Thinking about Lisp?

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ScHacker23
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Thinking about Lisp?

Post by ScHacker23 » Wed Jun 11, 2014 10:11 am

Hey guys!

I'm a java-programmer and I've programmed in java for a very long time. I also know VB-6 and Web-Based languages. Now I'm thinking of Lisp. You may think why Lisp (actually thats what I'm asking) but anyways, I want to learn something different than Java (yeah I'd like to take the challenge). So anyone can hear my concerns on this:

# What is Lisp actually? I know that I sound like a n00b but I never actually understood (guess I never had time to read the boring C-Lisp wikipedia article XD) what is Lisp actually, how it works, how it helps in solving-problems? And the biggest question Is it WORTH LEARNING??

I may seem like I'm asking lot of questions but I'm just asking your opinions on this.

Thanks!
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riverph
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Re: Thinking about Lisp?

Post by riverph » Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:00 am

My wish to learn Lisp started with this article:
http://paulgraham.com/avg.html
"Lisp makes you a better programmer" - they say.

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ScHacker23
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Re: Thinking about Lisp?

Post by ScHacker23 » Sat Jun 21, 2014 12:44 am

riverph wrote:My wish to learn Lisp started with this article:
http://paulgraham.com/avg.html
"Lisp makes you a better programmer" - they say.
Yeah man! I was inspired by Eric S Raymonds HOWTO called How to become a hacker (see here: www​.catb.org/esr/faqs/ hacker -howto.html). I also learnt many things there, I came to know that hacker is someone who is fascinated by problems and takes delight in solving them, not someone who breaks into other's computer for having fun or gaining profit(and that is a cracker). I never met real hackers here, everybody only discusses cracking here, not solving problems. Script kiddies come here (in fact I was one too) and ask questions here like: "how to break into someone's email". If you ask someone about how to hack, you'll get something like: "It takes experience and effort a d profound knowledge of the internet", stuff like that. But its called "cracking" not hacking which most people do not understand, anyways I'm talking too much, have fun in Lisp programming, man.
You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

apropos
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Re: Thinking about Lisp?

Post by apropos » Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:35 pm

Lisp is in the functional paradigm. That means, as opposed to writing something in Java, like

Code: Select all

int factorial(int num) {
  int result = 1;
  for(int i = 1; i < num; i++) result *= i;
  return result;
}
you would worry about complexity of the function. You would realize each time that you call the factorial, you think "okay, it's going to take N steps in the computer to finish before it can move on to the next thing." However, in the functional paradigm, you would treat calling

Code: Select all

factorial(n)
as an entire value, rather than an entire subroutine. As far as programming goes, Lisp is still relevant albeit slightly outdated. I'd look into Scheme, it's basically Lisp, except... not. Functional programming is definitely a useful skill to have.

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