need and in less than a half hour, tops, you have it. Error free. First run. You want to change it. Change it on the fly. See the results immediately! You can begin coding a program top down, bottom up or inside out. You can begin coding any part of your program that you want at any time. Code as you are feeling. There is no top or bottom of a Lisp program. If you can think it, you can accomplish it yesterday in Lisp. In half the code. Half the time. None of the headache, and none of the errors. And you can do it without premeditated thinking. Spontaneously. Without so much as even a thought given to a flowchart. Lisp logic is its own flowchart. What a refreshingly powerful language and a powerfully refreshing one too.
And again, you can program it to write its own code when the time is right. Get your favorite language to speak with that kind of lisp.
It'll even turn a light on for ya.
The admiralty can't figure out how Sir Horace keeps getting into their computer. He uses an anonymous lambda function.
First... Let there be Lisp. Then there will be light.
