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Re: Real-life examples of lexical binding in Emacs Lisp
From: |
Rusi |
Subject: |
Re: Real-life examples of lexical binding in Emacs Lisp |
Date: |
Sat, 30 May 2015 10:10:45 -0700 (PDT) |
User-agent: |
G2/1.0 |
On Saturday, May 30, 2015 at 10:24:49 PM UTC+5:30, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Rusi writes:
>
> > On Saturday, May 30, 2015 at 9:27:25 PM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> >> Contrary to this situation, Lisp is right in front of
> >> us. There is no modelling in the world that will
> >> enhance our understanding of Lisp more than we write,
> >> say, 50 lines of it every day. And, doing that, one
> >> might actually do something useful while at it!
> >
> > Some very eminent Lispers perceive Lisp rather differently:
> >
> > | Lisp... McCarthy did as a theoretical exercise-- an effort to
> > define a more | convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. Lisp was
> > not really designed to | be a programming language
> >
> > From http://www.paulgraham.com/icad.html
>
> You have to understand what Paul Graham is saying.
Yeah I think I do (at least somewhat).
I just find it hilarious that the intentions behind Lisp were not strongly
theory-oriented.
That they were equally strongly practically oriented I wont dispute.
>
> But historically, John McCarthy definitely was designing a programming
> language, not just a theorical exercise. One perhaps may be mislead by
> the way "scientific" "papers" are written, including mere AI Memos. But
> that's just the "academic" style. John McCarthy definitely was
> designing a programming language, and this can be shown by the complains
> he had and requirements he made of the languages he had to use before he
> invented LISP, ie. Fortran and Algol. He wanted a ternary IF from
> Fortran (which was rejected at the time), he wanted a COND form from
> Algol (which was also rejected). Seeing that he couldn't have his ideas
> integrated in the existing programming languages, he set to define his
> own.
>
> But indeed, John McCarthy expected to refine a M-expression syntax for
> his lisp programming language; the S-expression syntax was used only for
> data, but since he defined an eval function working on code represented
> as data, and since his student Bertrand Russel...
Student Bertrand Russell?
Now we're into alternate history methinks <wink>
To come back to my earlier request: I would really appreciate some
early key references on Lisp as a functional language.
[And I am guessing that you Pascal will know more about this than many others]
The reason is that the more I poke into this the more interesting (juicy)
titbits come up;
eg Here is an interview McCarthy gave a little before he died
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/Steele-Interviews-John-McCarthy
In the very first question he says he learnt functional programming from
Backus' Fortran!!!!!
What do you think of that?!