Hallelujah!

From: Bill Yakowenko <yakowenk_at_cs.unc.edu>
Date: Wed Apr 7 22:00:33 1999

Erm, I really don't think Smalltalk began with Lisp in any way.
The key idea in Smalltalk is encapsulization via class definition;
Lisp is all about lists and (to a purist) functional programming.

Both are very cool, and generally cleaner than the more "practical"
languages, maybe because they define a model that isn't so close
the the hardware. But they are really wildly different from each
other, right down to the bone. Lisp is not at all object oriented,
and Smalltalk is nothing but.

If all the languages you've used are the close-to-hardware
procedural kind, then these will seem novel. In that case, you
might also check out ML, Prolog, APL, SNOBOL, and Icon. APL and
Icon are still comfortably procedural, and SNOBOL is crude by
modern standards, but each of those has its own way-out-of-the-
mainstream aspects. Maybe none have the simplicity of pure Lisp,
though. There is something attractive about a language that does
just one thing, but does it well.

        Bill.

PS. As a bonus, these all pass the ten-year rule. (Well, I'm not
    100% sure about ML, but I *think* it does.)


] From: Max Eskin <max82_at_surfree.com>
] To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
] <classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
] Date: Saturday, April 03, 1999 11:44 PM
] Subject: Hallelujah!
]
]
] I've finally gotten around to reading a LISP book that I had bought months
] before, and I can see why people refer to LISP as a religious experience
] (I've seen that said at least twice). It's really a wonderful language. I
] wonder how it is worse than BASIC or Perl. Also, although I didn't really
] take the time to really understand smalltalk (Squeak is slow and
] unstable), I can see the beginnings of smalltalk in LISP. Wow. This thing
] really is pretty amazing. This should be taught in every computer
] programming course, along with PAL-8, C, and Perl. I am now certain that
] if a language is hard to learn (C++ comes to mind), there's something
] wrong with it :)
]
] --Max Eskin (max82_at_surfree.com)
Received on Wed Apr 07 1999 - 22:00:33 BST