Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Tla spork

[Miles Bader]

On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 05:16:04PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > case.  We're talking about a user interface, and because of that, we have
> > to evaluate how much effort it is for the average person to use prefix
> > ordering.
> 
> How many "common" infix binary operators (other than `=') do you expect to
> see in a typical tla configuration file?  How many additions,
> multiplications, division, ...?
> 
> Someone who's never heard of Lisp won't be bothered by parenthese.
> Only people who've heard of it will think "omygod!run!this is Lisp!run!".

BTW, one piece of anecdotal evidence for this: when I was a freshman in
college, the "normal" intro-to-cs course used pascal (with a syntax editor);
there was also an "easy" intro-to-cs course for history majors and the like
which used ... lisp.  The justification for this (as I recall) was that lisp
was just easier to deal with for beginners, for various reasons -- nice
interactive environment, lack of explicit typing, simple syntax, etc.

I can't point to hard numbers offhand, but I feel pretty sure that
someone's done real research on exactly this topic.

-Miles
-- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra.  Suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.  At night the ice weasels come.  --Nietzsche